We all talk about gizzard shad in trophy bass waters.

The main drawback seems to be that gizzards can get too big for your bass to eat.

Is there any way to get these larger gizzards out of your pond?

It would be nice to include them in the food chain if you had a way to get the problem fish out.

Yes there is: It's called Rotenone.

They're more sensitive to it than other fish, so what's toxic to them won't kill the other fish. I'm not sure if they'll all go belly up, or just a significant amount of them.

Fyke nets work as well.

Gill nets in the right size will selectively harvest GShad. But you have to man them and release the fish you want to keep. Place the net in open water and drive the shad into them.

I know a lot of people on this site are against the use of Gizzard Shad because they get so big but I am not so certain. My favorite body of water to fish (at least until the July 4th fish kill due to 6+ days of 100+ degree temps with no rain) has always been Silver Lake in Rehoboth Beach, DE. The lake is 150 yards from the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 40 acres with uniform 3-4' sand bottom, no vegetation thanks to grass carp, and the only structure are some docks and a bridge. The forage fish are gizzard shad, bluegill, and golden shiners; the predators are largemouth bass, carp, and bullhead catfish. I have never fished a body of water with more 5lb+ fish that are easy to catch. You never see huge gizzard shad but they repopulate quickly enough to keep the bass fat and happy.

When the fish kill occured over 10,000 gizzard shad were found floating and none of them were bigger than 7". Unfortunately plenty of big bass died too and the lake will take some time to get back to where it was but as long as some gizzard shad survived I see no reason why the surviving bass won't fatten up in a hurry. I can see why you wouldn't want gizzard shad in a small pond but in the right situation there is nothing that will fatten your bass up faster!

Agreed, BUT the GS need to be stocked after the LMB are large enough to eat them. In Public Northern lakes, the LMB aren't large enough to eat the adults, and the GS will overpopulate like they did in some of the local lakes.

It is important to make decisions , especially high risk/reward ones , based on as much data , evidence , science and practical knowledge as possible.

Prior threads on Gizzard Shad (GShad) , the Nutt article on trophy LMB and our collective PB thoughts (including Bob’s) on the risk and reward of shad, gizzard and threadfin. Some very good science and experience as well as pics and charts in these threads.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=11348&page=1

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=1557&Number=17531#Post17531

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=158807&page=1

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=177656&page=1

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=187704&page=1 - including Bob’s input

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=202827&page=1

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=158716&page=1

I have a pond heavy with channel cats, dont ever believe they wont spawn in a pond, I got thousands of them...anyways Im toying with adding GShad just to feed them all since they are slowly decimating my BG population. I doubt there will ever be a point where I have too much food in my pond and as a heavy catfisherman who is always strugling to keep enough shad in my freezer for the whole year, Im pretty sure I could put a dent into the larger shad with my castnet. My pond is always murky with sediment anyways so Im at a point that I doubt it would hurt to put them in.. Thoughts????

Salmonid

GS quickly grow too large to be forage for LMB. CC have even less gape than LMB, so the GS will grow to a size where CC won't be able to eat them even quicker than they do with LMB.

Have you tried using the cast net on the CC when they're eating pellets?

Too many channel cats in the pond sounds like a pretty tasty problem to me LOL.

They're not hard to catch. A piece of cut bait should pull one out every time. Chicken liver is great too. I try not to use worms for channel cat bait in ponds because bluegill and redears will take your bait as well. I would think that with a few cases of beer, and a few friends, you could get that channel cat problem in the fryer in no time.

If you really want to crush the channel cat population fast you just set up your feeder in a spot that is super easy to seine. You seine them out while they're all gathered in for feeding.

Throw back everything but the channel cats. I would also throw back a certain number of immature catfish too, but I would try to keep their numbers in check.

If you want to grow out the ones that you remove you can stack them pretty deep in aquaculture. They grow in almost anything from a barrel, to a livestock tank, to a little pond. As long as you can keep the water clean enough and you are feeding them they will grow.

I would skip adding gizzard shad to try to fix and overpopulation problem. They will add a huge chunk of biomass to your pond in no time at all.

You may also want to see where they are spawning. You might want to leave just a site or two for channel cats and disrupting the rest of the spawning sites. If they can't spawn as heavily you will take a huge burden off of your management efforts.

I do not have 1000's of CC but may have 100's I am trying to get out as well. I have tried baits from worms, liver (chicken, beef, and rabbit), BG (live and cut), shad, tilapia, stink bait (many kinds)

Not much luck lately getting them to bite, and when I do we are lucky to get up to 3 fish.

I plan to try to make my own bait of some sort to see if I can get them to hit it.

Are there any other ideas how to get these guys out?

what does GSH stand for?

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92442#Post92442

This, I can help you with!

If you don't mind having a few tin cans in your pond this trick has almost always worked for me.

Get a few cans of stinky fishy catfood. Punch some holes in with anything that will make some holes about pencil thick. Punch a decent amount of holes in each can, at least a dozen.

Throw the cans out into the pond, but throw them all ONLY in the area where you are going to be fishing. The scent draws the catfish in like sharks and it will help to concentrate them all in one area for fishing purposes. Try to make an imaginary 20 to 30 foot wide area and lob the cans in there.

For bait I would recommend cut fish, shad works great, on the bottom. For ponds I would say that medium spinning gear is great. 12 pound line, a 1/2oz egg sinker, a number 1 barrel swivel, and a 1/0 hook on a 12" leader. Its a standard slip rig for bottom fishing.

Cast your bait out into the area where your can are. Get a bunch of baits in the water. Increase your odds!

Look at the beautiful picture that I have included LOL. When the stick in the picture rises you have a catfish on. Slowly reel up the slack and when you set the hook your "strike indicator" will go flinging off. So, make several as you are certain to fling some out into the pond LOL.

This method has always worked for me. YMMV.

Edited to add***
SHRIMP are great for bait for catfish! In fact, they may be my best channel cat bait to date. Shrimp are fantastic!

That is a nice pic, but I get the idea and have never tried this. Will give it a shot. We too like to use shrimp when the CC are spawning in the rocks around here. We also float which is pretty cool when a nice CC pops that thing under.

How long do you usually wait once you add the cat food (could tuna, dog food, or anything else like this work), before you start fishing?

In a small body of water a few hours is usually enough.

We used to sink the whole carcass after a pig pickin' and that would be insane. Its like the fish had some sort of zombie virus. They were on a feeding frenzy LOL.

Also, I ain't much for drawing with a mouse, but after half a dozen tries I think that you guys should be able to get the idea from that picture.

Great White Ape, Are you a Edgar Rice Burroughs fan, or is your name somehow a reference to something else? I love the old John Carter Series.


drp