One thing I do have experience with is catfish ponds. Of the 3 different ponds stocked and re-stocked over the years one thing I have found is that channel catfish and blue catfish alone don't control bream population well. I think they eat more stuff off the bottom and dead fish than actual live fish. As far as the blue cats go, We've always had some in our catfish ponds. They just don't seem to do any more than channels as far as eating other fish. That's just my experience. One of my cousins would inevitably put some bream in the catfish ponds and within a few years there were thousands of tiny bream. I think some people assume since they are as big or bigger than flatheads that they feed like them. I just have not seen that. We always catch them on either liver or cut bait. I have seen channels hit a bass lure, but I've never seen a blue hit one. The only drawback to them I have found is if you catch them when it's hot, they often die where channels don't seem to be hurt by heat as much and they don't seem to get nearly as big in a pond for some reason as they do in rivers and lakes. Don't get me wrong, common sense dictates that they will eat more of the fish just based on size, I just don't think it will make a difference.
Anyway, what what my situation really boils down to is that I don't want to be paying for pellet feed just to see shiners eat half of it. That's pretty much what is happening now. In the past, I would just nuke the pond and start new, but it would be such a waste with such a nice population of sunfish.
Last edited by crimsondave; 05/15/15 07:34 PM.
