The water was a bit choppy, but I found them (I've only seen one bunch) again last night. I had stopped at wally world and bought the best net type thing I could find. That was a swimming pool leaf skimmer and it didn't work well. I'm guessing I got maybe a fourth to a third of them. The net's rim was plastic and it just bent back way too far when I drew it quickly through the water. I'll try to find them again tonight.

To have spawned, I'm guessing a couple adult fish were put in there last fall. The dam is 30-40 feet tall from the backside and it never overflowed until recently (posted here).

I can't understand why anyone would have put them in there intentionally. I'm well liked. Maybe someone didn't know that bullheads are bad? Still, I would have thought that anyone who knew about the lake would have known my stance on stocking it, trespassing, etc. though...

The lake is about a quarter mile from two roads and about a half mile from two others. You can't see it from any of them though and a person would have to trespass on my ground on foot for quite a ways from any direction to reach it (unless they drove through a field).

I can't figure out how the catfish got in it. I wouldn't think they would have been in with the fatheads by mistake. They look different and I wouldn't think that hatcheries would even raise bullheads.

They're in though so now I've got to figure out what to do. I've gotten a lot of cinder blocks and concrete slabs. I had planned to put those in there for structure and to keep sand / gravel in spawning areas from washing into main lake body. Those cinder blocks would give minnows a good place to hide. I wanted that, but I don't want those bullheads to have a place to hide... Emotionally, I want every single one of them gone now. Logically, after reading other posts about how vulnerable they are to predation at this age, I'm thinking that I'll remove all I can, proceed with previous plans, and hope the other fish can eliminate them in the future.

Still planning to partially drain the pond very soon (as soon as get more time), make sure the minimum depth will be three feet, build sediment basins, create more contours on the bottom and sides, place the blocks and concrete, haul in sand/gravel, and etc.

[Linked Image from i108.photobucket.com]