Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? How many fish can you remove before it starts to h

I removed hundred's of pounds of bullheads from my lake when should I notice it helping? When I do remove a large amount I start to catch other kinds of fish, then more bullheads move in and I'm back to catching only them. If they were 10 to 12 inches long and not 6 or 7 I would have no problem with finding people to help catch them. 60 acres of water.

Wow. 60 acres is a lot of area to remove bullheads.

Sounds like you need a super predator that likes to eat 6 to 7" BH.

Are you trapping them or hook and line fishing? Some big fish traps might help. BH go in baited traps readily.

As you are discovering 60 acres can produce lots of fish. If the lake is not overly deep(>20ft) over much of its bottom and it is fertile with water clarity of 2ft expect there to be at around 50lb of just bullheads per acre as my best guess; 60acx50lb= 3,000lbs. If we use the average weight of 4oz (0.24 lb) for a 7.5" bullhead that equates to around 10,000 to 12,000 bullhead in your lake. Estimate could easily be more because I assumed all the bullhead were 7.5" long and we know there are probably more smaller ones than ones above 7".

IMO if you want to naturally try to increase the average size of the bullheads you should try to dramatically enhance the number of predators of bullheads in the lake. This often means more LMBass. Other predators could do the job, but LMB are prolific spawners and the bass would be the easiest way to improve predation and removal of the small bullheads. Getting a strong bass population reestablished in the lake could be difficult due to too many other fish present who will limit or prevent good survival of young bass eggs or fry. Stocked bass at whatever size, have to be able to immediately start eating abundant food to survive and then grow. Fingerling bass often fail because there is too much competition for food for fingerling bass and they starve. Consider stocking 5"-7" bass when the the schools of bullhead fry generally first appear each spring.

I suspect that the bullheads became overabundant in the lake due to a reduction of LMbass who with average densities usually provide good control of bullhead numbers. Something must have happened to the bass population to allow the bullheads to overpopulate. As a general rule the more predators that occur with a bullhead population the larger average size the bullheads become.

I assume a lake of 60 acres has a stream or watershed that provides water to the lake. If it was my lake I would seriously consider draining the lake to low pool and completely renovating it. Then the lake would refill relatively quickly. This is one of the big disadvantages of having a large body of water (BOW). They go "bad" or have problems much slower than small BOW, but when large ones do develop problems it is very expensive to get them fixed or corrected.

Any way I can. This catch I had a friend trap them. I would say there was 175 lbs. in one setting but he usually only gets 15 to 40 a day. What would be the best fish to eat them? I have put channel cats in along with bass and crappie and some how common carp got in. Would like to put wipers in but would like to catch more bass before I do that. Would wipers eat bullheads? What about walleye? Water is 16 feet deep at the deepest part, but 60% of lake is under 5 foot deep. The local fishermen say to put in flat head cats, but I am afraid I would end up with a lake with a few large flat heads and not much of any other fish. It is a private lake with only 3 property owners that have access to it.

Yes it is a water shed lake and there is a valve that can be opened to drain. When it was first built it filled before they wanted it to. It took 3 months to get rid of 90 % of the water. One 3.5 to 4 inch rain or two 2 inch rains and it would be back to full and would have to start over. On large rain events the water gets very muddy. This happens every spring. Would this prevent bass from spawning? My goal for the spring will be to get as many 10 to 12 inch bass added to the lake as I can.

Bill, any guesstimate on how many 12" to 15" LMB per acre it might take to significantly reduce that many bullheads? If the LMB are stocked at 5" to 7" it might take one or two years to get them to that 12" to 15" size depending on fertility and other factors. Would 50 LMB per acre be enough? 100 per acre? Any guess on how many LMB it might take to reach an effective tipping point in reducing that many bullheads. I am inclined to think the more LMB the better and to give it time.

Guesstiment of how many young adult bass it will take to reduce a larger population of bullheads??? It is a difficult question for a fairly accurate answer due to lots of variables to consider. If it were a sunfish pond I think it would likely take an additional 10-20 per acre more juvenile bass. I think the addition of juvenile bass and getting noticeable results will take time, as in annual stockings for several years during which lots of adult bullheads are still removed each year. The bass should be able bass will control the annual recruitment of bullheads, but the current adult population has to be continually and diligently reduced and dealt with.

Realistically trash fish biomass has to be reduced for water clarity to improve and the overall sport fish balance to recover or normalize. Improved water clarity is important for the bass to effectively forage on the young bullheads.

I like my idea of timing the addition of juvenile bass to when the schools of bullhead fry first appear each spring. This should significantly reduce the annual production of new bullheads and get the bass "trained" or accustomed to feeding on small bullheads as a main forage item.

Some of the unknown variables that make a supplimental bass stocking guesstiment difficult are:
1. How many bass / ac are currently present in the lake?
2. What is the size structure of those bass?
3. What is the diet of the current bass and what percent of their diet is BH?
4. Is there current bass recruitment and how good is it?
5. What is the monthly measurements of water clarity in the lake? This impact bass predation effectiveness.
6. How much annual recruitment of bullheads is there each year?
7. What other fish species are in the lake to defray or diversify the predation pressure of bass?
8. ??
9. ??

What trapping method is currently being used to catch bullheads??. It might be beneficial to invest in or build a trap net or hoop net. These types of nets are effective at catching bullheads. It might also be beneficial to trying to feed the bullheads pellets. This would collect or concentrate them, make trapping more effective, and make BH grow faster for a more beneficial or useful harvest.

I'll add this...you should be running traps at all times. You can still easily trap bullhead all the way to ice up. Bait with dog or cat food cans with a few punctures from a old fashioned can opener.

I would not introduce Flathead but you should definitely invite your Flathead fishing buddies over to collect the bullhead for bait. I have a few guys that do this on my pond to supplement my trapping efforts.

The benefit of having bullheads - they'll feed all of your other fish. My LMB, BC, and BG all eat the fry. Bullhead fry will cruise the pond in large bait balls, near surface and get pounded by other fish.

HSB love to eat the fry and <4" BH too

I would trap heavily before the bh spawn to reduce the number of new recruits in the spring. Add some predators and see what happens.

My stocking broke down like this.
1.25ac
175 7-9" LMB
50 7-9" WE
100 8-10" HSB

I had a very limited existing population of large (+16") LMB left in my pond...it needed predators very badly to help control the BH and stunted BG/BCP

I couldn't imagine trying to control 60 acres!

Matzilla provides very good and helpful information. Hybrid striped bass would be an additional effective predatory force on the young BH especially when the BH fry form schools soon after hatching. Ability of HSB to effectively prey on small BH would probably be dependent on water clarity.

First I would like to thank everyone for the great advise given on this site. Bill you have a lot of good questions and I will try to answer them as best as I can.
1. I stocked maybe 16 per acre three and four years ago. But now I would say it is much lower. I fish 4 or 5 times a week for a 1/2 to 1 hour at a time and have only caught a hand full of bass. (2) Their size were 10 to 15 inches. (3) I returned all back to lake so I do not know what they are eating. I did not weigh them but their heads were very small in size compared to the rest of their body, same with the catfish. (4) I have never caught a small bass under 10 inches but have caught a lot of black crappie in the 3 to 7 inch size. This year was a good year for crappie. Watched them grow up from 1 to 1 1/2 inches caught in minnow traps. Then 2 to 3 inches catching them on small tube baits and then in September on 2 1/2 inch curly tail spinner baits at 5 inches. I would catch 10 to 20 bullhead in between any other fish. I would like to say when you catch a 12 or 13 inch bullhead on a sinner bait with a light action pole they are fun to bring in. (5) water clarity changes a lot from clear 36 inches in spring. May gets muddy after a large rain event ( 10 inches visibility ). Then clears up again ( 25 inches ) and turns green from a algae bloom June, July and August ( 12 inches ). Then in September 5 inch rain and lake turned muddy again and still is not cleared up ( 5 to 6 inch visibility). (6) Recruitment of bullheads this year slowed down. Each year I would deep net bait balls out in the spring and I had a hard time finding them this year compared to other years. (7)The last question what fish are in the lake, I put in bass, channel cats, black crappie, bluegill and red ear sunfish.
fish that are also in the lake are green sunfish carp and bull head. Sorry for such a long post and Merry Christmas!!

Very interesting project, nehunter! I may be way off base here, but what about some Tiger Muskies? Seems they could fill the same niche as a flat head, without the threat of them reproducing and taking over? Would be a veryyy fun fish to catch as well!

I fear the musky as a significant larger predator (top end) than LMB would eventually eat more or as many bass predators as BH. Predators eating predators would IMO not be adventageous at this point in time. Musky predators would be a good option when the bass become overabundant, need controlled, and are overeating the food chain/source.

My BH population is dropping, I believe from LMB. I was on the ice with a camera yesterday and saw small schools of maybe 5 or 6 BH in the 6 to 7 inch range. About half the time they were followed by LMB in the 12 to 15 inch range. I did not witness any predation but the BH clearly kept their distance and darted when the LMB got too close. I did not see any smaller BH and in previous years they were common. I'm not certain the 12 to 15 inch LMB are taking the 6" to 7" BH, but I have seen the bait balls of fry get eaten. The LMB could have been following other panfish which were in shallower weedy water but chose to be following the BH on the bottom in more open 10 foot deep water. If I get lucky and see it happen I'll post it. I support adding LMB.

As long as BH recruitment is strong or noticable I would focus on predators such as smaller crowded LMB or HSB to heavily prey of the young bullhead. With a strong or abundant small bass population the average size of BH will increase. Feeding the fish pellets could IMO increase the average size of BH toward 12" to 14" when there are relatively few per acre. I think if you regularly feed pellets a sizable group of BH would consider the feeding area their home range and angling on the bottom in this area would be quite good.

I bought a hoop net from Memphis twine. got it special made with 1/4" mesh. 2 throats . will catch the crap out of bull heads. 60 acres is daunting though. Like eating an elephant

Note - Hoop nets are more effective if or when lead nets or wings are attached to the front of the net.

I looked into a Fyke net, the $1000. they want for one I thought was to high. Would rather spend a $1000. for more 6 inch bass. The figure 8 traps that were used work good, but they only have an inch to inch half opening for the fish to get in. Even with that size of a opening I had checked the trap and it would be full of fish. I would put it back and go home for a bucket and there would be only 20 or so left in. So I know the bullheads swim in and out of it, a larger hole would make it even easier. I did find out that the traps work a lot better if they are shiny and not covered with black algae. I never worried about the bull heads because every pond and lake has had them and they always disappear when they bass take over. But right now I think the bull heads and green sunfish are eating all the bass eggs and small fry.

nehunter - your suspecions are probably correct. Fyke type nets can be homemade and traps can be made larger. More open space in the trap usually results in fish staying in the trap longer. Also as long as there is food in the trap the fish tend to stay in the trap instead of searching for exits.

Not sure where you live in Nebraska, but I’m east of Hastings about 25 miles. I’ve got a fyke net you could use most of the summer if you’d want to. Just PM me and we could work something out.

Bill I looked at a Fyke net and I agree they are more effective. Just a little high. I have found if I bait mine. It will load up with bullheads. could attach a minnow seine for a lead.
Cody note: You could also use plastic or wire fencing as leads for the fyke or trap net.

I 2nd this. If you trap under where you feed your catch rates of BH in the traps will increase significantly. I would throw the trap out, feed near dusk, return in the morning and pull the trap to dump all the BH. My catch rates were phenomenal following this schedule. The BH will surface feed on pelleted food rather quickly, and regularly. If you get an openwater feeding predator (HSB) added to the mix they will greatly enjoy the feeding routine.

A large trap could be made from PVC pipe and netting. Netting could be plastic mesh or seine netting. Install a funnel or > shaped entrance. Place the leads in front of the trap to direct the fish into the trap.

Check to see if any commercial type fishermen in your area have gill nets and would run them in the lake.