I know I have awhile before I need to worry about it...but my understanding is that Tilapia will not make it through the winter (die when water hits 53 degrees or lower). So...what do you do in the fall? Try to fish them out? Just let them die and not worry about it? Or?

Pond is a small 1/8+ acre...Tilapia Are there to provide food for bass and blue gill (their fry). I put in 4 lbs of Tilapia....should be about 40 fish.

Sean

Sean...at my place I don't do anything with the Tilapia in the Fall.

I bid them farewell with a "Rest In Peace"
because they have served their purpose.

Can't have them in Illinois as they apparently wear little wet suits here and survive our winters.

FWIW I have seen several posts where guys try to harvest what they can in the fall as they are very tasty.

Thanks guys. My fear was having too much dead in the pond. Was worried that might cause a problem. Might just have a friend or two come see what they can catch (release anything else), and not worry about the rest I guess.

Sean

Boburk,
...if you can catch ' em up before the temp kills'em....eat'em...otherwise, it's like Zep said....turtle fodder. I hooked and caught some on pieces of earthworms at Pat W ' s pond in Oakwood last month. They're no too hard to catch if you are interested in salvaging a few for table fare.

I have read that they can be baited in with range cubes over a couple weeks and caught pretty easily. We shall see how well it works in real life! We would like to catch a few out before they go belly up.

Don't worry about the dead ones in the pond. They don't stay in the pond for long. Natures clean up crew takes care of the majority if you can't catch them out. Vultures, raccoons, etc.

I've had my best success "catching" them when the water cools down, then we have a sunny day. I'll sight "fish" for them using a large treble hook with some solder wrapped around the shank for weight to cast, and I'll snag them.

OK what are range cubes? They seem to like my pellets so this yr I'm gonna try ta catch some with hydrated pellets.

Sean, you can sight fish them, but if you have a shallow area, wait till water temps have cooled a lot and stalk the lethargic Tilapia sunning in shallow, sun drenched areas. You can dip net them right out. Best flavor is leaving them in slow flowing well water for about 3 days with no food..(pond water has food).

As almost all others have said, most of your dying tilapia will get eaten. Only the largest won't disappear until other critters, aquatic and terrestrial, remove them.

Glad I am not the only one that didn't know,...heh.

Sean

AKA cattle cubes

OK Boburk bein a Texan can you please explain WTH is a cattle cube?

Compressed alfalfa chunks

Bob, I'm only an honorary Texan and I know what they are.

I've seen them before at berend brothers, but didn't know what they were called until now.

The tilapia are more aggressive about eating my AM500 than the bluegill are. Just would not know how to get it on a hook.

Sean

We feed them to cows as a supplemental feed along with hay and the natural browse. To call the cows, all you have to do is shake an empty bag and the cows will follow the pickup anywhere. They also are good for sinking in a tow sack to lure catfish to an area in lakes.

Boburk, where are you? I thought Berend Bros was fairly local to my area. I know that they have various N Texas locations.

I am North of Wichita Falls. Berend Brothers in Wichita Falls is the place that hosts the fish truck around here. That is when I saw the range cubes. They were on the ground under the dispenser when I was waiting on my HBG.

Sean

Sean, here's an easy way to get the pellets on a hook.
Stubby Steves

Get the brown ones.

I added 5 lbs in Early April. I think it was around 30 5" fish. This is a new pond and they were added to help control FA and their babies were there to feed the lmb that were introduced to the pond in June. I now see Tilapia around the pond. Some as fry and some as 7" or larger. How many eating size and what size tilapia would u guys expect to see in Nov or Dec when the water cool down and they start dying off.

Tracy

with limited predation................LOTS

It's often stated that turtles and wildlife will clean up the dead and dying Tilapia, but do we really know to what degree this actually occurs? I'm thinking as the water cools to the point where Tilapia succumb, the turtles have also slowed down and may not feed as much as they do in warmer water. And while raccoons will feast on the shallow carcasses, what about all those lying on the bottom in deeper water?

If the tilapia have tied up the nutrients by consuming FA, and they are not removed from the pond when they expire then the nutrients are recycled right back into the pond. Do you count the adult tilapia when they are initially stocked, and re-count as you find and/or remove carcasses, to try and account for all of them? And then there's the matter of offspring....in a trophy BG pond, chock full of 10-12" LMB utilized as management tools, there will probably be a size class or two of tilapia too large to act as forage for those smaller bass. Wouldn't those nutrients also be recycled, rather than removed?

I like the idea of removing what I can...either dead or alive. My pond is in my fenced in back yard, and I would not want to encourage any critters to come in the yard. Plus, I stocked for two reason...kill the mosquito's and have some fun. Fishing them out sounds like fun to me. I can invite some friends over with their small kids. Good family time.

I thought about putting a minnow trap in the pond in the fall and see if I can catch some small ones...winter them in an IBC tote in the garage for the winter, then I would have something to start with in the spring. I will have to figure out if I am even supposed to need them next year or not.

Sean

I think the clean-up crew remove a LOT more than we realize.

A 3 years ago I stocked 40# into my personal pond and removed eight 5 gallon buckets of eating size (filleting sized) tilapia (no water in the buckets). I think I saw one dead one after the water cooled down.

The next year I stocked the same amount, and didn't get a chance to harvest any in the fall. I didn't see one dead one that fall or next spring.

Now, that could either mean that the dead ones were laying in deep water, where I couldn't see them, even with 5'-6' visibility, or that they were removed by something.

Esshup
How did you remove that many at a time? Did you seine them ? Or fish them

Snagged. I wrapped solder around the shank of this hook to give it some weight to cast, VMC Sure Set #2 and used 17# Fireline on a spinning reel.

They were up near the surface sunning when the water temps cooled down, but the sun was strong.