Well Big_Pond I have an answer to your question as to which species of catfish grows faster. On Wed November 5, I caught about twelve catfish a combination of blue and channel. All of the fish were about the same size around three to four pounds a piece.

While taking fish number twelve off of the hook, my other rod went flying through the air and was just about in the water when I grabbed it. The result was a 8lbs. Channel cat. I couldn't find my digital camera, but I did get some regular photos of the fish. I guess I'll scan them at work and put him on the site to show ya'll I am not full of it.

Now mind you that this pond was stocked in June of '02 so that is a lot of growing in a short period of time and I have the feed bill to prove it!

8 lbs is huge!! In just 2 years...You sure it was a channel? If the channel is 8 lbs then there are blues around 14 - 16 lbs! Blues deffinetly grow bigger and faster.. I know shane is like the two of us in that he grows blues as well. But he has a 30 acre Lake though!!

No, I am sure it was a channel cat. I have caught quite a few blues and none of them have come close to to this one. Maybe it was a freak. I'll have to get the picture on the site for you to see it.

Hey take some pictures of some of the blues as well!!

Zach said one time that he was growing both blues and channels and the blues were two to one over the channels. He said after a year and a half he had 8 lb blues and 4 lb channels.

I have a small 1/2 acre pond that I stocked with blues and fatheads. The hatchery guy told me that they were accidently mixed with channels. He picked them out one by one but when I released them, I saw one channel.
I guess there were two channels because the NEXT summer they found a place to spawn and I had thousands of tiny channels.
The first summer I had a bnch of blues that took a long time to start coming to feed and stopped in the heat of summer.
The second summer I had blues coming up verociously for a short time too and then found they only wanted to come upn in evening. I also had all the baby channels and caught a parent at two pounds. The blues were closer to a pound.
The third summer I didn't feed as much because I wanted to thin everything out. The channels were always there and the blues maybe were. Blues two pounds.
The fourth summer (now) I had blues feed with the channels for most of the year but disappeared when it got hot. The blues are two to three pounds and I caught a few channels at about two pounds!
The hatchery guy told me that channels grow faster until the blues reach two pounds. I think that showed true. But then I had a screwed up pond with all the baby channels and I fed less. I think the blues ate the hell out of the fatheads (which don't produce like high protien feed).
I have the channels thinned and hope next year I can get some growth out of the blues.

I also put some of the baby channels in another small pond with hybrid striper and in two years I caught a four pounder. The smallest brothers and sisters in the othe pond are still six inches. Point: They grow by how agressive they are.

Hmmm sound interesting..Sounds like blues don't take to the pelleted food as well as other fish! I know that Bream and channel take after pelleted food real well.
How aggresive do the hybrids take after the pelleted food?
I can't figure why the channels grew faster with the hybrids than with the blues???

You Know I think it was Zach that had the 30 acre lake that was "chalked thick" full of threadfin shad..He said the blues were about 8 lbs in 18 months! and the channels were half that size at only 4 lbs.
You mentioned that the blues probebly eat the fathead minows.
It really sounds to me that blues have very different feeding habbits from channels. I have heard that they were very similar to stripers! (not Hybrids)..Newbee you told me before in an earlier post that you caught blues on artificel bait as if you were fish for bass..right?
I wonder if you and newbee were to creat a heavy forage base of ethier bream or shad..and see if this does not improve your growth rate of the blues. It would be real interesting...

Hybrid stripers attack the food. the channels with the hybrids were fed Aquamax 5D06 (I think 41% protien) and they scoop the food while the hybrids eat one at a time. Also, I fed a lot twice a day in the spring and once when it got a little hot. That is why the channels grew so fast.
The channels with the blues were overpopulated and I fed them one small coffee can a day. That is why everything grew so slow.
Blues are supposed to be as predatory as yellow cats, but the are a little more limited by mouth size. I think they like the feed okay but something ate most of the fatheads. These overpopulated fish were hungry. This year I added what I bought as small redear but as I grew them out in anotherpond, they looked a lot like bluegill--maybe crosses. I bought them from a truck at a feed store instead of traveling to my reliable suppliesr.

Well it sound like Channels and Hybrids are similar because they both prefer floating feed over any other forage!
While Blues and Stripers are similar in that they prefer live bait like shad and bream. I think Zach has it right, he has a ton of shad in his fishery this is why his blues grew so quickly! Like you said before, they realy ate the Fatheads up..you should get an improvement in your forage with the bluegill (if they actually are bluegill), because bluegill spawn many times a year...

Some people say that channels outgrow blues durn the first 2 to 3 years. I really think it is because they are strickly feeding them pelleted food, and the blues have to "adjust" to this food source that they naturally do not prefure...my thoughts on this...

Big_POnd I have in fact caught a great deal of catfish (both species) on artifical lures, mostly spinner baits (white). I can tell you that both the channels and the blues are eating the pellets feed primarly. I have looked in the stomachs of these fish and all of then including the big one had fish food in them. I did see that a few of the blue cats had eaten what appeared to be small bream not sure, as digestion had taken its toll.

I think my assumption that channels grow faster than blues may be flawed. As most of the fish I have caught have been around the same size and only the very large fish that I have told you about stands out. Now there may be a very large blue cat that I have not caught yet. I'll keep fishing and let you know!

I only have channels but by far the biggest channel I have caught was one of my albinos! He was about 3 pounds heavier than the largest regular one.

Newbee so you have caught quite a few cats on spinner bait? Which do you catch more of Blues or channels? Which ones fight the hardest? What else do you have stocked in your pond and how are these other species doing?

My experiences have shown that, under hatchery conditions, channel cat outgrow blues the first year. The second year, blues catch up, and in the third year, pass the channels. But, not many hatcheries keep fish in their ponds longer than a year or two.
Given "perfect" conditions for each fish, blues do outgrow channels by the second or third year.

I have sort have asked the same question under the Hybrid topic, but....what is the life span of these different fish? the Channels, Flatheads, and Blues?

I don't know which ones live the longest, but i will tell you that the blues are not nearly as hardy as the channels. When hooked and released I find that a lot of the blues go belly up and very few if any of the channels die. Maybe Bob Lusk can shed some light on why this is.

To answer your question, Big_Pond both species readily take artificals. I can't comment on which one fights the hardest when hooked. It appears that this is just relevant to the weight of the fish

I'd like to know why the Blues are not as hardy as the Channels as well, you are not the first person who's said this, this really bothers me.. :rolleyes:

Yer right, Newbee. I jes never put it together. Caught and released two and a couple days later, both daid. Couldn't have been more daid. Now any blue caught will go in the hot oil or will be friz. Think i'll begin introducing channels.

Wow! someone say this isn't so!! I know that newbee's lake is around 3/4 acre, but Dudley how big is your lake?
I know that blues have a harder time with low disolved O2 levels it must be that they "sufficate" durin the fight when hook.
But newbee, has any blues at all survived when released? They couldn't have all died did they?
Zach, I know you are running blues in you big lake are you seeing problems with the survivel of blues when being released after caught?

Bout seven acres, but dat don't make no difference cause dey still daid. Dey white bellies shinin up to dat big pond in de sky what dey done departed to, rest dey ten pound souls.

If you really think about it, how many fisheries do you know that sell blue cats. Not many I found and to continue that thought how many fish producers (market catfish producers) use blues for their product. The answer, I have never heard of them using anything but Channels.

Know why is this so? I would say that it has to do with the species being less hardy than the Channels. When I stocked my pond (relayed in an ealier post) the only fish that I lost were the blue cats and not one channel. I will have to defer to someone that is an expert on this, as this is just my experience and not something based on any study or scientific knowledge.

I have heard this from a few different people as well.
I think it is more of a disolved oxygen level problem more than anything..This seems to be the same problem with the stripers, which are similar to the blue cat. I guess if the conditions are right then the Blues would have no problems..Zach have you had any of these troubles or has anyone for that fact had these problems with blues?

Do Flatheads exibit these problems?

big_pond I'm not expert on catfish, but I will agree with your point on stripers...

However, one thing I have noticed is that the larger fish seem to be more susceptible. I know normally if you catch a smaller fish(in the 18in and under category) then they normally do fine. I think it may have to do with the fight as mentioned earlier. Big fish take a long time to reel in and therefore are most exhausted at the end of the fight. Take for instance....if you run constantly for 5 minutes at the end you maybe a little out of breath and a sweating a little, but if you run for 30 minutes as fast and hard as you can imagine what it would feel like. I think this might be the same thing that happens to the larger fish.

But I'm not expert, just something to add to the pot of information. Maybe Bob or one of the others can add in factual proven information to the topic.

Chris

Big-Pond,

I don't think that lack of Oxygen had anything to do with my fish loses and to that end with any of the catch and release loses. I really feel that the species of fish (ie. Blue Cats) just don't hold up as well as the Channel Cats.

On a related note, I would not spend my money again on stocking Blue Catfish in my pond. The reasons are simple, they were more exspensive than Channels from get go, less hardy, and from my experience do not grow any quickier than Channels. An additional reason is that they do compete with my LMB for minows, blue gill and other prey.

I know that the Blue Cat is one of your favorite fish, but from my point of view I really don't see their advantages.

As noted earlier, I have a small pond with blues and channels. I came to the conclusion that blues need more oxygen but then last summer I seined and caught more than I expected. I packed a lot in a cooler and drove to the house where I put them in a live well. I had five or six blues about two pounds and sixty-something channels from five inches to two pounds. Two blues looked liked they took the trip harder than the rest but when the pump clogged I lost about 15 channels (all sizes) and all the blues survived.

The man at the hatchery complained that blues stuck in the nets worse and I think myself they thrash around more when handling them.
I've also hooked two now that have jumped like a bass--almost two feet in the air!

Newbee doesn't think much of blues and I kinda like them. You'll have to get some and make your own decision.

I don't know a darn thing about Blues, but I can relate a Channel cat story:

Went fishing with a buddy for bass but since I like catfish I kept the ones we caught. Caught 5 on minnows and had only a little cooler to put them in and ended up with all 5 of them stacked one on top of the other in a small cooler... they filled it right up with no room to move and little room for water. All were about 12-16" long and survived 6+ hours like this in the middle of summer... survived the transplant as well. So I have to give them a big thumbs-up for being hardy.

No, Brian H. I do like the fish and love to catch them in the lakes (Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend) near by residence. I just don't see the advantages over the Channel Cats in a pond environment. The reasons that I listed in the above post have held true in my case. Maybe for others the outcome will be different.

Well this is a very serious issue for me!!! I need to know what to do!! Where are the experts..Greg Bob Lusk, Bill Codey, if there is ever a time I needed you on a post it is now..Not stock these fish is like Bill Dance not Bass Fishing any more.

I have herd of these problems before, but it was every now and then...I knew you had to be carfull transporting them, but I thought after they were setteled in for a couple of years then they would be fine!
For what its worth I have caught both channels and Blues in public lakes, like Santee Cooper and other places, and even transported them to other lakes and ponds and they seemed to do all right, I know thats what the pay lakes around here do. They higher a proffesional to catch these big blues and flatheads and they put them in these 3 to 9 acre pay lakes and people catch and release them all the time..
I don't know guys, Newbee, and Dudley I have herd other people say the same things you have, but I have seen it the other way with success as well. What I need to do is figure out what the problems have been and find a solution so I can avoid killing my fish off. I am in the process of building a lake now..

I wouldn't stock blues again, too many negatives when compared to channels. Sounds great when you learn that blues can grow to over one hundred pounds and channels to just thirty five. But what can be the appeal in having a hundred pound blue take the lure when it's attached to a twelve pound test line?

This is an interesting thread, I have never before heard of or noticed a problem with blues dying after they are caught. When I was buying channels from Kens hatchery in georga there were a bunch of blues mixed in with them. When my dad or I catch a little catfish we toss it into the cage with the stripers to moniter thier growth and to see how they do in there. It may be because they were all smaller than 18", but I never had a single blue die. They did every bit as well as the channels. Another note is that the blues have been gorging themselves to no end on pellets and growing aproxamatly twice as fast as the channels from the day they were put in. One was 171%. And big_pond, keep in mind that even IF blues don't grow any faster (which deosn't seem to be the case in my pond) they still live to great old ages and are far more likely to reach 30+ LBS.
I'm nowhere near being an expert, but I hope I could help

-Scott

Part of the fun of having a pond is the latitude for experimentation. Why not stock both blues and channels, Big_Pond? Not too many things that you can have both ways, so take advantage of this.

jbrokey, this is real encouraging I am deffinetly going to stock blues I would not care if they were 5 times the price of channels..But I am concerned about this robustness issue, I need to learn as much as I can from you guys, and quit guessing.....
You know I wonder if there is not several different strains of these fish!!?? I always here of people in South Carolina Reffer to the blues as somthing called "Arakensaw Blue catfish" this must be a different strain of blue, some what like the copernose and native bluegill, F1 bass and northern bass. There has to be some sort of genetic differances in these fish because ther is clearly two diffrent sides to this story!
Also there are probably a number of other factors that play in this as well such as: Climate, water chemistry...ect.
Most of the pros around here spend most of their time studing Bass and Bluegill, and don't have time for big cats. I willing to bet there is a wealth of knoledge out there that we don't know yet.
One thing that does strike is that I did notices that jbrockey was much further north than Dudley or Newbee, this could be a clue...who knows.
I want to express my thanks to all you for sharing your experiances. Hopefully we can get more examples and gather more data and draw a decent hypothisis into this is occuring.....

I'll throw in a little cat tail.

On one night in August me and a couple of buddies were out top water fishing at about 11pm. My buddy toi my right landed the first blue. Weighed in at 13lbs. About 3 minutes later I caught one. Broke the line. About a minute after that my buddy to the left landed one. As we struggled with lights in thigh high water we were about to land him when he straightened the snap hook. He was much bigger than the first one.

Mind you this was on top water lures.

I haven't seen a difference in the survival of Blues. If they require more oxygen then they would provide me with a good safety measure.

Texas715, do you have these fish stocked in your lake? what was the stocking ratios? How big is your lake? what else do you have stocked besides cats ?

Hey Big_Pond, I would go for it. Maybe my experience had something to do with what I did. I can't think of what that might be, as I have not lost any other species of fish.

My points that i have made were from my perspective and not intended for you take as the gospel. As far as me stocking blues in the future, it will not happen. But this is because, to me there is little advantage to putting both species in such a small pond. I am getting tremendous growth rates from the Channels and also want good growth rates from the bass and the blue gill. Adding another predator to the mix was probably not the smartest move on my part.

As for you and what you want, only you know. I say go for and let all of us know what happens. Good Luck!! By the way I just got the picture developed and will be posting it the weekend so stand by.

He guys! Have not been around lately. I have lots of work to do. I had my dam get washed out about 3/5 of the way down. We had 16 inches of rain in about 4 hours. The 30 acre lake was about 2ft over the dam. Luckly i had grass growing on it. Well I see we are talking catfish growth here. The differance in growth here seems what your pond has the most of for forage. If the blue cats are growing faster there is proubly a good amount of baitfish in your pond. The bluecat is a hunter be nature. They only forage when they are out of normal food such as shad and perch. If the channel cats are growing faster than the blue the baitfish are at low numbers. Channels are lazy by nature and like to take the easy road by eating pellets. I have found out another thing. Young blues and channels seem to love fathead and mosquitofish. I catch channels and blues up 2 pounds on 2 inch long mosquitofish. I think if you want a good pond for blues and channels you need to feed pellets for the channels, have a good supply of fatheads in the pond before you stock the catfish, bluegill, and cover so the catfish have somewhere to rest. Also if you can put in threadfin shad. Do not let them be the only food source because in a cold snap they are gone. If you just want channels in a pond, stock early with fatheads and pellet feed them. If you want just blues i recommend stock fatheads early, put in threadfin (where you can), and bluegill. This is a great topic and alot of info is being shared. I like to say i had my first channel cat spawn since i have stocked the lake. The channels are from 3inches to 7inches long right now. I caught a 3inch long one in my castnet today. I really think these smaller ones washed in from another tank when it flooded because i caught 12inch bluecat today fishing. I have also noticed small bass in the 8 inch range. Since the rain i had a small spawn of threadfins but i think they have been hit hard by the crappie and small bass. I just hope none of my big blues swam away.

I forgot to put something on survival of the fish. Yes channels can live longer in low oxygen waters. In my pond i cant tell you the survival rates blues to channels because i have caught about the same amount of blues and channels. Channels proubly survive the best do to they can adapt to different food better than blues.

big_pond, it's possible that after experiencing the trauma of being caught the blues sought the security of deeper water where less oxygen was available and died as a consequence. They might not be smart enough to move to an oxygenated level but instead just hide out in low oxygen water and suffocate there.

Zach, 16 inches of rain in 4 hours? Where are you? I haven't 16 inches of rain in the last 2 years.

I just had another thought. Eventhough all catfish (including blues) tend to be far hardier than other sportfish and more adapable to all sorts of water quality, blues tend to prefer clear water. If the water is exeptionaly murky, mabie the channels were stressed by it to a lesser extent than the blues. Not that blues can't thrive well in standard pond water, but mabie that little factor can make a difference when added to the stress of being caught. who knows?
Another thing that I have noticed is that I catch blues just as often as channels when fishing with livers and stinkbaits. And it's equaly as common for me to catch channels as it is blues when fishing with crankbaits for bass. Mabie it's because they're still about 1Lb, mabie it's just strange luck or mabie I'm not keeping a close enough eye on them, but I havn't observed any noticeable difference between the predatory nature of my blues and my channels.
While I'm on the subject, I thought of someting else too (keep in mind that I'm just brainstorming here). Mabie the difference in growth rate had somthing to do with me feeding them high protien sinking feed, which the catfish all seemed to like alot. It may be that with the convenience of just swiming up to the pile of feed and sucking it down to thier hearts delight that they would allow themselves to get fuller than usual and that maibie the blues just have bigger stomachs than the channels. The high protien (45%) and high fish meal (15%) may have also been a factor. I heard alot of people say that the reason that you use 38% feed for channel cat aquaculture is that they really don't benifit much more from the higher protien feed. I have also read Bob Lusk saying that in most situations that blues and channels will have basicly the same diet, except when there is a shortage of thier prefered food channels will resort to eating vegitation and blues never will. Mabie a channel's ability to obtain nutrition from plant matter gives them a better ablility to grow well on low protien food and a blue's strictly carnivorous diet gives them a better ability to assimilate the full protien content of high protien feeds.
That ended up being alot longer than I had planned on and considering how many times I used the word "maibe" I may or may not be completly off track on all counts. but who knows?

-Scott

jbrokey, The first blues I harvested was early spring and it had brushy pondweed in it's stomach.
I don't know.
big pond, you asked about stocking rates. I guess it depends on how many blues you want eating your bass. You never said where youre from. Blues are open water fish and are going to need open water forage like shad to grow the best.
Did you ever do a search on blues? You need to. Most state fisheries departments have the basic habits, diets, lifespans, etc.. You also need to know habits to be able to catch them. Did you raead the posts on redear and how some stocked them and never saw them again? Others wrote back and said you have to fish near the bottom.

I am in South Texas. Why we had that much rain in a small period of time is because they cloud seeded a thunderstorm. When it died out, A norther blew in, gave the storm more energy and it just pored for that amount of time. It was pretty scary time and do not want it to happen again.

Greeting Fellows!
Was out of town this weekend, and was not at a computer. Zach! Glad to see your back! was getting worried. I real appritiate (spelling) all the hard work that is going into this research it's really a good topic!

Zach I totally agree with you infact I used your fishery as an example. I know Blues tended to be mor like bass in nature when it comes to food. Here is a good example: We had two 1 acre ponds pond A and pond B. Both had F1 LMB in them. Pond A the LMB were "trained" to eat strickly pelleted fish food, while pond B The bass ate the shad every day. Now which do you supposed has healther fish? I would think the pond where the bass were eating the shad! I think this is sort of what is happening with the blues here on the growth rates, and maybe even on there survivle.
Zach big question here, Do you practice catch and release with you blues in your pond? If so Are you fish dying like ever body else's?

Dudley, that is a very good point this is very possible. If so, I am going to have to be carefull because the deepest part of my lake is going to be around 27 feet deep! In the process of building the lake now I need to take precaution..

jbrocker, I wonder if blues are more hardier than bass an bluegill thats a good question? They sould be they are in the catfish family. Also what kind of lake do you have? how deep is it? What other fish do you have? How big and old are the two cats, in general?
I also wonder if Flatheads have this same problem?

BrianH, I have done a TON...of research on the web I go on there just about everday! looking for specific info on raising bluecats in ponds and lakes..I find almost nothing. Find a ton of stuff on channles of course, but very littel on blues.

One of the thing I mentioned was the fact that there could be two different strains of the fish! I tell you when I go fishing in the Santee Cooper lakes in South Carolina. Every body local calls the 'Arkensaw Blue cats', I really think there is somthing to this...Before I got on this website, if you asked about a larg mouth bass, I would have told you there was only one type out. I had no idea there was a northern strain and a F1 strain, the same with natvie and copper nose bluegill. People seem to not do alot of research and studdy on these type of fish. I think there is alot more info outhere than we know and this could be one of those bits of info.

We are speculating on alot of this info but let me tell you, between low oxygen, murcky water, water chemistry, poor diet, and possibly poor genetics, there has to be a logical explination for these vast differances in survivle rates! I wonder if the growth rates are tied in with this "released survivle", new name for this proplem..

Well I know I wrote allot here but I think, well for me any ways, this is the most important topic ever on this site! By the way some on ask where I am from, I live in the northeast Atlanta area...

Yes i do practice catch and release. That is all what i do. Knock on wood, i have not found any dead fish that i caught. I may not loose many fish when i catch and release because i hardly ever take the fish out of the water. I never let the fish touch the bank or the bottom of the boat. This takes the protective slime off the fish. When the fish is hooked in the throat i just cut the line. The acid in the fish stomach will digest the hook not harming the fish. i know this is true because i caught a bass in a tank and it broke my line. Them a day or 2 later i went fishing again and reel a bass in and it had the broken line and bait in its throat. ALso a barbless hook helps on not destroying a fishes mouth. I dont use treble hooks either. I only use them on lures. The main thing that helps a fish survive catch and release is to have the fish back and swimming on its own in less than 25 seconds. This gives the fish the less amount of stress. Something that sounds weird is that i feed my catfish shad once i get the hook out. I put a shad in their mouths and they suck them right in! I have fed as many as five 3inch shads to a 1 pound cat! They even burp when they are full! When they burp i have seem what the fish have been eaten. I usally see half digest perch come up. Anyway glad to be back!

That may be a new approach to raising catfish;; teaching them to bite on hooks to then get fed fish. WOW!
Do you think these cats retain the hand fed shad or later regurgitate them?

Here's one thing I know....there are several big paylakes where I live in Atlanta. They have large Blues, Channels and flatheads, the ponds are any where between 2 to 12 acres in size. They get these fish from big waters from the surounding areas such as: Santee Copper, the Tennessee river, and other parts in south GA. The pond owner pays pretty decent money to have a professinal go out and catch these big fish and then go and stock them in their pay ponds.
Now people have big turnaments where they will just sit out all day long and catch these fish, when the catch them they then release them back into the pond. So there must be somthing to this because if they didn't they would loose money..

I have never seen them do it but they may do it later on.

Once I caught a large bunch of branchaes and line in a river. In that bunch was a stringer with a small skinny channel cat on it. I put a minnow in its mouth and it swallowed it right down. I'm not sure if they keep it though because I know if you stress them out much at all they will regergitate (sp).

This is a new one on me...I never thought that after a fish was caught or in captivity it would eat while in your hand, I thought iwould be way to stress to do any thing. I think when I was younger, I tried this my self by putting fish in buckets, after caught, and adding maybe pieces of liver or nighte-crawlers and they NEVER ate any of this... this is real news to me that you all can feed them from your hand!!...any more issuse or thoughts on the problem at hand?

big_pond,

The blues were in there when I bought the place. Don't know who many for sure but I know I have seen about 18. My pond is 25ac. I have LMB, threadfin shad, Tilapia, Bluegill, crawfish, one spotted gar that I have seen, and some carp. With more turtles than I can shake a stick, or a .22, at.

Just wondering, how big are your tilapia and what bait do you use to catch them.

It is obvious that this subject is ver forign to most pond owners. We have not herd from any one who can give a real deffinative answer on why some people who have stocked have a low success rate while others seem to do OK.
The first time I went to a hatcher I ask the guy there what the main differance between blues and channels were...He first took me to where the channels were. He took a large dip net and scoop about a dozen channels. He pointed out how they were very dosicel and calm, saying these guys are not very aggresive, or not very nervous. Then we went to the Blues and he scoop up about the same number as the channels and it looked like water thrown on hot grease! They were flapping all over the place! He then said, "see how aggresive these guys are?" "They stress real easy.." So maybe there aggresive nature causes them to have problems in low water quality...
Well this is one of many thought on this problem