I may want to have a catfish only pond in one of my small ponds. (about 1/3 acre) But my question is would a population of about 75 channel cats be able to control bluegills?

You bet, maybe even over control it.

Absolutely especially when the channels start getting bigger...

Thank you,
I've heard that they arent good enough predators, especially to control something as profilic as bluegills. how big do you think a channel cat has to be to eat a 6 inch bluegill?

I am in the middle of a study to see how big CC need to be to eat Gshiners (conducted under the auspices of Prof. Cody). The biggest CC I have pulled out of my pond and measured since starting the study was 22" long, weight in the 4 to 5 lbs range, and had a max. mouth opening of 2.25".

How tall is your 6" long BG? I estimate it would be 3" or more tall (using Condello's current pictures of 7 inchers for source material), NOT counting the fins (we'll give the CC credit for swallowing headfirst and talking the BG into not extending any spiny fins).

I have some CC in the pond up to 6 lbs or so now, and will be feeding them to increase their size; I will report my findings here when I have caught a few more, including at least a couple of my biggest ones. But I think it's clear that it would take a BIG CC to consume a medium-sized BG.

Personally, if I wanted CC as the only predator in a small pond and also wanted BG, I would go with Hybrid BG. I think that is one application where HBG would be called for - the CC should be able to handle the relatively small numbers of F2 offspring the HBG would produce. I don't think CC alone can keep up with regular BG reproduction. Perhaps if you made aggressive use of traps and seining to remove small BG, you could make it work.

I agree with Theo. You could either use hybrid bgill since they produce a lot fewer young each year. Or you could use regular bgill but you may have to manually remove young bgill when and if they become overabundant. Manual removal would involve trapping, seining and or fishing. 50 - 75 channel cats (at least 15"-17" long) in a 1/3 acre warm water pond could eat a lot of young (1"-2") bgill each year. Bgill size eaten would gradually increase as the catfish grow. You could easily get catfish reproduction also in the catfish /bgill pond if proper structure and cover were present.

Theo,

What effect are the cats having on the turbidity of your pond?

Russ

Russ, we started with 100 6" - 9" CC in our 1 acre pond. Last year we removed 36; with other losses I estimate 40 to 50 remain, their weights ranging from 3 to 6 lbs. We have NEVER had any turbidity problems that were not directly attributable to runoff from heavy rainfall. My Secchi depth is usually between 2'6" and 2'9"; I have never measured it to be less than 1'7" (I check it, on average, only every couple of weeks during the growing season).

Note that we have always had a lot lower density of CC than 75 in 1/3 acre.

I guess that CC IN SANE DENSITIES (under say 500/acre) will not cause turbidity problems if they have enough to eat - they only stur up bottom sediments if they are very hungry and have to live on BG mouth-sized invertabrates in the muck. I have always fed my CC (when the water temp was > 60 deg) at least a little. Take a look at some Aquaculture CC reports to see the affects of much denser populations. The commercial catfish farmers really pack 'em in, but they also provide plenty of feed.

Well let me ask this how would Blue cat do on Blue gill predation? I think that the head of a BC is bigger than a CC for a given size...am I not correct?? IF BC will eat bass prety good I think they could eat Blue gill even better..just my thoughts

Good job, BP! How can you talk about catfish without bringing up the King Kong of freshwater fish?
This should bring that trash talking Robinson into the game.

b_pond - ""IF BC will eat bass prety good I think they could eat Blue gill even better..just my thoughts""
What is your reasoning-thinking-rationale for Blues doing a better job of eating bgill compared to bass? How does the physical aspects of this "play out" in your mind? Just curious.

About 10 years back I stuck a couple of native(to Ontario)catfish minnows in one of my aquariums, thinking that they would be interesting scavengers. What a shock!They started out 1"long, within a year they were 4" and by now were in their own tank, eating minnows from the bait store and my minnow trap. No problem with anything 1/3 their size, including sunfish!(blue gills)

Well Mr Cody,
There have been several post regarding CC as the Primerary Preditor for a Catfish Bluegill Pond only. To me it is a very intersting topic. It really explores the preditory nature of catfish in general.
I thought it was a very interesting point brought out about the size of the CC's mouth, and how it can only eat the smaller size Bream. Well if this were the case, then I know the BC has a bigger mouth compared to the CC for a given body size.
This being true, could the BC then be a good enough predetor in a catfish bream only pond?

It seems as if you talk to some fish dealers they will make it seem as if BC were as good a predetor as bass. While others seem to think they are slightly below bass when it comes to being an effective predetor..
I don't know, just my 2 cents..

Jighead , Theo and Bill :

I have seen no info on flathead cats and don't know much about cats in ponds in general. I will pass along this bit of info for what its worth. A friend of mine is a fisheries professor and related a story. His Univ. had among others a 5 acre pond they used for BG research . They had 100% BG in the pond and his students would catch them for various projects and research. This was a controled site with no public access .So they thought. When the students over several years kept reporting that it was getting harder to catch BG samples the prof was puzzled . They drained the pond and found very few BG . They did find a number of flatheads with a 3 or 4 over 40 lbs. They assume that a local was using their BG pond as a grow out pond for flatheads.
I don't know how many were put in and taken out so no guess if they could control the pond under normal conditions.Thanks-- ewest

b_pond - thanks for your explanation.

Don't wanna argue with anybody, but I run bank lines in the Iowa River and use 4-6" bluegill or bullheads up to 10". I've had CC as small as 2 lbs or so bite on a 6" gill or a large bullehead...granted, sometimes they choke on 'em, but they bite regularly on them...

A nephew's friend caught a 51" long flathead in a nearby river (hoop net) a couple weeks ago. I think he said its head weighed around 17 pounds. I got a fairly quick glimpse (riding on 4 wheeler behind nephew's young son as he gave me a whirlwind tour past it, some mushroom patches, deer feeder, etc.) of what remained of its skull (been seriously chewed on by critters) this weekend.

It looked big enough to chomp down on something; but then I bet a 51" long bass could too!

JUst saw this post. Can flatheads contorl bluegill, yes they can wipe them out. Can channels I don't think so (big pond will argue with me). THis is not to say they will not eat alot of bluegill especially if not feeding them, but control NO. I have seen many ponds that are overrun with bluegill and stocked with the densitiy mentioned with channel cats. Cats are skinny and lots of bluegill runing around.

By all reports, Flatheads are the SLOW way to "renovate" a small pond - stock a couple and wait for them to eat everything else.

I have a few CC questions maby you guys can help me with.

I have a CC/hybrid BG pond, not sure of size, but easily 1A. I stocked it about 6 years ago, with whatever the recomeded amounts were, like 100CC and 250HBG. Anyway I have been fishing it for a few days, and catching some nice eating size fish and some too small to eat. Today I used cut golden shiners, and casted as far as I could, and cought about 3-5lb fish. The fish look health and fat. I do not feed them but want to start. The pond is easily 50 years old and had native cats/bullhead/perch in it when I stocked it. I live in SW Oklahoma.

1. Do I need to worry about the large number of golden shiners in my pond, or are they ok?

2. The perch/HBG population is probably down but not out, so should I worry about them?

3. Considering my info, anyone wanna guess what the biggest crop of fish may weigh?

4. I realize most feeders are on a dock, or a platform. And this pond is used for livestock. So could I just get a feeder that feeds from the bank? or do you guys think livestock would bother it? Maby I just need to build a small dock.

Thanks everyone, JB

JB, could we have a little more info:

What kind(s) of fish are you catching besides GShiner? CCats, Bullheads, Sunfish/Perch (by species if possible), other? I'm assuming the 3-5 pounder was a Channel Cat.

As far as protecting a feeder from livestock, perhaps you could put a good, solid board fence around it (high on three sides, maybe shorter on the water side to shoot feed over, or raise the feeder inside it?). I have my windmill on top of a small hill which puts it inside the cattle pasture, so I drove four fence posts and put treated 2"x6"s on three sides (4 rows) and a gate on the fourth; this keeps my cows out with no problems.

On rereading that last paragraph, if I were fencing around a feeder I'd put a gate on the shore side for access so I didn't have to lift feed sacks over the fence.

Yes but Greg Being that Blues are more like Flatheads when it comes to predation, would the Blues not do a good job of controling bluegill numbers?...Or would they just wipe them out as well??

BTW we caught a 10 lb bass out of the lake you shocked just a couple of days ago....also I need to get some bass as well I did not pick up any from the state..

It is my observation and experience that cows qualify for the bull in the China shop saying. They will smell the pellets and try to get to them. I'd either build a dock or put a pipe fence around it.

Theo,

As far as I know, they are the only kinds of fish in the pond. I happened to put a 1 pound bass in it time, and I am sure there is a blue cat in it.

The fish I am catching are probably somewhere around 8-14 feet deep. Cought on cut golden shiners, good color, seem healthy. It is very easy fishing. The biggest size I know of are about the 3-5lb range, cought about 6 in that range.

I hope this helps,
Thanks JB.
and thinks for the help about the feeder problem.

Use cattle panel for the fencing around the feeder. Feed shoots straight thru wire. Takes four tee posts and four panels. Four feet high. Of course you need to set the feeder out a bit in the water and use a short step ladder to feed it.

JB, let me see if I have this all straight:

The significant (noticeable) fish populations in the pond are GShiners and CC. There may be a Blue Cat, an LMB, and perhaps residual HBG and/or their descendants. Also possible are left over bullheads and assorted sunfish, but you're not seeing them.

This amateur will now take a look at the rest of your questions and submit my opinions for extensive rebuttal and correction by more experienced minds.

I am sure many of your existing CC and GShiners will quickly start eating feed if supplied. If I remember correctly, 6 year old CC should have years of life span left and will put on weight and size. GShiners will put on size and probably spawn better with added food. Feeding may also reveal fish (Blue Cat, sunfish, Bullheads(?)) you may/may not have (probably not the LMB, though).

Depends on what you want for the pond. I doubt your CC will ever eliminate the Shiners; they will utilize them for food. If the BC/LMB are alive & well they'll put some away, too. But I doubt you have enough predator aggressiveness now to dent Shiner numbers. If you add more predators, probably any kind you stock would make use of the GShiners as forage.

After 6 years, the original HGB you stocked are probably all gone. My guess is that if you are not noticing any sunfish, whatever offspring the HGB or native sunfish have left in the pond are in such small numbers that, if you decide to stock a new predator (LMB, HSB, even more Cats), the sunfish remnants will remain under control. Also, if you stock regular BG for forage, small numbers of miscellaneous sunfish shouldn't mess up your gene pool if predators are around to eat any slender Green Sunfish or genetically inferior HBG descendants.

I won't guess how much, but I would put my money on the Shiners as making up the biggest chunk of your biomass by a wide margin.

If I were you, I think I'd start feeding, fish more, and see what I more could learn about the fish in the pond. You have the potential of having enough problems (Bullheads, HBG offspring, Green Sunfish) to at least consider renovating if any of them show up in numbers sufficient to present a problem with your plans for the pond.

Thanks for your help Theo,

That's what I expected to hear.

Thanks for the help on the feeder, I know what I can do now. I can make it work

Thanks everyone, JB

CC as the primary predator for BG isn't a natural choice. LB and other subspecies of bass have always been the BG primary predator and the two species have co-dependence. That is, they neither one do very well in the absence of the other.

I certainly understand how pond owners would want to focus on LMB as they are piscavorous at a young age and are better able to reproduce. My recent interest in catfish as predators deals with the failure of LMB-BG combinations in small public waters where I live. The failure isn't the fault of bluegill nor of the bass. These waters get a lot of fishing pressure and fisherman upset the balance either by harvest and/or fishing stress related mortality. This issue isn't just a public water one. I am sure some pond owners here have experienced poaching that has upset their best efforts to manage their fishing resource.

It would be great to hear from Theo as to the tangible results of his experiment.

I doubt ... but haven't yet formulated an opinion as to whether CC only predation might work. If it could, it would require that the biomass of CC be primarily of the size that predominantly eats fish. I would think that it might also require that the pond resources provide little food to the large CC except for the BG. For example, mussels might be in short supply in a successful pond or at least the easily harvested foods would be stressed enough to force catfish to hunt fish for their weight maintenance and growth needs.

It also occurs to me that CC that are consuming BG may actually help LB fry survival. In other words, could they provide a synergy that helps to bolster the population of small LMB by eliminating some of the LMB fry and spawn eating BG and improving spawning success? This may be less a benefit for LMB than for BG. Whatever the case, I would certainly like to see larger BG where I fish and perhaps a few of you might as well in your ponds. LMB are easy to catch and in lower numbers so they would be much easier to control in overpopulation than an overpopulation of BG. The only two BOWs I regularly catch 9"+ bluegill here in the city are also the best for catching large catfish. Perhaps a coincidence or speaks more of the bio-environment of the BOWs. In any case, if large CC help BG size the evidence would have to support the proposition by coincidental observation. Even if we can't be sure there is a benefit, we can't rule out a potential benefit. Perhaps it may be worthwhile for deeper investigation.

From my perspective, I simply don't have the experience to understand what might be an ideal combination of CC,LMB & BG or whether a CC & BG is feasible. It would likely depend on the fishing pressure and pond ecosystem. But certainly a predator which is difficult to catch with artificial lures and especially traditional CC baits would be very beneficial to many of the waters I fish.

I have been reading this line on CC and controlling BG. this goes back aways, and this is now 2019. So here is my take on it as I have four year old CC, BG, GSH and a few LMB. One, I do not see the LMB very often, I see lots of YOY but not much after that. My BG they have very good spawns and lots of YOY, they too are not seen much. I have caught three CC between 26 -30 inches and weighting between 10 and 13 pounds, they eat what ever they want, I know I still have at least two or three bigger yet, and hope they do not eat my out of fish. My pond is half-acre and 30 feet deep at the deepest. We caught plenty of BG and small CCs so there are still lots of fish, but still I have big mouths that get hungry and my pond is not over crowded with BG, just my 2 cents worth.