I am a little east of Fort Worth and we are very dry. That put one of my ponds (1/2 acre) to about 2 or 3 feet deep. This morning there was about a half inch of ice covering everything but one small part that was in the wind. This is only the second day of cold weather. In and under the ice along the edges I saw several small fish dead. I also saw a large bass and a huge gizzard shad I put in there years ago. And some of the small ones were spinning around.
I'm not sure why they died. I always have fish in troughs that get thicker ice than that. My concern is I have bunches of catfish up to 10 pounds that need to be fried and eaten. Do you think they are okay or will I be seeing a bunch of floaties when it thaws?

Cold?

The catfish should have gone into hibernation when it first got cold enough. If that was yesterday and you already have ice then they should be cooled off by I-don't-know-exactly-when but I would think by now. I'm no expert on the details of when just that they do. A sudden drop in temp or unusual temperatures could have done your fish in but catfish are a little more resilient than YOY and the aged. They should be fine once they get into hibernation mode.

You need an expert who has experience in the matter though.

Part of the problem is the rapid temp drop. Last Saturday it was 92 degrees before the fronts started coming in. This morning the TV said it was 14 in some areas around Fort Worth. It was 8 this morning where my ponds are at Bowie. The weather forecaster just said tomorrow morning will be the coldest temp in 10 years. He hasn't yet said what that is.

But heck, they just said that someplace up North hit minus 43. I guess we are still a banana belt.

Yep sounds like temp stress to me. To rapid of a temp drop. I had this happen a few weeks ago on my pond even here up north. We had a warm up and then high winds and very very cold temps. Saw a couple dead fish in the shallows and one bluegill that was having trouble. I'll bet those fish were already weak though.

As far as gizzard shad they have trouble in cold temps. It's normal to have them die off up here in winter to some extent.

Thanks for your time. The more I thought about it the more I think it was the weaker ones. I dumped all kinds of fish in this pond to see what would happen. Crappie overpopulated, a few bass got big, a yellow cat was doing good last time it was seen and the catfish did great. It became my catfish dump pond in that all the small ones I cought from my other pond wrere thrown in there.
My point is that the catfish were fed, the water was muddy, and the little crappie and bluegill were skinny.
I'll look again when it thaws.

Really don't wanna start no arguments, but catfish don't "hibernate". Here in Iowa, I've caught the dang things under the ice. They may slow their movements some, and they don't eat as much, but you can pull 'em out by the basketful if you find them in winter. Drop a couple of waxies or a ball of shad guts into a pile of cats and you got a battle on 4 lb test...

Matt's correct, catfish do feed, but not much, under ice cover.

Brian's low water level means less pond volume which makes the pond more vulnerable to rapid temperature fluxuations. Muddy water during stressfull conditions also becomes a stressing factor.

My bad on the hibernation. Its not something I would know that much about anyway. You have to take most of the things I say with a couple pounds of salt and pepper.

My catfish were okay. I seined yesturday and in one pass I pulled out 13 cats two to 10 pounds most being 6 or 7pounds and 5 bass 2 to 6 pounds. I'm guessing on the weights but will weigh them when I clean them.