There has been a lot of talk of tad poles lately and my pond is one of those that has had them since last fall. They are finally turning to frogs and dissipating, but because of their overwhelming presence, I have been wondering what to do with them, if anything.

Background - A week ago I set a trap and caught some of my FHM's for fishing on the Lamine River. We caught a few dozen larges and had a nice fishing trip. Another trip was planned for last Saturday so I set the trap out Friday night, but only caught a few minnows and a lot of bull tadpoles (we had to stop and buy some minnows). So, when given lemons...I started the day out with the tadpoles as bait. I was operating the trolling motor so a lot of cast fishing was not going to happen and I just let my tadpole, hooked up through the lower lip out the bridge of the nose, trail behind under a bobber. I caught a couple of 1.5# LMB off the tadpoles to my surprise. Tadpoles will catch fish! The only other time I have caught bass with tads is by agitating them on the beds. They were not interested in eating the tads, but rather just trying to keep them out of the bed. This time the tads were moving along rather slowly in 3-4 foot of water and probably bobbin along about 1 foot or 2 below the surface. The bass were actively wanting to eat them.

Now, with all that said, my fishing partner out-fished me horribly and was using minnows and worms. I switched to worms when he started pulling in RES that were close to a pound and plenty of 1/2# BG's.

Moral of the trip...fish will hit bull tads, but we were better of with the minnows or worms. The overall "experiment" was to determine if fish actively seek and eat tadpoles...Well, I, now, know they do and that is good for those of us that have too many tads in the pond. I just wish my newly stocked fish had the gape for it...next year!

Here's the "Show Off Your Catch" photos. All the bass were in the slot range and had to go back. These fish were caught on night crawlers.

I think my tadpoles are mostly eaten by crappie and big bluegill

Those are some great looking fish! Its always to fun to get some fishing in with a good friend - even if they do out fish you lol

it would be nice to not guess but to know for sure... I can propose that I have less BF tadpoles but I'm not sure exactly why. My kids have seen YP come up way WAY in the shallows to eat something but are they the pellets that floated into the shallow? Is it the BF tadpoles? Also we happen to have the black swimming babies of the American toads swarming the banks and perhaps the YP found a taste for those?

I refrained from raking the oak leaves out of my shallow waters this year mainly to protect the toad 'toadpoles' and to give cover for any critters that might still be there and I see the BF tadpoles can zip for cover under those leaves very effectively. If I have a sustaining population of scuds ever they will hopefully find some leaves helpful.

When the toads all hop out of the water here soon and head for the woods then I'll probably rake as I like the clear sandy edge for a few feet all the way around look. It also helps me at night when I come with a strong light I can see tiny perch resting on the bottom in the sand. For how sensitive their eyes are purported to be, they don't seem to mind much when I blast them at night with my flood light.

I guess we have to find someone with some fish cages and see how they do with tadpoles and see what their preference is.

Maybe NEDOC can feed tadpoles to his musky and see if they like them?