Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Lots of small brim , discontinue my feeder ?

I have quite a bit of very small brim in my pond w/ catfish. I am worried that they will take over if I keep letting the feeder run and the catfish just wait on the feeder rather than help keeping the brim at bay. What do ya'll think?? Right now I have been going out about every 3 days and just throwing some feed out by hand. Thanks for Info !!!!!!!!!

Do you have largemouth bass, too?

Welcome Scruffy. Tell us a little about your pond and goals for it. IMO feeding or not the CC (I assume that is what you have)will not control the BG population. This assumes normal populations of both BG and CC.

About an acre big decently deep. Stocked w/ channel cat , brim and hybrid yellow sunfish. Goals are cat for food , brim for kids and cain poles , hybrid for small lures. It does not have black bass ( didn't think it was big enough ) Have aerator as well. I have a auto feeder but stopped it hoping the cats would eat a few of the real small brim to keep population at bay. I feed the fish about every 3-4 days and the catfish act like they are starving. Notsure what I should do. Do I even need to worry about getting over populated w/ brim or not. I put in the recommended amounts of each by hatchery , don't remember the quantity now. Also I added some slow moving minnows , but I think all the small fish are the Blue Gills. I got one of the bigger cats the other day and it looked like it the body wasnt big enough for the head , but then I caught another one the other day and it looked kind of fat ( maybe he's a bully) Built and added fish about 3 years ago. THANKS!!!

I am curious if your CC (channel cats) reproduce in the pond?? or if it is a put and take.

What are your hybrid yellow sunfish are? Do you have a picture? If they are similar to white or silver bass your dam may be too small for that species to truely thrive.

having more appex preddators to keep them under contol may greatly help. Do you like Large Mouth Bass (LMB)?

To people on this forum a 1 acre pond is pretty good sized and can hold a far amout of fish. Is decently deep 8ft or 18 ft.

Good luck scruffy,

Loren

FYI- post with pictures seem to get more responses, but you will get lots of answers.
There are a lot of people on here from texas, and they will give great advice, you may even live close to some. I suspect they might ask what hatchry you got them from. Did you stock bait fish too or not?? is your water clear or slightly stained; aka aproximatly how deep can you see?

Yeah, I believe you will be overpopulated with sunfish. You can have bass in small ponds (even 1/10 acre), you just can't have a LOT of them. You can probably stock somewhere between 50 and 100 LMB in your pond depending on their size.

Can you tell us how many fish you are taking out of the pond per month/year?

What do the BG look like? Thin, longer than tall, with larger eyes? If you could, catch a few and take close up full side pictures of them and post them.

There is a chart in the archives of what the fish should weigh for their length. It's called a Relative weight chart.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=160456#Post160456

The problem with catfish as a BG predator is that the CC don't have that large of a mouth, so they can't eat a wide size range of BG. I think LMB are the best pond management tool for keeping BG in check.

Hybrid yellow sunfish?

Maybe I am calling them the wrong name , but they are hybrids and they are yellow. guy said they would get as big as a frying pan and about a 1" thick. Right now they are about 6" long and 3/4 thick and put up a fight. guy said pound for pound a Black Bass have nothing on these fish. Starting to think about it maybe my pond is only about 1/2 acre. ( Tell fish stories LOL )

There are lots of names for the same fish -- depending on location, and even on distributors and hatcheries.

From what you've said, it sounds like you have hybrid sunfish, which is a cross between a bluegill and a green sunfish. They look like this:




Bream or brim is another term that means different things to different people. Let's assume that the brim you planted were bluegill.

Even if they weren't you will need some type of aggressive predator to keep the brim under control. Catfish are helpful, but they will never keep up. As ESSHUP, says largemouth bass are by far the best answer to keep things going.

I wouldn't stop feeding, unless the fish stop eating because of the extreme weather.

Good luck,
Ken

If your pond has been there for a few years, google acme planimeter. That will give you a tool to measure your BOW.