Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations CC eradication....

Ok I now have thousands of channel cats in my 6 year old pond as the spawn has been phenominal over the last 3 years, ( only structures are a handful of cedars layed on the bottom and 1 stump) so I need to get rid of a bunch of little guys to keep the rest of my fish in check. They are eating me out of pellets and starting to eliminate my BG populations so I want to get rid of a bunch for the winter since Ill stop pellets here in a month and after that I got afeeling they will eat everything in the lake. Anyways Im looking for a 75' seine so i can do a handful of sweeps durring feeding time and Im sure I can get several hundred of them 7-14" out of there so my question is where is the best place to look for a longer seine, Ive looked on Ebay, Netcraft, cabelas etc and everyone is about 80= dollars and since Ive been unemployed since June, thats really not an option, anyone know of anywhere else to find them cheap? Heck Id rent one if someone had one to rent...Ill use 1 time a year most likely to keep them under control so even a cheaply made one would be just fine. Thanks

Salmonid

If you can't afford the seine then my advice is to fish for them.

Invite some friends over. Get a few dozen poles in the water. You could probably catch a few hundred in a day if you really worked at it.

That may not be enough to manage the pond how you would like to manage it, but getting a few hundred out is better than getting zero out AND it makes for one hell of a fish fry!

You could even open your pond for the day to a local boyscout troop, or maybe have a fund raiser. Invite a ton of local fisherman over and ask for a $5 donation per person to fish for channel cats in your pond. Then donate all of the fish caught to hungry local families. You could make enough money to buy your seine, you could harvest your fish (or some of them) and you could help your community.

There are a lot of ways to do it, but when money is tight you need to get creative. You could even have people with local ponds come over to catch CC for their own ponds. You could get rid of yours and help them get theirs at the same time.

I'm sure that other members here will have some good ideas for you too. I know that a lot of us are feeling the pinch of the economy. Just read my signature, "reality keeps ruining my life" LOL.

Mark, I am not sure of any place where you can find a seine any cheaper than that for the size you are looking for.

why not try some good old southern jugging or a trot line.I think in a matter of a few days you could harvest quite a few for the freezer ;)As far as jugging goes my friends in Tennessee would use a 2 liter with a trailer to a 20 oz bottle so we could snag them with a treble hook on a fishing rod in small ponds.

You can also build traps out of galvanized wire mesh - many designs online DIY. They are designed to trap BG and BH, but imagine your dense population of CC would also be subject to capture. The other ideas here are solid, too, but do require more work than trapping, but are also more fun.

I think that jugging is a kick. Sitting on the shore line with a camp fire, a case of brewed beverages, and waiting for the jugs to start bouncing. We did it with clear jugs (milk containers) and those glow sticks (not sure what they are called). We put in different colors in the bottles and bet on which color will be next. Usually a shot to the losers.

I like the trailer bottle idea. Going to have to give that a go.

Agreed that's a good tip, I love the trailer jug idea. Probably saves the back from lots of bending over.

Good way to get rid of Turtles as well I am sure.

Mark B/Salmonid,

I may not be the ultimate expert, but I've been there, and I have a little bit of experience with these issues going back at least 50 years.

First, are you sure they are Channel Cats? Based on what you've posted, I'm concerned that you may have bullheads. Eradication of the two is significantly different.

Channel Cats are both good and bad. They grow fast. They are a lot of fun to outsmart as you try to catch them. They are one of the best tasting freshwater fish you can find.

Bullheads are pretty tasty too. Their memories are much shorter, thus they are easier to catch. They are smaller. Unfortunately, they are not quite as tasty as CC, without a lot of work at cleaning time. I think I have a post somewhere, which I could find if necessary, on great tasting bullhead preparation for a neighborhood gathering.

As for a 75 foot seine -- I wouldn't want to be on either end of that thing. In the last 50 years I've pulled a lot of 4- to 5-foot high seines, in widths from about 4-foot to 100-foot. Once you start getting beyond 25 feet, it takes a little bit of experience to pull it without loosing a lot of the catch. At 40 foot, it becomes even more difficult to not loose the catch. At 65 foot, it almost needs the pull of Jesse Ventura and the Incredible Hulk, but they need to have the finesse of keeping the bottom and top of the seine where it needs to be, and they need to be strong enough, plus knowing what it feels like to harvest it properly into a tub or tank.

Back to the Channel Catfish vs. Bullheads. Can you post some photos?

Bullheads are fairly easy to catch with worms or minnows. Several Pond Boss friends and I removed over eighty 12-14 inch fat bullheads out of Sunil's pond earlier this year.

Channel Cats are a lot more wary. I currently have 10 to 15 CC, between about 24 and 36 inches, in a 3/4 acre pond that need to get pulled out. I've pulled out about five in the last five weeks. They are depriving my trophy bluegill and smaller catfish out of evening dinners.

I'm able to pull out about one or two per week, using 6-10 inch creek chubs on #4-#6 circle hooks, on 24# line hooked to the shore. Even then, a number have gotten loose. I don't know what it will take to catch them.

I've been here before, and it does eventually correct itself. The last correction was due to a "turnover" that killed a number of 24-36 inch channel cats while we were at a Pond Boss Conference in Arlington, TX a number of years ago.

It sounds like you really need to add predators, and then a lot more forage to your pond. You need some aggressive predators. Large Mouth Bass are usually what we suggest as predators. But there are other alternatives that I will leave to others to suggest. If successful, you will need to add forage for your predators. Again, we usually suggest bluegill, but there are also a lot of alternatives.

Regards,
Ken

all great info, here is the first update, just managed to Borrow a 50' seine and this week will be our first attempt at getting some out. And yes, they are all Channel cats, I been a catfish tourney fishermen for the last 12 years and they are all channels witha handful of small blue cats thrown in but those I will keep. ( not reproducing) My pond has a small inlett that is also my beach so its shallow and I feed right in that area so I can go out my dock while partners walk out far side of beach and after pellets drift naturaly to the beach area, we can easily drop seine in behind them in about 3FOW and start moving them into the beach area. Of course with all good plans....they always sound good on paper..LOL
Now as far as catching them goes the traps havent worked and the castnetting gives you 1 shot at them and they are darned fast at escaping under them in ahurry and then there is nothing for a week or so until they feel safe again. I manage to catch a handful a week out and dispose of them but they are quite smart, I have HSB in the pond so I really dont want to use jugs and hurt them. Whats funny is the baits I use are always lures, if I use any cut bait at all even gobs of nightcrawlers, I always catch the HSB over the cats.

Ill post results in a few days trying to coordinate a couple of my catfish eating buddies into helping me so they can have catfish forever...8^)

Salmonid

Have we determined how big this CC pond is?? Without lots of predators that include bass I've seen CC become overpopulated and stunted. If the CC problem in unmanageable consider reovating the pond with rotenone and starting over. I would be interesting to have the pond drained down and see where the CC have been spawning. I have seen where CC have dug small caves into the pond side walls for spawning cavities.

Usually you will only get large seines from specality suppliers such as: Memphis Net and Twine, Douglas Net company, Nichols Net & Twine. On the rare occassion you can fine a larger seine on eBay.

Yeah, Im gonna splurge on a 50' after I get another job. for now borrowing a 50 ft one gonna see how that works out then decide if I can handle a bigger one or not, LOL My pond is set up good for this with a shallow beach area that is in an inlet and thats where I feed so it will work out good. The pond is normally about 4/5 an acre but now down about 4 ft with major droughts this summer here in the midwest so its now like a 1/2 acre. I do have a dozen 5-8 lbers ( CC)that commonly feed and if I get them, there out of here as well. The pond doesnt have LM bass as the plan was for the channels to not spawn, and have some of them be the primary predator with my HSB as Im trying to have a quality YP and BC pond which was working out great until the channels started multiplying, a good number of healthy YP and BC in the 10-13" range with many nice bluegills in the 8-9" range also, HSB are mostly in the 2.5 -4+ lb range, all fish nice and healthy....I pellet feed from April to Oct and also buy 25 lbs of FHM every spring to keep a healthy amount of food in the pond. so the bottom line is I really just need to thin the CC poulation out and all will be fine, not ready to toss away 6 years of experimentation because of them, at least not yet..LOL

Salmonid

short update, borrowed an old seine 50' and spent some time patching it up and at the same tim realized the net was trashed from dry rot and so went ahead with the plan, had a dozen 2-4 lbers in the seine and then they were gone as apparently one of them punched a hole in the seine and it tore about 2 ft across so all I ended up with were a bunch of gills and shiners, go figure the plan would have worked at least to some degree but the net was the failed part. I got a 60' seine the wife is gonna allow me to get for an early christmas present, that will help and we are gonna try agin in a few weeks so Ill post agin after then.

Salmonid