Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Large Channel Cats in Pond & Predation on Bluegill

My club has several pond that are relatively old. Our oldest pond is only 5 acres, and has lmb, bluegill, shellcracker, and channel cats it it. The cats were stocked by some members within the past 10 years. When our feeder goes off, we no longer see the "feeding frenzy" of large bluegills we used to have, we now see several dozen very large channel cats eating the food. This is right where our bluegill used to spawn. We don't have the large bluegill anymore to speak of. Could these large channel cats be negatively impacting the bluegill population? They seem to be staying now right where the bluegill used to spawn and we are wondering if they have preyed on the beds and young bluegill. We don't see lots of shellcracker anymore either. There is structure in the pond, it is fertilized appropriately and aerated. The bass population is probably out of balance too at this point (not many large, a lot of smaller bass). My first concern though is these channel cats. Should we be trying to catch them out?

Do you keep track what gets kept by fishermen? Im no expert just wondering.I have cc in my pond and have good bg. I think too many bass and fishing bg beds is a common problem in the ponds around here.

CC will eat your BGs if they can get them in their mouth I would put out some jug lines baited with 4-5" BG and get some of those big boys out of there. There prolly more there than what is coming to the feeder

This^^^

I also think anglers are far more efficient predators of larger bluegills than another fish.

CC, like most catfish, will eat anything they can fit in their mouth. As they get large they become an apex predator. It probably boils down to balance in the pond. Too many large catfish could certainly reduce your BG population. It happened in my pond before I drained it and cleaned it out. I chose to leave the CC out when I restocked.

I have CC in my pond and I've found they are great table fare and fun to catch BUT, as with any fish stocked, they need to be managed. I recommend you get them out at 3 pounds or less if you don't want them as apex predators.

CC can and will prey on all small fish. The likely problem you have is a function of several causes. Those would be the difficulty of keeping a LMB/BG pond in balance , CC eating much of the food meant for BG and reducing their spawning and inadequate harvest mgt. Spawning areas should be left for spawning. IMO taking out the CC and moving the feeding area would be a big + .

Ditto - I did the exact same thing last year. I had way too many large CC - and to boot they were darn near impossible to catch. I drained and restocked....so far so good.

Mine were hard to catch too and I never threw any back. Seemed like as soon as I caught one, the rest wised up and would not bite.