Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Converting a pond from bass to Catfish

I recently purchased a home with a small pond. The pond is about 1/2 acre and the deepest spot is 9ft. The person I bought it from is an avid Bass fisherman and has kept it stocked well with large mouth bass. I myself could care less about catching a bass. The pond has a large population of bream and minnows. Do I need to remove the bass out of the pond or just add catfish and let them eat the bream? A commercial fisherman will be supplying me with 12" catfish. Also will it hurt to mix the type of catfish? I will supplement them with feed. How many fish do I need?

Remove bass according to goals. Stock no more than 200 12" cats in half acre pond. I suggest only channel and not blues and definently not bullheads or flatheads.

Why not blues? I can understand why you would not stock flatheads, but I think blues would be OK.

How big are the bass in your pond? If there is any over 4 pounds they would proubly make a meal of that size catfish. If it was my pond i would catch all the bass out with fishing rod or get someone to shock the tank. If they shock the tank leave the bream and minnows. If there is any common carp or gizzard shad that come up i would highly recommend take them out because they would eventialy take over the pond and muddy the water.

If you want the catfish to spawn in your pond well i would put a number of wood box with one opening big enough to let 2 fish in to spawn.

The problem with blue cats is that they can get to big in that size of a pond and eat everything out. My friend knew somebody that had a small pond with blues for a few then suddenly stopped catching fish. Then during a drought the pond went dry and only thing left was 3 30+ pound blues. I think they would be ok in a pond as long as you can catch all the 10+ pounders out. This would be easy to do if you have a feeder on the pond.

If you do have any large bass that you are taking out you might consider trying to sell them. Adult bass are not cheap. I've heard of of people spending $1000 on a single 10 lb largemouth. Not sure how much 4 or 5 pounders would sell for but I imagine they would be relitvly valuable.

just a thought
-Scott

By the way Zach how big was your friends pond?

3/4 of an acre and 20 feet deep. its more of a pit

Keep all the Bream, shad and minnows that you can, and add a mixture of blues and channels. With supplemental feeding, you feed the bream, shad and the cats. With the bream and shad feeding on the food, they can become extra forage for the cats. Keeping a few bass would not hurt either, but the supplemental feeding, I agree is needed on a pond that small. Stock channels at about 2 to 1 over the blues in other words, around 125 channels and 75 blues. Can't see a problem with this..

Thanks for all the great information. I will be checking back here with all my questions.