Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Catfish as predators on bluegills etc.

I’ve always wondered how good channel catfish are at controlling bluegills, crappie, green sunfish and other members of the sunfish family. In the typical LMB, bluegill and catfish lake, how much of the predation on the bluegills comes from the catfish? How many of the LMB fry and fingerlings do the catfish eat? While I haven’t read of anyone trying it, would just a catfish and bluegill lake work? How good of predators are catfish on crappies? Are the blue/channel catfish better predators? How big do the catfish need to get to be effective predators on bluegills, crappies etc? Any other ideas on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

I ahve often wondered this my self, Norm. Every one that has ever had a pond has always had bass in it, in some sort of way and could never say what would happen if there were channels as preditors.

From what I read and gather when channels get to a large size of around 8 to 10 lbs. They become almost as good a preditor as bass at around 2 to 4 lb range. I know people will beg to differ on that but from my experiance and from what I read this is what I gather.

Now instead of channels use Blues they are much better at predation than channels. They are really just as good as bass when they get to about 2 lbs. Here again people will sware bass is the beter preditor, but just read other posts on this site and also look at what it takes to catch blues in the wild, also remember blues eat bass!!! Here again also, people rarely ever stock blues so people don't really have the data and knowledge on these wonderfull creatures..

Then Last but not least there is the Appaloosa cat. By far the most aggressive and most predatious fish in the pond the I have asked on several posts how would a crappie Appaloosa lake do as far as balancing goes and I think I stump people because I never get an answer....

In all catfish I think could make a good preditor fish to control panfish populations. They don't reproduce in ponds so there numbers are easily managed. They live longer than most other scaled fish. Also, there mouths are large enough to eat the larger species of pan fish like crappie..

If you put apaloosa cat in your pond they could wipe out your whole pond. How much of a predator channel/blue catfish become depends on how much you feed them. I have cleaned large catfish out of fed ponds and found no fish in there belly. I have caught large catfish out of ponds they were not fed and found 3-4 bream. We feed our ponds and we still catch catfish on artificial bass lures that look like fish. In an experiment at the UGA coastal plain station channel cats and crappie were placed together in a pond. The fish were never fed. 2 years later the pond seemed to be fairly balanced. There was no readily visible evidence of any offspring. It was assumed that they were eating each other's offsring. Don't know what happened after those 2 years.

It is my understanding that they can be a first class predator after they reach a couple of pounds. The only problem is that recruitment is so low. Baby catfish swim slowly in a big school. Virtually none make it to breeding size due to sumfish predation when small then larger fish predation before they reach maturity. Restocking catfish in a pond means buying 10 to 12 inch fish in lieu of 4 to 6 inch for initial pond stocking.

Blue cats are more preditory than channel cats who also feed on insects and the yellow cat being the biggest preditor of the three. We have always caught channel cats on cut bait, chicken livers and worms but when we wanted the big blues or yellows we bait our trot lines with live perch. If it was me I would go with the blue cats if they were my only preditor and channels if I already had a preditor.
Randy

tickfawriver,
Do you have a lake ? what size? What do you have stocked in it?

I have a channel/greensunfish pond. The channels are very effective on small perch. I have had this pond for about two years and the pond has gone from stunted greenies to a balanced pond. The only bait that works to catch channels out of that pond is greenies from that pond. I have tried shad, liver and stinkbait but caught nothing. Then i tried a live greenie and caught good numbers of fish. This shows they are hunting these fish in the pond. Also the livebait catches 3 to 1 over dead greenies. This proves that channels are not slow bottom creatures but effective preditors.

So folks there you have it Cats are just as good as Bass when it come to predation

Seriously folks, to most of us, who are students on this subject, would probably think it's "Utterly Ridiculous" to think that one could have a sucsesful fishery with out having first the basic building blocks, to any pond or lake. One of thoes building blocks being a well balance between Bass and Bream!!
Bass are by far, the most studied and researched fish in this industry, and a close second is the Blue gill and Red ear.
Channels have not been studied or considered as a predetor because most people really want and like Bass, which really works fine as a preditor. With this high demand for trophey Bass, comes years extensive research and knowledge on this species, almost to the point that it seems only right and natural for Large Mouth bass to exsist in any sucsesful pond.

I would think channel catfish are more studied than bass. It is the backbone of 100 million dollar aquaculture indistry in Ark and Miss. THey have plenty of studies on diets of channels. Other catfish are not as researched. What you may not realize is funding. Who will fund the study for the predator habits of catfish species to balance a "bream pond"?

It is easy for folks to say well they attacked my spinnerbait so they will eat live fish. Sure they will, but in ponds where folks manage the catfish the bluegill are usually stunted with 1,000 of 4-5 inch bluegill. Now if you do not feed cats and put in enough catfish they will eliminate all the bluegill. Heck get some one on the board to voulnteer a pond and you can approach in a scintific manner and see what the stocking of certain number of bluegill and certain number of a particular catfish species will result in a few years, otherwise a college will not take on this research.

I know for a fact the bass and bluegill combo is not optimal, but like you said it is the easiest there is. LIke I always say it is about your goals.

Remember this guys it takes a cannel to be about 6 to 7 lbs to really become predatious as Bass. It takes a lot of time and expense to grow 100 channels to this size! While bass after only about 5 to 6 months they are already good preditors. This is far less effort to do and is much much cheaper as well.

It seems very possible to make channels the only preditor in your lake or pond, but the real question is why? If your goals were trophy channel cats, I would still start off with a good bass bream mix. Bass and bream can only help in raising big channels because channels will sooner or later start eating the Bass and bream as forage!!...think about it.
Like Greg said before, its all about your goals..

Thats very true. Channels up to 2 pounds usally stick with small fish, invertabrates(spelling?), and crawdads. When they get to 3pounds or higher it is a different story. On a catfish pond with only living things to eat(no pellets), i think bluegill, fathead, redear and crawdad combo will suit these fish well. If you had a blue cat pond, i think the pond should have everything the channel catfish pond has plus threadfin shad. Blue cats are suited for open water hunting so threadfin will help there.

One of my experiences with channels is different. When I first stocked 4 to 6 inch channels, I saw schools of fatheads fleeing around the pond. I noticed it to be small channels chasing them. It took a lot to get them to eat the feed. I have no idea what they did to the bluegill but did open a couple of 2 pounders and found turtles the size of a silver dollar. I also saw one clobber a 12 inch snake. I think they are excellent predators.

Boy eat a 12 inch snake! this gets me excited to wonder what the Blues could do!! wow and turtles as well!!!

I don't know Greg...I might have to get you to stock channels when my lake is done... never know!

I never grew up fishing for bass but rather fishing for catfish and have always liked them. It seems like catfish should control bluegills easily. The only problem with this combination is that the catfish wouldn't successfully reproduce. With the thousands (millions?) of catfish raised, they are really cheap to buy. If they can control bluegills, why wouldn't they be able to control crappies? Again, I'm assuming a put, grow and harvest catfishery. In small lakes, this would not cost that much.

Because Norm it takes channels at least 6 lbs to be an effective preditor, the bigger they get the more predatious they get. Yes they are cheap to buy as fingrlings, but so are bass, channels do hardly nothing as preditors under 5 lbs! This is where bass come into play, the are good preditors at around a pound or maybe less!!
If you set up a fishery where you had a bunch of channels at around 6 to 15 lbs, and harvested only those that were greater than lets say 10 lbs. Then replaced every large channel with a fingerling, then you might have somthing. But look at what this requires, if you put small channels in with adult preditor fish they will get eatin just as if you had adult bass. So you would have to turn around and raise them in cages until they get around a pound then let them loose with the rest of the population..
Man!! sounds like too much work to me!!

Big Pond, my pond/lake is 4 acres and has just been renovated. We stocked bg, fatheads, channels and bass. I was actually referring to fishing in general and should have clearified that. BTW I left out the best bait for channels as someone posted previously it is crawfish.

Big_Pond Thanks for the info. I can buy 1-2 lb. channel cats extremely cheap. What I didn't know is how big the cats had to be for them to be good predators of bluegills. I'm glad that others like LMB and bluegills but I'm sure not a fan. I would much rather use large catfish as predators than LMB. If I can avoid the LMB and use catfish as predators, then I would use SMB as the game fish. LMB aren't in the same league as SMB (and many other species) as game fish. What I'm trying to do is get away from the LMB/bluegill combo.

Norm,

I have raised hundreds of thousands of catfish. They become good predators around 2 lbs. Especially if they are not fed often. The blues do grow larger. However the channel and channel/blue cross are preferred by most people for eating. A few years ago I had a 750 gal. aquarium in my office. Two of the fish I put in the aquarium were a 6" albino channel cat and a 7" largemouth bass. A year later the cat was about 2 lbs. and the bass was about 1.5 lbs. I would buy 100 large feeder goldfish each week. The channel would eat more goldfish than the bass every time. The channel or cross also tend to be easier to catch. Your pond. You decide. Good luck.

Norm, I don't really understand of the stocking SMB. You are just adding another Variable to this whole Equation. I thought the whole idea was to have cats as your dominate species the cats would sooner or later eat the smallies.
I tell you the truth for what you are trying to do Blues might be your best bet. Seriously, its not because I am such a fan of them. Blues tend to be way more aggesive from the jump than channels. You could stock them at as littel as a pound and they would be as predatiuos as LMB at a pound.
There are two things I would look out for. One, make sure you don't get the strain of fish that is not very hardy. What I mean by this is, people on this site seem to have had problems with catch and release of thier fish, but others did not have any problems.
Second make sure you can locate a steady supply of them, these fish can be rather be hard to find sometimes...

Swampstalker, 100 large feeder goldfish per week? That is an average of 7 goldfish per day per fish. WOW!

Dave,

It ususally took them 3 days to wipe them out totally. Some would hide underneath rocks and what not. None of the goldfish died from naural causes I can assure you.

I appreciate all of the information. One last question (or two). About how big does a catfish need to be to be a good predator on 4" bluegills? On the top end of this question, about how big of catfish will start to eat 10" bass? This would give me an idea of what slot size of catfish that would eat the bluegills but not eat the bass.

This size blue cat will suck down a 5" bluegill in a heartbeat. I catch the bluegill Fish and hook it through the tail on a big rig.

OOOOOOoooohhh a WEEEeeeee now THATs what I am talking about! What a beautiful speciman...did you grow this in your lake???

Now folks it would not take alot of these dudes to balance a Catfish bream pond , with only the Blue cat being the only preditor fish...I promise you...

No big-pond it,along with several others including flathead cats up to 40lbs were caught elsewhere and introduced to our pond. Also Bass. I put a pic up of a bass I caught on a live bream the other day. Happy fishing!