Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Newbie lookin for help! 2 many Large Cats/Crappie?

I have just recently found this forum and I'm amazed by the amount of information. I have found a few ideas for my problem(s) from other threads, but I'm hoping to narrow it down, so here goes.

I have a 3/4 acre pond 8-10 feet deep with little natural cover. It is filled with stunted Bluegill (4-5 inches is large), Stunted crappie (6 inches and thin is a large one) and virtually no LM bass. the few bass I catch appear to be healthy but theres not many of them.

What I do have is a lot of LARGE catfish. I shared the property with a neighbor (no longer a problem now) and he would fish in local rivers and return with large catfish and throw them in. Mostly channel but a few blues and flatheads. It is not unusual to catch 4 or 5 8 plus pounders wthin a few minutes of wetting a line and there are some that top 20.

I don't even know where to start.

My goal is a healthy BALANCED population Blugill, Bass, and Cats and and I figure the crappie need to go ASAP, but I'm not sure. I also wonder about creating some cover as suggested in other strings, but I'm afraid that will help the crappie more than anything else.

Any ideas would be helpful.

Thanks for reading.

Brown, welcome to the forum!

Is starting over a possibility with this pond Brown? I know you probably aren't wanting to hear this, but that is honestly the best option for you. At those depths, seining is probably not an option and the while adding adult LMB might help in the long run get your BG and BC numbers down, the big cats will outcompete them. Killing off the pond and starting with a clean slate is the best option here in my opinion.

When you say "shared" I'm assuming that the bucket stocking neighbor isn't in the picture anymore? Do you have complete control over the pond?

I think Omaha's idea is the best route to take, but if that's not possible, I'd toss a trot line out and remove as many Catfish as I could. With that sized flatheads in there, even if you were to stock 2# LMB, they could become dinner themselves to the flatheads.

In a pond that size, shouldn't all those big cats keep the bluegill and crappie thinned out?

I was thinking the same thing, I thought once flatheads are added that is pretty much all you would have in the pond.

How long has it been since those were stocked?

Also if you lived closer to me I would help you remove as many of the cats we could get, I love to catch catfish and they can be tasty if cleaned properly, sometimes from ponds they can have a stronger flavor IMO.

Either way it would be a shame to kill all the large fish, but if you want to start over that would probably be the best option, unless you could drain it enough to net out as many as you can and then kill the rest of the BG and Crappie.

Keep us posted on what you decide to do.

Thanks

Hey All,

Thanks for your comments and sorry for not responding quicker.

In answer to your questions. The problem subject I shared the property with is no longer in teh picture however I still share the pond with the one who moved in. He's all for trying to balance the pond, however we're both trying to find alternatives to a complete start over.

And have been trying to figure out whats up with the crappie thing as well with that many cats in there. Just to give you an idea my kids were throwing bread out the other day and I counted over twenty cats that were easily twenty plus inches long. I figure for every one I saw there is another 3-5 I don't and this pond is under 3/4 of an acre.

Sounds like I just need to take a bunch of them out.

Any other thoughts would be appreciated and thanks again for responding.

Get the oil hot and put a hook in every piece of bread you throw in!

have a church group, or boyscouts fishing day and keep everything.

I believe the expetrs would say that that many big cats in such a small pond mess up every thing.

Either you have a super cat pond or a well balanced pond with a put and take "channel cat" fishery. Flatheads and blues are too vitious!!

Do the cats reproduce? Depending where you live.... and the severity of winter and how the pond refills...

could you lower the pond level in the winter or early spring, to discover what the true populations are and then it would be much more managable to remove "problem species" or over crowded numbers.

See what you have for bait fish too??

Just an idea, but kindof time consuming.

It is very fun though!!!

some times there is a market for large cats too, with even people looking for them on here.

keep us posted.