Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Channel & Flathead & Blue Cats, oh my!

Will all species of Catfish eat pellet feed for their whole lives like Channel cats will?

Well I have blue cats and Channel cats and both eat pellet feed like there is no tomorrow. I stocked them last year in July and both are doing very well.

Does any one know where to get flat heads?

I have a client who gets them from someone who fishes the Tennesse River, but commerical hatchery sources are limited since few folks want to stock these big bad predators.

Thanks,
But will these big, bad, predators prey on pellets and leave the live fish alone once they've eaten thier fill.

Jbrockey,

I am no expert, but I can promise you that flat heads will eat your other fish, that's their nature. I have troutline fished for years and the only way I have ever caught these creatures was with live perch. Eating live fish is what flat heads do! I know there are experts out there that will agree. If you want to raise bass or bluegill don't put these things in your pond.

newbee is right. flat heads are big bad predators and will eat your other fish. stick to catching them in the river

I seriously doubt flatheads will eat pellets it is kinda like forcing bass to eat pellets. Both are predators mostly eating fish. It has taken years to develop a largemouth bass that thrives on pellets, so I think you answer would be no the flatheads will not eat pellets and leave your other fish alone.

Ok so here's the way I understand it. A Flathead is basicly a bottomless pit eating machine that can digest its meal and grow bigger faster than it can feel itself getting full and can only compensate this tremendous growth is by sucking everything that swims into it's ever expanding maw(and deosn't appriciate the convenice of pellets). Channels while definatly being a preditor fish are also unparalelled oportunists that when given the oportunity will fill up on pellets and not need to prey on live fish. Right?

So my question is what are Blue Cats like?
Are they more like Flatheads or Channel Cats?
Do thier feeding habits change as they get bigger?

What about Bullheads?
What are thier feeding habbits?
Why are they so Bad?

Thanks alot,
-Scott

You got it right!

Blue cats are a little more like a channel except eat more fish than them. A bullhead is bad b/c they can reproduce in most ponds whereas a channel and blue usually can't. WHy two reason they are cavity bredders meaning they need someting hollow, rock crevice, etc to spawn. ONce they spawn the fry are easily eaten by other catfish or bass. This is a good thing b/c you can control the numbers in a pond. NOt so with bullheads they can reach high numbers in a hurry b/c they make beds like other fish. They grow smaller and compete with "bream" species for food, so are not desirable in most ponds. BTW a bullhead is a preferred food of a FLATHEAD FISHERMAN

I agree with Greg on the bull heads and I'll add a few other points. The bull head catfish is limited in growth (to about 10 to 12 inches) and stunt out when over populated. I have a friend who's entire pond was taken over by the beasts. During the spring time you could see massive clouds of their young swimming about the pond.

Another point is that once they get started they are very difficult to stem. The above-mentioned friend had to drain his pond and apply chemicals to the bottom mud to kill the bull heads. This was necessary, as this species can live on very low amounts of oxygen. An example of this, a week after the pond draining (before adding chemicals) in the middle of summer, they were still alive in less than three inches of water.

Now I am not an expert and don't pretend to be, but helping my friend cope with his bull head invasion made me a believer, "Don't put these things in your pond". Channels are a better choice.

I didn`t want bullheads in my pond either,but someone decided I needed some. They started showing up at a feed ring. I had just stocked the pond last april, so the other fish were small. I started feeding at one spot and when these fish were coming in well I went fishing! I caught 18 and haven`t seen one since. I also have a friend who bought a gravel pit that was full of bullheads. We improved the bass population and removed every yellowbelly we caught. Now it is very rare to catch a bullhead even when fishing for channel cats. At least there is hope short of draining!

Guys,

Talking catfish about here which is more of a preditor blue cats or large mouth bass?
What about a flathead and a large mouth bass?
Lastly do large channel cats (10 lb range) forge on smaller bass (ones less than a pound)

Reason I asked is because I am trying to figure out a way help solve my bass over population problem. Got a bunch of stunted bass to get rid of.

I have seen a small pond (2 acres) with a few flathead catfish. thats about all it had in it. I conducted a shocking survey and found 2 bass and 4 bluegill. I had no idea why the pond lacked fish so badly, just assumed it could be catfish as they dont shock up somtimes. We drained the pond and discovered the problem. 10 flatheads in the 15 pound size class.

The flatheads had consumed most of the fish in the pond. This was my only experience with them and based on that I would not recommend stocking them. you may consider shocking the extra bass out. its effective (spring time is best)

Shan O'Gorman
Professional Ponds

Boy thoes flatheads are somthing!!

Well I like large catfish, don't have to have alot, just some. This is the reason for wanting the blues, I know that flatheads cause lots problems..

As posted on the other thread. I would go with the blues if you want a decent bass population.
Predator rating:
1.
I would rate flathead higher than bass b/c it needs to eat more.
2.
largmouth bass
3.
a good way behindthe bass, blue cats
4. last but not least channels, hey I have caught them on spinnerbaits so the big ones can eat some prey. Hope that helps

Thanks Greg,
Now just to double check, even though blue cats are more of a preditor fish than Channels can I supress most of their need to eat live fish by feeding them pellets like with channels?

And while were talking about catfish deos anyone happen to know if smaller species of catfish like stone cats and madtoms can survive in a bass pond and what thier feeding/spawing habits are?

-Scott

Scott, I would think feeding the blues would only help. Do not know about the madtoms in ponds. Lot of folks on this site want to keep adding all kinds of fish. Remember the saying "Keep it simple stupid" lots of times the easiest method, of just a few prey species and few predators species is best.

Oh boy, a catfish conversation!
Here's my spin...
Flatheads are at the top of the catfish foodchain. I have had to opportunity to observe their habits. They feed large, and defend their territory. I have watched confined flatheads (also called yellow cats or opelousas) kill other fish, and not eat them, just to defend their territory. Flatheads are extremely aggressive in the food chain, and are limited by mouth size (ever seen the mouth of 50 pound flathead?) Flatheads live longer than 30 years, and grow upwards of 80 pounds, much larger in some areas of the nation. In 23 years of management, I have found 2 private lakes with reproducing populations. Both lakes are larger than 100 acres, have lots of large rocks peripherally, gizzard shad (maybe a coincidence, maybe not), and very fertile water during early summer. Flatheads are not commercially available. Considered game fish by most DNR's, aquaculturists haven't figured out what baby flatheads eat. Since there's no market, you can't raise babies, and adults eat or kill everything in their paths, flatheads havent' caught on in the commercial pond management market.
Blue cat are next. They are picky predator fish which can grow larger than 100 pounds. The state record in Texas came from nearby Lake Texoma several years ago and weighed in at 106 pounds. A man could ski behind a fish that big.
Back in 1983 I had a new client complain their club lake had too many blue cats, and these behemoths were tearing up their bass fishing gear. Their question to me? Do blue cat compete with our bass? During sampling, we found a 52 pound blue cat with a three pound bass in its stomach. Hmmm. Guess not only to they compete, they eat bass. Blue cats will live 30-40 years. The will eat pelleted fish food. Adults spawn at three or four years of age.
Ah, channel cat. Everyone knows about channel cat.
Bullheads, mudcats, pollies....a delicacy in northern states, a trash fish in the south. Three pounds is huge, bullheads seldom live beyond three years of age. So, they spawn a lot. They will eat fish food, and some species of bullhead is native to most watershed in the US.
Test tomorrow....

Regarding blue cat size, I will quote from a book I have; Catfishing, written by Chris Altman and published by the North American Fishing Club in 1992. All of the following is copied from the book. It may get a little long.

"The blue catfish is the largest North American catfish; it holds a special enhancement over catfishermen across the country. In the days of Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain), when commercial catfishing was a booming industry along the Missippi River, gigantic blue cats reportedly hung like sides of beef in local fish markets. On May 14, 1854, P.R. Hoy, a naturalist who traveled through Missouri wrote, "A lad caught on hook and line today a catfish weighing 136 pounds' from Grand River near Chillicothe, Missouri.

In 1879, the U.S. National Museum tried to obtain a large catfish from the Missippi River. In November of that year, Spencer F. Baird, U. S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, sent a letter to J. G. W. Steedman, Chairman of the Missouri Fish Commission, asking for his assistance with the acquisition. The following quote from Dr. Steedmans reply to Professor Baird suggests that catfish of that size were not uncommon: "Your letter requesting the shipment to you of a large Missippi catfish was received this morning. Upon visiting our (fish) market this evening, I luckily found two--one of 144 pounds, the other 150 pounds. The latter I ship to you by express."

In his book, Steamboating Sixty-five Years on Missouri's Rivers, captain William L. Heckman mentions a blue cat weighing 315 pounds taken from the Missouri River near Morrison, Missouri, just after the Civil War. He said that at that time it was quite common to catch catfish (probably blues) weighing 125 to 200 pounds from the Missouri River."

WOW! thats quite a catfish.
He must have been ancient to have grown that big.

In my reading I have found an intersting thing about blue catfish. No matter where I look to try to find out how old they get it will just say that they get "really old" even when it is very specific about the life expectancys of other cat fishes. This kinda leads me to belive that they get so old that no one really knows just how old they get. Do any of you guys know?

Another strange thing that I have found is that it always says they will grow very fast if they are well fed but top off at around 20 pounds in a pond (even a large pond). Why is that?
I mean if I'm feeding them and they are eating how could they not be growing?

Thanks for any help
-Scott

You're right, nobody really knows how old those catfish get. The problem is that the structure that is most often used in aging, the pectoral spine, isn't very accurate. Incidentally, a pectoral spine is one of the two spines that stick out from the side of a catfish and tend to get you more often than not.

To age a catfish, the spine is sectioned across the "knuckle" where it articulates with the pectoral girdle. This thin section is then viewed under a microscope and the visible rings are counted. These rings are often enhanced with mineral oil or dyes. As someone who has aged more catfish than I want to remember, I can tell you that it's not very accurate. What happens is than in older catfish, the interior of the spine erodes away, taking the interior rings and leaving just an empty space. It's as though you tried to age a tree by cutting a section out of it 2/3 of the way up the tree, you don't get all of the rings.

That said, I personally have seen catfish pushing 20 years old, and have heard of blues in excess of 30. These are no doubt, conservative estimates.

A new technique is being developed right here by the Texas Parks and Wildlife department that uses the otolith, which is the preferred method for scaled fish in the south. The problem is that the otoliths are somewhat difficult to obtain, and the preparation before aging is pretty technical. It shows a lot of promise for older fish.

So the short answer is that maybe we'll know how old those catfish really are in a year or two.

That's really neat.
Thanks fishman.

Might you happen to have any information about the 20Lb "maximum" in ponds and small lakes?

-Scott

I wouldn't be surprised if flatheads could be feed trained but the question is, is anyone fish supplier doing it. Many states have restrictions on planting flatheads in public waters so there may not be much of a demand.

I'm not sure about it taking years to develop bass that thrive on pellets. It's been more of figuring out how to feed train them which consisted of crowding them when they are about 2 inches and only feeding them pellets. However most feed producers out there have not done the research to see what bass really need in a pellet diet. I am now using a specialty diet from a company in PA call Mellick. They have a high protein diet low in carbs just for bass. My bass love it as much as live shiners. They cannot get enough of it.

This is all great Catfish info! I love it when catfish topics come up! There should be a subsection for the different types of fish...

1. Bass fish
2. Pan fry fish
3. Catfish

just a thought.....

thanks and continue the ideas..