Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Long fish story

I was talking with neighbor the other day about my pond. He is 85 year old, but very fit, and he gets a kick out of my excitement over the fish. He casually mentioned, that since his kids left the house, nobody fished the pond. Maybe his son, once, 20 years ago. The pond was built and stocked by the state of Texas, back when the state had erosion prevention program. I hope I didn’t drool too much, when I asked his permission to fish his 1 acre pond.

This weekend I took my two daughters and their friend fishing there. We took the same bamboo poles with the barbs filed off the hooks, that we use in my 2 yr old pond, and some bread. I made dough balls from the bread and we started fishing. Before I put the dough on the third hook, the first float was about a foot under water and the second was getting nibbles. But when my daughter yanked on the poll, it shot out of the water with the dough ball intact. This story repeated itself maybe 20 times. Sometime the dough was gone, but no fish. I could hardly keep up with baiting the hooks. I tried varying the size of the doughball, until I tried really big one. The float disappeared and stayed down (the girls were not paying that much attention). I yelled at her with excitement to pull it out, and this time she set the hook. But unlike my pond where the fish comes out easily, this one did not move. So I went to help her. I pulled on the bamboo poll, but it just bent in a closed U shape and the fish slowly started moving to the shore. I thought I would just use the momentum and pull it out, but it suddenly stopped like a brick and the line shot out of the water, with the hook almost straightened out.

So now I am the one that is hooked. I put up a price on the fishe’s head. $10 to the first girl that pulls out a fish over 24” out of that pond. But since I haven’t done much fresh water fishing in the past, I am not sure what kind of tackle to get. Should I assume that I could be dealing with maximum 10 lb fish there? What type of hook should I use, that doesn’t bend? Would it be OK to transplant the catfish into my ¾ ac catfish pond for breeding? This pond overflows into mine, so I would already have any disease that he has.

The thing that surprised me when I came to the pond was, the abundance of minnows. Based on previous posts here, if a pond has perch and bass in it, they pretty much wipe out the minnows. What is the best way to fish for perch, but avoid bass? And the other way around? This is going to be fun!

Ed:
Great story. Has to be either catfish or grass carp. Grass carp can get huge, even in small ponds ( I think you call them tanks in TX ).
Grass carp are easy and fun to catch. They have vey small mouths so you have to use vey small hooks, like #10. You can use bread, cookie dough, lettuce, oe even dog food pellets.
Some folks get a kick cathing them with a fly rod.

Have fun. They say they are even vey good to eat.

Mark Jenkins
Memhis, TN

ED, My opinion (worth just about what you are paying for it) is that you have a pretty nice catfish. A bass would have moved quicker and not messed with bread. A perch wouldn't get that big. Possibly a big carp or buffalo. Something that big does a lot of damage to small tackle.

I would use a standard open face casting reel or spinning reel with good, new line. If you aren't used to freshwater fishing, I would use a spinning reel. Casting reels are great but take a little practice and getting used to. Don't settle for cheap line but the overpriced stuff isn't necessary for bait fishing. Adjust the drag so it can barely slip before breaking. I would use about a 4/0 hook.

Try some prepared catfish stink bait. Put it on the hook in pear shaped manner. Since you missed the first 20 or so times, it could be that the fish was holding the bait in its mouth and moving off before it swallowed. When the girls set the hook, it let go. Give it some time to run with the bait. Set the hook when it stops. Its hard to do.

Regarding the minnows, they aren't worth the energy expended by a big fish to catch them. Heck, it may be too big to catch minnows. Unless they are fatheads, minnows, at least shiners, are pretty fast.

Oh yeah, I'd sneak away from the kids on this one. Let us know what happens.

ed the easiest thing to do if you aren't used to tackle is just to go to a wal-mart or something similiar and pick up an inexpensive zebco reel/rod combo...there cheap and good quality for the price...depending on how big you thought the fish was i would use around 12lb test line...any bigger and he might not bite. also be sure to take a camera with you next time you go over there in case you catch him...that way you can show all of us here good luck

A friend of mine was fishing at my 8ish acre pond with a worm on ultra-light gear and strong line.

He felt the tapping on his line and set the hook. After that, he couldn't move the line at all as if he was hooked on a log. Slowly he was able to start brining the line up. The depth is sloping somewhat steeply from about 2' down to 10-15'. He kept slowly bringing the line up. At about 3-4' down, he could see the shape of a large snapping turtle. Once the turtle saw the surface (or my friend), it just turned away and snapped the line.

So, it could be a turtle. But please update the board when you find out.

Sunil

Thanks for all your advice. I hope I have the time to try it this weekend. If I catch anything, I will post the picture. Having fished offshore the last few years, I am tempted to just get one of those polls. Could not cas very far, though.

I know about the carp. I just stocked 12 Israeli Carp in my pond ($5, sold as bait). I grew up in Czech Republic, and in those parts and I think in Germany and maybe Austria, Carp is the Christmas meal. I used to watch them lay eggs in the early summer and skip school in the fall to watch the netting. They are very strong fish and fun to catch, but they do have lot of bones.

Ed:
In our 5 acre pond up here in Memphis, we have all kinds of fish, including bass, bluegill, redear, and crappie. Did not have grass carp or catfish when we got the place. We do a lot of kid activities for the boys' school and scouts so I stocked 800 catfish over a 2 year period.
We catch catfish all the time and they will bite on almost anything. We have use stink bait and chicken livers, but what the boys like to use the most is hot dogs used in smaller pieces.
I agree with the larger hooks mentioned above (#4)and would use 8-10 lb. test line. One way you can find out what type of mystery fish you are dealing with is to buy you a bag of pelletized floating fish feed at any feed store and throw some out by hand on a regular basis and they will learn to come to the surface for some "ice cream". You will then be able to see what you have. If it is too much trouble to find fish food, dry dog food (smaller size) will work just as well.

Whatever you end up catching, just have fun.

Mark Jenkins

So I was asking my daughters at breakfast this morning, if they would like to go out to the country tomorrow and try to catch that big fish. My older daughter looked me with excitement and said: "Yea, daddy, that fish was splashing in the grass, near the top of the water, right next to me. You should have pulled it out!"

You mean, you saw IT?
Yes!(Duh)
What was it? What did it look like?
I don't know, it had a really big mouth.
So, was it a catfish?
No.
Did it have a flat head and whiskers?
Yes, but it was much bigger than catfish grow.
(She is used to the 10" catfish in our pond, the biggest she saw was about a 16" channel cat that her sister caught last weekend)
When I explained to her that some catfish can grow bigger than I am, she said that "Yeah, it was a catfis"

Mystery solved.

Do catfish bite at night? I can't wait to get out of work today.

Ed-night time is by far the best time to catch cats. They typically are night feeders.

Ed:
I agree. They are typically much more active at night, however in smaller farm ponds in our neck of the woods, they sometimes will bite at any time of day.

2.5 hrs till quitting time, about 5.5 hrs till dark.

Are these big ones good to eat?

If what she described is the infomous Appalousa Cat then the best way to catch them is with a live blugill. They do not hardly bite night crawlers or livers like channels do. Might want to consider geting him out becaues they can bring havoc to the rest of the fishery....for most people that is....

big_pond is right. The best way to catch an Apalousa a.k.a flathead catfish(plyodictis olivaris) is with live bait. They are different from other catfishes because they are extremely agressive and (just like bass) only prey on living creatures. For this reason, I would be suprised if a Flathead catfish hit a piece of bread. My guess is that it was a great big Channel Cat. But if it is a flathead is has probably eaten everything in the pond already. When you catch him let us know what kind he was.

Good luck
-Scott

Good luck Ed...but I smell a busted line coming up here ! Nice post...has everyone in suspense !

Could be a blue!!

Refreshing......
I like your fish tale. It's what fishing is really about - The excitement of hooking something large, but really not knowing what
it might be. Reminds me of the way fishing was
when I was a kid - not looking at everthing under a microscope.
Something seems to be lost
in today's high tech approach to fishing - the
expensive bass rigs with the high tech gear, and
even the management techniques that are discussed
on this site have made fishing more of a science
than an enjoyable art.

Well, catfish 1, Ed 0.

I tried everything I could think of. Dough balls,
catfish bait (guaranteed to catch fish or your money back), live and dead minnows, live and dead bluegill (4"), artificial worms and spinners. The last two types were given to me by a friend at work "Walk around the pond with this one, if you don't catch anything, try these two. If you still don't catch anything, there are no bass in that pond." Well, there are no bass in that pond.

All I caught, were about 20 bluegill, mostly between 4-6", one 8" bluegill (biggest I have ever seen) and one pitifully skinny fish. It was silver, with red fins on the bottom, maybe 6" long. I never knew what people meant by skinny fish, but this was it. It was healty in every other respect.

I have to say that a cold front came through on Friday, and other people who went fishing came up empty as well. If I ever catch this fish, I will post a picture.

Telling you man...if its a blue or flathead you go out with about 6 to 8 lines with live blugils or shellcracker on them and wait about 5 to 8 hours might have a few set up as a Carolina rig and others just some sort of float rig, might want to try to work a crank bait in different spots while you wait the fish hit artificel lures as well......

I don't know about trot lines. Somehow that doesn't seem spotrsman-like. Throw it in, come back the next day, have lunch. I used to see some really worn out fish hanging on those when I went canoeing. BUT, some people at work do it, and they disagree. How well do these big catfish learn? Could it be that it's going to be careful for a while?

hey ed...im not much on catfishing but i know some people who are...go to http://www.brotherhood-of-catfishermen.com

they are all nice people there and can help you with about anything from bait to rod/reel selection.

Dear Ed:

I saw your posting under "How Many Turtles is too many.."

If you caught the snapping turtle, you may have also caught that monster mystery thing that got off your fishing line last week.

Of course, it'd be more exciting if you had some 15lb fish in your pond.

How big was the snapper you caught?

Sunil

Hi Sunil,

I am not 100% sure it was a snapper. I shot it, or near it and it created lot of waves, but no blood. I had to leave shortly after that, so I wasn't around the next time the feeder went off. Whatever it was, it went to the bottom. In my mind, it could only be a snapper or a small alligator, and of the two, snapper is more likely.
(there are some alligators in a river about 30 miles from here) My wife has a nice Stainles .22Mag with a heavy barrel and a scope, so it may be time to bring it out. I may try to throw a weighted line with big theble hooks to see if I drag anything up.

The pond where I almost caught the catfish is my neighbor's, upstream on the same seasonal creek as mine. This weekend is not shaping up too good for fishing. Octoberfest, birthday party and a sleepover for my 8 yr old daughter. I may try to sneak off for a night.

One interesting thing was, how differently the bluegill from this pond behaved. I released few of them in my pond and few hours later I noticed these bluegill laying in ambush among cattails. They are definitely hunters as opposed to my pellet eaters. They came from a cleaner pond, so
they are little darker and easier to see. If I had any bass, this would probably be their doom.

But this episode reminded me how much fun fishing can be. The suspense and anticipation is really more fun than having the fish.

Hey Ed,

In your first post, you did mention two ponds. So the mystery thing is in the other pond, and this gator/snapper is in your pond(right?).

When you mentioned the thing in your pond, you said it was eating like a fish every five seconds. I think that would be to fast for a snapping turtle. Being in PA, I never considered a gator as a possibility, but since your in TX, I guess that could be. I can't imagine having something like a gator in my pond. We swim in it sometimes.

So the mystery continues........

Actually, no. It could not be an alligator, because those are illegal to shoot.

One monster down. Found it floating in the water last Friday. That's a smashed coke can next to it's head for size reference.





As far as my neighbor's pond, I can't catch anything larger than a 4-5" bluegill anymore. I went out this weekend with chicken liver... and nothing. If I din't see the 8" bluegill and the catfish, I would not even believe they are there.