Mine is only a 3.5 foot radius. Been trying to throw into my forage pond to get BG that got into it from the flooding last year between the forage pond and my first pond. Maybe some kind of trap would work better. Most of the BG are 2-3" and I don't want them spawning there. I am trying to keep it all FHM.
I wish I could learn to throw a cast net. I have spent hours and hours trying from time to time, but it usually lands in a heap. About one out of 10 throws is good.
You just need an instructor that you will watch till you get it right! Hang in there, you will get it in no time.
I saw that video quite a while back and had to watch it several times also to get it right.
That is a lot larger net and has a few differences than the small ones like mine.
Coiling the rope up is important although being a small net (with a shorter throw line) I make the coils only about a foot in diameter instead of arms length like she does.
Then when holding the net there is no need to fold it over like she does. Just grab it just beneath the horn and let the net drape down naturally. Don't fold a foot of it over like she does.
Just let it hang down naturally, holding the net just below the horn along with the rope coils, grab the lead line nearest you an arms length down, pull it up and then throw like she does. Don't need all the extra steps of the larger net she has.
It is a really good video in showing the different parts and explaining some of the basics but using a larger net it does extra steps not needed for a small net. She makes it way more complicated than it needs to be for a small net.
Here is one that is simpler and basically the way I throw but even this video has a larger net than mine. With the smallest net it is not necessary to fold over part of the net in the hand. With a small net just hold the net right below the horn without folding the net over. Otherwise this video shows the way I throw.
Yeah Quarter, that's why I was questioning the voltage requirements to bring up scaled fish. Does anyone who has ever had a shock study done know what voltage those guys use?
Shrub, I've been throwing a cast net since I was probably 12 to catch bait for our trotlines and recreational shrimping. I'm kinda rusty, but can get pretty consistent throws and still can't catch anything with it in my pond. It's worst than trying to catch BH in my cloverleaf traps. I'm thinking it's because the pond is too deep. They get out from under it before it reaches bottom.
Last edited by Mike Whatley; 06/22/1812:48 PM.
.10 surface acre pond, 10.5 foot deep. SW LA. The epitome of a mutt pond. BG, LMB, GSF, RES, BH, Warmouth, Longear Sunfish, Gambusia,Mud Minnows, Crappie, and now shiners!!...I subscribe!!
You might have better luck in colder water. I was VERY successful last fall and early this spring when the water temps were in the 50's. Now that it is closer to high 80's I get a lot fewer fish.
I think it is like you say, they scoot out from under the net before it hits bottom. Maybe you should try it again this fall/winter.
I'm putting this picture up just to irritate Dave Davidson. It is no trophy or anything.
He claims RES are just a myth because he has never caught one from his pond.
I have been transferring RES fingerlings from my forage pond to this main 3 acre pond for over two years now, trying to get their numbers up enough so I can catch one once in a while. Well today was the day. By its size I am pretty sure it was a transfer that has grown up. I suppose it could have been a recruitment but I suspect it originally came from my forage pond as a three incher. It went back in the water to grow some more.
The second picture is just to make Dave feel better. Him and the rest of the GSF fan club members. This one went back in to grow more too.
Edit: almost forgot, caught two RES, third picture.
Today was CC day. Or at least a good time to catch CC. From the main pond I caught one about 3# and one that weighed 5.75# and my wife caught one at 4.25#. A 5+# CC using a 10' light action crappie rod with a tiny spincast real using a 1/64 oz jig head tipped with a chartreuse Gulp Alive waxie bait was quite a fight. I was afraid I was going to straighten the hook out and did bend it some.
Funny I fish for BG and my wife fishes for CC and I catch more CC than she does on a bait and hook not much bigger than a fly.
Of course it helps that we were fishing off the dock where we clean fish and put back some of the fish carcasses, plus for the last couple weeks I have been trapping 2-3" GSF in another pond, cutting off their tails, and feeding them to a couple pet LMB and the CC right in this area of the dock. So I guess you could say we have been kind of chumming them. Boy do those LMB and CC love those small GSF with the tails chopped off. Like tossing candy in front of a kid. I was surprised how fast the LMB got trained.
John, did you eat any of the CC? If so, got a recipe to share?
I'm thinking about raising CC in my little growout pond strictly for kids to catch & show them how to cook. BG from main pond are fine, but CC get bigger, fight harder, easier to filet by the pound.
Carolynn is going to try smoking this batch of CC and see how they turn out smoked. She smokes quite a bit of stuff including cheese.
We have eaten lots of our pond raised CC. Funny thing is, I never cared for CC that much before raising our own. Our CC taste great.
Our favorite way of preparing them is cut them into nugget or finger size strips, coat them in dry corn starch, egg wash, then a mixture of 3/4 Panco bread crumbs and 1/4 cajun corn meal based fish coating we buy at the store. Second egg wash bath then dredge in the coating mix a second time. Then let the prepared double coated nuggets dry on a wire rack. Then fry them in an air fryer if you have one or pan fry or even baked is good too. She has done it all those ways but we like the air fryer best because it tastes like fried but with very little oil used and much less spatter mess on the counter.
Egg wash details are egg and a little bit of water and milk to thin it slightly with tiny amount of oil.
The ratio of the cajun seasoned corn meal based mix (that we buy at the store - various brands work) and the Panco bread crumbs kind of to taste depending on how spicy you like it. We like it very mild with just a hint of kick so use more bread crumbs and less cajun mix. More of the cajun mix will give more spicy and more corn meal base and more Panco will make the coating more crispy. If you don't want any heat at all substitute any commercial corn meal based fish coating mix like lemon or whatever flavor you like. We really, really like the Panco bread crumbs. They give the coating a very pleasant crunch. My mother-in-law (who eats lots of fish we fillet for her and FIL) has no teeth so she does not like the Panco because it makes it too crunchy for her. But if anyone has not tried the Panco bread crumbs give it a try as part of the mix in your fish coating.
We like a little home made tartar sauce made with Miracle Whip or mayonnaise, adding a touch of mustard to taste (gives it nice yellow color) and sweet pickle relish mixed up in whatever proportions look and taste right.
Fuzzy picture of the coated, air fryer fried fish below along with slaw, home canned pickled green tomatoes, hush puppies and some tartar sauce. Yumm. This fish could be either CC or BG.
FYI...I saw on TV they gutted and headed the CC, then vertical cuts along the body about an inch apart and to the backbone deep, skin on!, then work the fryer mix into the cuts and all over and deep fry. Looked mighty good!
I bet it would be. My wife likes filleting everything, even small GSF and BG that many people would scale and gut whole. And who am I to argue with her? (not that great of an idea to do so).
She is willing to try new things but with just the two of us for most meals our portion sizes for cooking each meal are small.
When we fillet a batch of fish she will soak them in water with a little milk for a few hours or over night. Then cut the fillets into the size pieces we like, then freeze them on a cookie sheet in the freezer. When the individual pieces are frozen enough to be firm or solid she then either vacuum seals them in freezer bags or puts them in zip lock bags (for stuff we will use soon) and throws the bags of fish nuggets/sticks in the freezer.
Then it is just a matter of when we want fish for a meal to take out however many pieces we want to eat for that meal. No waste and almost as convenient as buying store bought fish. We actually like them a little better after being frozen than cooked fresh, but I know many people would disagree with that.
That is kind of the method to her fish madness. She is one heck of a good cook.
Today was CC day. Or at least a good time to catch CC. From the main pond I caught one about 3# and one that weighed 5.75# and my wife caught one at 4.25#. A 5+# CC using a 10' light action crappie rod with a tiny spincast real using a 1/64 oz jig head tipped with a chartreuse Gulp Alive waxie bait was quite a fight. I was afraid I was going to straighten the hook out and did bend it some.
The 14 foot pole makes the fight even harder. I have had them sulk on the bottom for a bit, and then nothing you can do but keep some pressure on them for fear of straightening that #10 hook. They will eventually come up. If you catch and release in hot weather, a fight on light tackle can kill a larger fish. (I know you keep the larger size CC). My water is so hot I haven't fished it in weeks.
Carolynn is going to try smoking this batch of CC and see how they turn out smoked. She smokes quite a bit of stuff including cheese.
We have eaten lots of our pond raised CC. Funny thing is, I never cared for CC that much before raising our own. Our CC taste great.
Our favorite way of preparing them is cut them into nugget or finger size strips, coat them in dry corn starch, egg wash, then a mixture of 3/4 Panco bread crumbs and 1/4 cajun corn meal based fish coating we buy at the store. Second egg wash bath then dredge in the coating mix a second time. Then let the prepared double coated nuggets dry on a wire rack. Then fry them in an air fryer if you have one or pan fry or even baked is good too. She has done it all those ways but we like the air fryer best because it tastes like fried but with very little oil used and much less spatter mess on the counter.
Egg wash details are egg and a little bit of water and milk to thin it slightly with tiny amount of oil.
The ratio of the cajun seasoned corn meal based mix (that we buy at the store - various brands work) and the Panco bread crumbs kind of to taste depending on how spicy you like it. We like it very mild with just a hint of kick so use more bread crumbs and less cajun mix. More of the cajun mix will give more spicy and more corn meal base and more Panco will make the coating more crispy. If you don't want any heat at all substitute any commercial corn meal based fish coating mix like lemon or whatever flavor you like. We really, really like the Panco bread crumbs. They give the coating a very pleasant crunch. My mother-in-law (who eats lots of fish we fillet for her and FIL) has no teeth so she does not like the Panco because it makes it too crunchy for her. But if anyone has not tried the Panco bread crumbs give it a try as part of the mix in your fish coating.
We like a little home made tartar sauce made with Miracle Whip or mayonnaise, adding a touch of mustard to taste (gives it nice yellow color) and sweet pickle relish mixed up in whatever proportions look and taste right.
Fuzzy picture of the coated, air fryer fried fish below along with slaw, home canned pickled green tomatoes, hush puppies and some tartar sauce. Yumm. This fish could be either CC or BG.
Thanks! I'm gonna have to try it. I like BG (better than crappie, actually) too, but it takes a lot to get much meat.
I was horrible at cleaning fish to begin with and am still not great. But after the first few hundred I have gotten pretty proficient at filleting BG. We have so many fish we do not even try to get every last morsel of meat. I fillet the BG around the rib cage boneless and leave the head, guts and tail all intact. On the smaller ones do not even try to get any of the lower rib belly meat. On the larger ones will cut through the pin bones then the wife will pull the pin bones out later when she is prepping them for freezing.
I know lots of people like to eat them bone in but it is just not our thing.
Probably a third or fourth of the BG carcasses go back in the pond to feed the CC. I usually cut it up in three pieces, head, body and tail section before throwing it back in the pond. If I clean only a half dozen fish I will put it all back in the water but if we clean a big batch will only throw in what I think the CC will clean up quickly. The CC carcass we always take to the pasture along with any excess BG cleanings for the coons and coyotes. 24 hours later it will be gone.
While I am filleting I like to slice off a little meat I missed and throw it to the waiting BG to watch them snatch it up. The cleaning station I added to our dock is the cats meow for cleaning fish. Carolynn and I both filleting can clean a days catch in no time. Spray it off into the pond and cleanup is done. We have really made use of the cleaning station. Edit: we have since removed the rinky dink faucet that came with the cleaning station and replaced it with a kitchen retractable spray hose. It works much better than the faucet. Use the kitchen one as we are cleaning fish then the one on the garden hose with more reach to clean off the station when we are finished.
We cleaned some pretty nice CC lately (up to 4#) and wife decided to "smoke" some of the CC and see how it turned out. We wondered if it would be anything like smoked salmon. The results were pretty good (I'm not a big fan of smoked salmon but she is). Something additional she did with the smoked CC is to make smoked Channel Catfish Dip. It looked and tasted kind of like Tuna dip would be but much milder. She took a batch to a knit-in for a bunch of her girlfriends to try and they liked it a lot (funny how she gets to have lots of girlfriends but won't allow me to have even one other than her)
Having some left over and needing lunch today she made Smoked Channel Catfish Patty's. Made the dip into patty's, coated them in Panko bread crumbs and fried them.
She thought they were great and I thought they were "pretty good". Told her I would eat them again and they needed a little more spice. Some Cajun spice or some more "kick", and she agreed. The smoked CC is just pretty darn mild and bland. I will say I liked them better than salmon pattys and if a person likes salmon pattys I think they would like these.
So if anyone wants to smoke some CC fillets, go ahead and try it. It is pretty good and can be made into some other pretty good stuff.
Wife and I did a little fishing late afternoon yesterday and invited a few fish to attend a future dinner party. Four CC that ranged 2-3# and one baby CC. Plus four nice size HBG with three around 8" and the one pictured below at 9", all got to meet the fish cleaning station on our dock. I really like the hybrids for all around fun sunfish fishing and table fare.
Also caught several nice male BG about the same size but they went back in the pond to catch another day.
Yes, you might say I've became "hooked", pun intended.
Thing is, I only fish my own ponds. Don't fish anywhere else. And today I fished a couple hours and fished mostly for management reasons catching some small fish on purpose. I do enjoy fishing for my larger fish also, but I really spend more time "management" fishing for relatively small and unimportant fish and I like that just as well. My favorite "lure" is a 1/64 oz jig hook, tipped with a tiny morsel. I use it 90% of the time.
So I would say it is the pond, the management, the feeding and just being around the stuff more than the actual fishing itself.
Wife as well as my FIL and MIL really like the smoked CC. So Carolynn requested we go CC fishing this afternoon so she could smoke some more of it. She really had to twist my arm to get me to go but I relented and took her fishing. She was on fire today. We caught 7 CC one at 5.75# and one at 5.25. She caught all of them except a couple of under 2# ones I caught. We also ended up with 13 HBG and GSF to add to the fillets (plus a few nice BG that we released) so all in all a nice afternoon of pond fishing.
Picture shows the largest CC and the fillets of the other big one. Also a couple pictures of HBG. These HBG are not purchased HBG but natural hybrids mostly conceived in my sediment pond and moved to this main 3 acre pond to grow out.
No trophy's but some nice fillet size fish and some "quality" time with my wife for a nice late afternoon outing.
Dave raising a family and farming seemed like a full time job most of my life. Not much time to even think about fishing and what spare time we had my other passions, motorcycle riding and scuba diving, took precedence.
Now being mostly retired, I have more time to do other things (and my tired body can only stand so much scuba diving and motorcycle riding these days although I do still enjoy both).
It is still more about being out around the pond than the fishing, but I do also enjoy the fishing. If I didn't have the pond out my back door I probably still would not be fishing.