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Joined: Jul 2018
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I am completely renovating an old pond and interested in putting some blue cats in, as well as largemouth bass and bluegill, my questions are, how deep should I make this pond? How many blue cats should I stock? Pond will be in southern Illinois

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How large will the pond be?


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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The title says two acres. My neighbor has some blues in his 1.4 acre pond that have been in several years. They are about 20 to 30 pounds now. They were about 18 inches or less when he stocked them. He put in a dozen to maybe twenty. His pond is about 15 feet in the deepest part out from the dam. It has lots of inflow in the rainy part of the year.

He doesn't know how many are surviving, but I have personally seen two of the smaller ones swimming in the shallow rocky area in the upper end.

Last edited by John Fitzgerald; 07/10/18 08:31 PM.
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I’m 3 years into having blue cats in a 15 acre pond. I absolutely love them. But I put them in to control trash fish. They seem to be doing an adequate job of feeding on something because their condition is considerably better than the channel cats. I wouldn’t mind if they took over the pond to be honest.

If I were you I’d put them in and then pull them out at the first sign of trouble. I’d avoid putting in catfish spawning structure though. And when building your pond you may wanna design it with an area where you can use a seine net to adjust the blue cat population (and other fish) as needed. If you need help with that I could throw a post together showing how we do it. It seems to be working well to adjust our fish populations now that we’ve figured out the ins and outs of how to seine.


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Okay thanks! Can you make a post about the seine net just in case ?

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Originally Posted By: Fisherguy1
Okay thanks! Can you make a post about the seine net just in case ?


I'll try to remember to do it the next time we seine. There is some info on here about how to set the net out in front of the feeder with lines tied to shore. After a few days, and the fish getting used to feeding in front of the net you simply pull the net to shore. That is the method I use. And it works wonderfully. It works well to adjust population in my 15 acre pond (sometimes up to 200 channel cats per pull, and 50 carp), so I have to think one or two pulls a year on a 2 acre pond would allow you to control your population dynamics very well.

If I remember correctly the post with sketches was posted by Bill Cody or esshup. Google seine nets pondboss.com and see what you can come across. If not, I'll try to come across it later and add video to it.


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