Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Do tadpoles look like baby catfish?

Last night in my pond, I saw a school of black, what looked like baby catfish. But i never stocked my pond yet so Im thinking they are tadpoles. I do have alot of frogs around the bank.
I could have swore i saw what looked like whiskers on those babies.

I have never seen my tadpoles in a school. You might have gotten black bullheads introduced into your pond they school up in a ball. Hope not though!

Bob

Hey dont leave me hanging, why did u say "i hope not though". And how would they have gotten in there?

the way of the ol BIRD FOOT!!

chris

Most everyone on here says they are a problem except "Bullhead Bob". Do a search on bullheads. If you have any inflow that can come from somewhere else then they can make it. I don't have them but when I was pumping water in from my drainage ditch I introduced mosquito fish and now am loaded with them.

Black bullheads are a small catfish with weights not usually exceeding over 3 pounds. I have a few in my pond that got mixed in with my channels, They are considered by most to be trash fish. They have big mouth and kind has the looks of a grayish splash to em. I usually throw em on the bank or cut up for bait. They only thing I can see they would work good for is with the big mouth they have if you had a hybrid bluegill pond over 5 years old that had regressed to sunfish overpopulation, they could probably help you clean out a few dozen.

Man I tell you this sort of things happens alot!! What ever became of the other guy who woke up one day and had these things in his pond..He SWARES that there was NO WAY that these things could have come from in flow...He says that He has a straight run off pond...This seems to be an on going debate. I really hope you find a way to get rid of them....
Some people seem to sware they come by way of "ol Big Bird Foot" :rolleyes: ...but I don't know
Be carfull and best of luck...

Tadpoles do not swarm or swim in a group when large enough to swim away from the egg mass.

Go back in Questions and Observations to July 26 and topic of How Did These Fish Arrive?. Huge dialog on fish entering your pond without permissiion.

Bullheads compete with other fish for food. Each bullhead takes the place of at last one more desirable fish. Bullheads can in the right conditions easily overpopulate your pond with slow growing fish. High numbers will muddy the water in their search for food in bottom sediments. Bass will eat them and can control their numbers if your pond is not weedy.

Oh my god here we go again. I have been fighting this for over a year. Last July we saw the schools for the first time and started an aggressive campain against these fish. First of all catch all you can in a net right away. Catching 50 out of the swarm now is a lot easier than catching 50 one at a time later.

I didn't have any bass at the time and by fall my water was very cloudy. I stocked 40 adult bass and have fished aggressively all summer. We have removed 362 to date and saw no swarms this summer. I have only caught 2 large ones and can assume there were no babies this year because I removed the mating pair early enough or because the bass ate the babies.

The biggest problem is if this problem only came from a couple fish, what do I have in store next year from the ones I didn't catch. Suppose there are 50 left and the original problem was caused by 5 of them. I will have to rely on my bass to control the babies and keep fishing for the adults. I just caught 9 overnight in a fish trap 2 days ago. I have experimented with everything as trap bait. I actually caught the 9 with a chunk of Caribou meat.

I am relying more and more on the traps because I am killing too many of my Yellow Perch fishing the Bullheads hook and line, even with #2 circle hooks.

Look at the old posts and there is a great picture of a small one.

Check out a post called "How did these fish arrive". Lots of info there. Beleive me the only way these entered my pond is from birds. I do not even get runoff. I have a berm around my pond and no water nearby.

I will watch this post closely and contribute what I can. I have now caught enough of there in my 2/3 of an acre that the water is clear again.

Brian

I beleive the picture is under the topic "My catfish spawned" but I am not sure what section. As I remember this is a thread worth reading. There are a lot of good sections on Bullheads though.

SO Brian L,
You believe the old ledgen "Big Bird Foot"

I don't know...it is very hard to believe.

My pond is now three years old and I have caught about 75 Bullheads is three years. I am sure my problem came from the help of some miscreant who is jealous of my great 12 acre pond! They arrived on site full grown, so it would have been noticable to the bird if one was hanging on its foot!! I have only caught three this whole year and have never seen a small one. I think that by fishing near the food and throwing all of them out, I have finally eliminated them.

Brian,
I would try baiting with dry dog food placed in a burlap sack, canned dog food just punch holes in t let the flavor out. I know someone that baits for catfish this way. He returns to his baited hole the next day to find it full of cats.

When we first started our lake, someone "helped" us stock it by putting in black bullheads. We removed every bullhead that we happened to catch. We then over stocked predators heavily. We wanted to make sure every baby bullhead was eated. It seems like it worked as we haven't seen any bullheads in the last couple of years.

Hey Norm guess you never got a spell checker to work, "eated"! Got you.

Bob

What worng with the word "eated" was use it ALOT down here

I have tried dry dog food, canned food with holes in it, corn, bread products, dead bullheads, red meat and cheese and even Berkely power baits. I have limited success with all of them. Maybe they are all just too well fed. I think I have them thinned. I also stocked heavy on predators and will just keep catching as many adults as I can. I catch more with hook and line than anything else but need to find a bait the yellow perch will leave alone.

Personally I don't see what is so hard to beleive about the birds moving fish eggs. If a heron walks through a mass of fertilized eggs I find it quite possible that a couple could stick. I get herons all the time and they could fly to at least 4 other ponds in less than a minute from mine.

I asked the head fish guy for the state of Wisconsin and he said stuck on bird feet and stuck to vegitation that certain birds transport are the 2 main ways they get transplanted. All my harvesting has pointed to one pair of adults being at the root of the problem.

Have you tried the Berkeley Powerbait "Catfish Bait"? I don't know about perch, but nothing in our pond except catfish, who like it pretty well, will hit on it. Largemouths, Bluegills, even Golden Shiners (who seem to try and eat everything) don't go after it. It comes in rather large chunks, but is easy to break up into whatever size pieces you want.

I try it once in a while and they never seem to bite on it. If I switch to worms I start catching the Bullheads. I still have some left, maybe I will try it again.