Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations bullhead overpopulation

I have a 1 acre pond,more bullhead than you can count. I am currently trapping them in a minnow trap with a larger hole. Its working, i have over 200 out so far, but i dont think i have even made a dent in the problem. Any ideas? will a large channel cat eat these small bullhead? the average size is about 1/2 pound, some may be up to 1 1/2 pounds

What is your water clarity like and how much, by percentage, of your water is covered by rooted vegetation? The reason I ask, is that the best predator, by far, that I know of for black bullhead is the largemouth bass. If you have sufficient opportunity for sight predators like LMB you will see your bullhead population diminish significantly over time. If you have too much vegetation, or poor visibility, or low density of predators, then the bullhead will likely continue to thrive.

OK its not my pond, its my cousins. There is no cover and as far as we know there are no bass. Water clarity is like chocolate milk, which is wy we have not stocked any LMB.Given the size of the pond, how many pounds of bullhead could be in there, and could they be causing the murky water? I ask because we have not had rain this century.

Your water turbidity is definately caused by bullheads. The more abundant bullheads are the cloudier the water becomes.

Again, recomendations for your situation, it is all about your goals for this pond. If you are not in hurry to re-establish a specalized fishery then Bruce' suggestion to supplimentally stock bass. My experience indicates that stocking fingerlings will probably not be very successful. Extreme cloudiness of water can easily result in zero survival of fingerling bass that are stocked. Start by stocking 6"-12" bass and keep removing bullheads by fishing and trapping until there numbers dwindle to a point that the rate of catching them slows down. In one acre you may need 3 to 5 traps to be effective. Consider buying or building some larger sized traps in addition to smaller ones. Bait traps with dead fish or fish food. Consider regular feedings of fish food to the bullheads to get them to congregate for more efficient trapping and angling.

If you are interested in quick results and producing a specialized fishery then renovate the pond with rotenone. Restocking of desirable species can be done yet this late spring early summer. Do a search here for rotenone for some more background information about that topic. To me it sounds like you have a mess and if it were my pond I would kill it off and start over so you can produce some decent sized panfish and predators in 12-24 months. Otherwise you will be spending a lot of time and a fair amount of money messing with this problem for 3-4 yrs getting the bullheads under control and if not done right you will still have a "fishery mess" after 3 yrs.

Ditto what Bill said. If you are feeding pellets, and the bullheads are using the pellets, I've found that you can bait the trap with a zip-loc baggie full of pellets and enough little holes punched out of the baggie sides to allow the essence to drift out.

That's funny. We haven't had rain this century either. The bullheads could be contributing to the chocolate milk color, as could wave action or inflows which suspend what is known as colloidal clay. You're gonna have to try the famous jar test on the water. Get a glass jar, fill it with your pond water and make observations over the next three days or so. The settling of the clay particles, or lack thereof, will teach you a lot about your particular situation. If your jar settles quickly, then you can explore other options such as a sediment/nutrient dike, improved shoreline erosion control or bullhead elimination. If your jar doesn't settle then you may have problems with water chemistry or clay particle type which could be controlled through alum application.

Perhaps you could have a fishing contest for kids in your local area with prizes for largest, fattest, ugliest, cutest, sexiest, whatever, bullhead.

Just make it fun for the kids! Newspaper and TV will advertise the tournament for free. Local business will furnish the prizes for free. Local politicians can easily be coerced into furnishing night crawlers for bait and posing for photos with the winners and losers, whatever.

You will be famous as a great guy who contributes to the community. Not to mention, getting rid of some of those larger bullhead.

Then follow Bruce Condello and Bill Cody suggestions for a longer term solution.

Why don't you use some of the under weight bass you are culling from your other pond. if you carefully select crappie by sex, you could also use them to reduce the bullheads without fear of reproduction of the crappie. I used this method in a 1/10 acre pond of mine, and in one summer all but eliminated the bullhead.

I had a very similar situation and used a combination of bullhead culling and LMB stocking. So far it appears to have worked very well.

Good luck

Here is an excerpt from a previous post of mine
http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=20&t=001862&p=0


"The pond is about 1 acre located in Western New york. When I took ownership water clarity was less than 1 ft and the only fish species present were bullhead, fathead minows, and another species of minnow I can not ID. The recomendation I received from professionals was drain/poison and start fresh with LMB/bluegills. I am sure this would have worked but was not very appealing to me. Instead I removed approx 900 bullhead over 3 years. In June 2004 I added 100 3" LMB. The bass are currently about 9 inches and they spawned this spring. The pond is now clear with about 6 ft of visibility (secchi disk). Fatheads are becoming rare and catching a bullhead is no where near as easy as it used to be."