Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Catfish problems

Hello all, id like to pick your brains if i could. My pond is around 25 years old. I stocked it fairly accordingly and it did well for 6 or 7 years "200 catfish" then became extremely neglected. It filled with weeds and became encased with cattails and nobody fished it for nearly 15 years. Ive spent the last 3 or 4 years eradicating the weed and cattails. Maybe to much so on the weeds but im letting some grow since im getting a little better understanding of habitat. My fishing and visual surveys shows the bluegill, redear, and bass are all under weight. Bluegill seem to greatly out number the bass and all but a couple bass seen and caught are under 12". Theres tons of fry from hatchlings to 1 1/2" all around the pond this year. But the catfish are healthy as horses 4 to 5 and 10 pounders. The last couple years iv fed once a day just to get a visual on the fish. Recently i bought a feeder to start feeding more often. And this is when the catfish started eating again. This is a problem im going to have to resolve in order to fatten up my bluegill and im starting to workin on that. We"ve caught seven this month, its not made a dent in the up to 8 at a time i can see at the feeder, and i dont have any idea how many are actually there but im going to continue fishing and spooking them away from the feeder. But here my question. how is an abundance of healthy catfish effecting or effected a out of balance pond. i dont mind the catfish being in there if i can keep them away from the feed if there not causing other problems. Anyhoo i know this is long winded and filled with speculation but if theirs any takers im intrested.

In My Opinion...it sounds like you have a well balanced pond, for catfish, which, if your enjoying catching them, you know what I mean. But, it sounds like you are after larger bluegill. If that's the case, anything in the pond that can eat a 1/2 pound and over BG is not going to help your goal of a BG fishery.

I have not read anywhere that suggests you can keep catfish from eating your thrown pellet food leaving it for the smaller fish.

My guess is that the large catfish are consuming the LMB and BG that get to be "nice" size leaving the juveniles to grow for a later day. This makes for a growing big catfish , but if you are after larger BG, you will need to get the monsters out.

Do you see any catfish youths? In other words, are they reproducing?

How big is your pond?

Here is a great read on managing for BG...

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189988#Post189988

It's a long journey reading this thread especially with all the links, but there is a lot of fabulous information to be had there.

If it were my pond, I'd manage for the big cats, but if I wanted big BG instead...I would catch out the cats then increase the LMB populations by stocking some, not a lot, of 6 to 10" LMB. This is only if you are short of LMB in comparison to the BG. And, depending on how many BG are in the pond (overpopulated???), it might be a good idea to thin the herd some.

I'm no expert on the subject, just a PB addict. The important take-away is the linked thread about BG if that's what you're after.

You did not say if you have been harvesting any fish or if everything is catch and release.

Your skinny fish may be because you just have too many mouths for the resources available to them. More feed will help that but then you can run into a problem of too many pounds of fish for what the BOW can support (leading to conditions for a potential fish kill). Aereation can increase the carrying capacity of the BOW.

The other problem is if the older fish are already stunted from lack of resources their potential has already been limited. Your newly hatched fish will still retain that growth potential.

The bottom line I am getting at with all this, is that harvest is an important part of growing good fish. You may just need to remove some fish to give the remaining ones the resources they need to grow. Think of your pond as a pen full of pigs. When the pigs are small they have plenty of room but as they grow they get crowded. No matter how much more feed you feed them, they still are going to be crowded. Harvesting some is important. If you do not eat fish, you can always feed your culls to the CC.

I'll echo Quarter Acre. You have a great catfish pond. But will add the following comments.

There is BOW near my house that is very similar in terms of the thin panfish. I will mention that they have pretty good length to them with nearly all caught exceeding 6". It seems likely that these panfish are just large enough to escape predation and that growth stalls at around this length. I've wondered if the pond is cycling between predominate year classes ... where ... a large year class is aged and dies out largely during one year. The following year their is good growth and survival of its year class. They quickly fill the available food supply and growth stalls. They will predominate the panfish supply until their year class dies off. It seems that ponds are always in flux and they most predictable when they are first stocked.

My approach to this BOW is to harvest as many of panfish as I can. This may seem crazy ... but I prefer 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 in panfish for fileting. I can get through a mess with my filet knife without have to repeatedly resharpen the knife. I think harvesting your bluegill wouldn't harm your fishery. In the BOW I am harvesting panfish, their condition is improving. I am also trying to remove large CC and LMB but as of yet have not caught any CC and the Bass have been small.

About the CC in your pond. They are formidable predators at that size. CC are silent swimmers with stealth and hunt when other fish are resting (eg at night). I don't think anything which fits their gape is safe. This would include small LMB at night. Even so, I observe large CC actively foraging during the day. If you like having the large catfish then all is well. But if want more LMB and large BG you must harvest the CC. Also if you don't want them hogging feed, you must harvest them.

I would have a plan to replace CC with LMB. For example, if you harvest a CC, replace 1/4 to 1/2 of it's weight with LMB. For example, if you harvest a 10 lb CC, replace it with 8 8-10" LMB. I figure you have a fairly fertile pond given its age. More important than feeding will be your harvest plan. Reducing the number of mouths to feed is cheaper than feeding and you get some something to eat out of the deal. If you feed, your harvest plan in time will become more difficult to implement (this is because you will need to harvest more fish). Good luck with your efforts.

John(snrub),

What you posted is perfect.

Catfish are pellet hogs - period. Follow the harvest suggestions provided above based on the goals you decide you want for the fishery. Selectively harvesting CC can be problematic search past CC posts for suggestions. Other members my provide catching advice.

Everything you guys are saying seems to be what i was assuming might be happening by what ive been seeing. Like i said this is the first year of actually tryin to figure out whats happening with my fish. Im speculating that my bass numbers are down and the comment about the size of fish that fall prey to the cats backs up what im seeing size wise in all other species. Im not a big catfish fan i only put them in because it was suggested by the hatchery. My goal is BG and LMB. I put in and tagged about 50 nice BG from the neighbors pond this year to mix up the gene pool a little and my plan is to try an catch a few bass to do the same. But theres just so many hours in a day. i bult a trap that did well on the BG while they were on the nest. Nothing has went back into the pond this year other than a few bass this spring. Ive even bought a fishing arrow that im gonna be tryin out on the CC this week. All my water test say the water is healthy enough to support a descent habitat i think. So i guess top priority is getting the cats out.
thank you fellas ill keep you posted

A trot line or two might be a good option to target catfish.

Definitely sounds like our conversation the other night about how grow out ponds are such a great tool for maximizing a fish's potential the first 1-2 years. I think it's something we need a bit more research on. I bet ewest has access to some links.

Snrub, 1/4 and J-dad, havin BC say to follow your advice is quite the compliment.
Gregory, jug fishin with rotten hot dogs or chicken works.

lol i had 2 trout lines out for 2 or 3 weeks. i used chicken an beef liver, shrimp, and hotdogs. i didnt keep them baited every day nor did i get a chance to bait them at night. back to that 24 hour day thing and me bein a little lazy. i caught one 5 pounder before i got the fourth hook baited. that was the only one. the BG and painted turtles cleaned the hooks within an hour or so each time i baited them. that got me thinkin about shootin the dang things. im gonna be off work for a few days maybe ill try the trout lines again at night.

Try putting a live BG on there

Jug line about 3-4’ max depth...... works

Got me to wondering...would catfish soap or Ivory soap work in a pond full of bluegill on a trotline?? I don't have catfish but just curious. It might keep the turtles off the bait??

Ivory soap works decently, but you can get your hands on some of the old P&G soap, they tear it up! It's hard to find tho.

Seine net set up in front of a feeder. Cull the fish you don't want out. I've got a link on here somewhere I'll try to find later.

Found it.......

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=493927

I had somehow missed that thread. I need to do that on a much smaller scale in my forage pond.

Very cool.

It’s a great pond management tool for small ponds. It may be a bit too laborious for my 15 acre pond. But I have to think removing 900 channel cats and 250 carp within 12 months makes it worth it.

Whats the scoop on ivory soap fellas ? I bought a 30' seine a month ago to try an get an idea of whats goin on with fingerling population but so far i havent used it. LOL Kinda hard for one person. I could probably catch some of the CC with a bigger net the way my pond is made.

I’ve always heard of fishing with Ivory but don’t know of anybody that has actually done it

Many years ago, my dad used to supplement his income by selling catfish. He had over 1000 hooks in the river on trot lines. When fresh bait was hard to come by he used P&G soap, then it got hard to find so he switched to ivory. It caught fish fairly well. Not as good as shad, cut bait, crawfish or even the P&G brand but they did bite it. You have to soften it up before putting it on the hook tho. It wants to crumble up otherwise. Wet a bar then put in a baggie and set it in the sun a while. When it gets soft enough, cut it into small squares and bait up your hooks.

What is P and soap? I see a proctor and gamble white naptha soap on ebay, that must be it?

If you'd of asked me what the last thing I would of thought of that I could've caught catfish on I wouldn't have said soap. But then again I'm sure soap wouldn't have even been on my list either !