George has been nudging me onto this thread and finally I sit here with a little time... Nice Thread. Noble goal that I can appreciate. Growing big blue catfish on common carp...LOL. Thanks George!
I have been caring for monster blue cat broodstock for 12 years now, and they are a joy. We are one of the very few hatcheries that produce blue catfish. I think they are the closest thing to a shark that we can stock in ponds LOL. Blues are the dominant species in our 2.5 acre catfish broodstock pond. The pond is aerated during the summer, and stays somewhat turbid 12" or less. Forage available includes threadfin and gizzard shad, crappie, largemouth bass, sunfish, koi (colored common carp). There is virtually zero recruitment of koi in this pond, but I can't attribute this to blue cat predation. A colored fish has odds stacked against him from day 1. We supplement with 25lbs of high protein fish food every other day. We have blues up to 50lbs that feed on pelleted food. We harvest channel catfish whenever we can to reduce biomass. The blues rarely get harvested unless we need them for broodstock.
In your situation NEDOC you need to harvest as many adult carp as possible as time goes on for biomass control, and also stock a healthy density of blue catfish for control of carp offspring. I would suggest 50-100 blue catfish per acre. Ladder stock if you like, depends on practicality and your goals and budget. Management strategy of the blue cat population down the road will depend on your program. Ideal forage are gizzard shad but I doubt the blues are very picky. You are too far north for thread fin shad. In our ponds the catfish have zero chance of wiping out gizzard shad, and they can produce astronomical forage numbers.
We do have some adult blue catfish available this fall, they appear to be 5-10lb range. We also have a bumper crop of 4-6" size fingerlings, that will be easy 6-8" by October. But we sold so many midsize 8-12" blue cats this year that we don't have anything in between right now.
Y'all are welcome to come down here and see these fish. If you decide you want to stock some then I recommend you let us deliver direct to you.
