One Last thought here...it has been suggested to me by a few locals that perhaps it is an otter. I dismissed this since the catfish are extremely large, the 24 pound one was as heavy as some otters, and most of the dead fish had no marks on them at all, I assume if it was the work of an outer, after the fight with a fish that big there would be evidence on it.
And, I seriously doubt they will pick a fight with the biggest nastiest fish in the pond when there are so many of a better size to eat, additionally, I should see some evidence of them since they cannot stay under the water like a turtle for hours, and we are down there often watching the dogs swim, etc and I watch the pond constantly from the house with a spotting scope ( 45X ) and have never seen one in 10 years.
Finally, we are nowhere near any of the rivers / lakes that they have been recently established in, many miles aways in fact.
Now, having said that, we found the oddest thing this year right in the middle of one of our bridges. Two very large ( I have pics ) freshwater clams that were 4 inches long had been scooped up from the deep water apparently ( we had no idea that we had any clams, much less clams that are so huge,) but if they were close enough to shore for a coon to get them we would see them, we ride around the border of the pond every day scouting, etc.
The thing about it that was so odd, other than discovering things in your pond that we had no idea existed in it, was that they had been EXPERTLY opened, the shells were not only perfectly intact, one with a slight chip, the other was not even fully separated, it was still held together by the hinge in the middle, just everything inside had been eaten. And they had been discovered clearly somewhere in the pond, taken to the middle of the bridge near the fish feeders, and cleanly, very cleanly in fact, gobbled up.
But I cannot figure an otter into the catfish ordeal, no signs of a fight of any kind, took place over 4 weeks or so, would have seen it at least one time.
One question about the DO ( now that I understand what that is ) shouldn't I have seen some other signs like fish at the surface, other fish dieing, etc. And I thought CC handled a DO issue better than most fish, heck, I have seen them live in mudhols. It is a fairly large body of water for relatively few fish, it seems that DO would have hit a few years ago when heat was much higher than this year, lots more fish, etc? Still confused? Thanks to all for their help, and again, sorry for not getting back sooner, I keep forgetting that I even have a post up for help unless I see a dead fish which has not been happening, now that I have to renew PB I remembered!
