Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Fish Harvest

Seems likly to work better if they were Flats or even blues...right? I know these fish eat bass....
just asking

Eastland,

your thinking is right its just tough to get enough large catfish in a pond to eat 12 inch stunted bass. I have seen small ponds that have big problems when stocked with too many catfish. once CC get big they will eat up most everything, the only fish you have left are the big 10-15 pound cats. so in theory you are right but in the real world its impossible to predict how many large catfish it will take, I've never seen any research on the matter. then where do you get catfish that big? if you buy stockers you have 4-5 years of feeding to do to get CC up large enough to help you eat bass. thats 5 more years of bad bass fishing. then what happens if you stock too many catfish? now you have catfish to remove instead of bass.

A 30 acre lake is very diverse, there is a strong possiblility that the CC will find a more suitable food resourse than 12 inch bass. If that happens you are back to where you started.

I'll kill myself before I'll stock a flathead into someones pond. they will wipe it out, I've only seen it once but the flatheads totally wiped out he pond. they are a predator unparrelled by any other in freshwater except maybe a pike or muskie. we dont have those fish around here so the flathead is very near top of the food chain. No way do I want that big ugly thing eating up all my fish.

Blues? dont know never stocked one

there are more factors to consider than just adding another predator. your best bet is to remove those little bass. the others will grow. If I had a pond in south Ga. that I wanted big bass in I would adjust the bass population and stock shad, threadfin to start then gizzard. now you've got the nuts, as the poker players say

Eastland,

You stated that if you added 25% catfish predators, would that not reduce your bass predators to 75%... No, bass will spawn in the spring. When they do, millions of babies are born. A percentage survive. It does not matter if bass or catfish are the predators that are eating those babies, a percentage still survive. Actually, bass are more ravenous feeders than catfish, so if your predators are 100% bass, less young will survive than if some are catfish.

Also, I do not see how adding 25% catfish predators will reduce your larger bass population at all. The only way to get rid of them is to remove them. Adding will not reduce anything.

Sorry, but you must take them out. If I lived in Georgia, I would volunteer to help. I can't believe that you can not find a couple of fishermen who are responsible enough to respect your property and your rules; and help you. If anyone in Dallas needs a fisherman, let me know. I love to fish and I will take care of your property. My point is, sounds like a problem, but a good problem to have.

I know we have talked about rating top of the line predetors before in other post, but mention them here again.
All agreed the top of the line predetor is the Flathead unparalleled to any other (for southeast any way)
Then we say Blues then LMB, then Channels.
I guess on of the biggest fears is that adding somthing like blues or even channels is that they may not do what we hope they do. By this I mean they my lend them selvs to forage on the bream and shad, instead of forageing on the small bass, correct? If there were some way to control the cats diet to mostly bass then we have a winning situation. We know that cats don't reproduce therefor we know how many are in the lake, and can easily control there numbers, right? When the bass population goes down we can easily adjust by harvesting more cats....

Guys this is just an idea.....sort of supports Eastlands thoughts

Nick, I wasn't out to significantly decrease the bass population, I was only providing an alternative to culling as many. In a 5 minute web tour, I quickly found articles From Ohio State and Texas A & M that if channel catfish are introduced, they will reduce the total pounds of bass a pond can maintain. However, it did mention "only slightly"

the catfish will also displace bluegill, shad and any other fish after they are introduced. anytime you introduce a fish into an existing fish population it has to displace another fish.