Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Channel Catfish Pond predator with mouth gape

Harvested a number of large adult channel catfish between 8-14lb. Stocked four years ago. 4 females stomach consist of mostly Fish food and plant material. 11 small adult catfish with stomach contents of mostly fish food. Three adult male cat fish with small fish bones and sticks in stomach. One catfish contained to freshwater muscles. One Large male cat fish contained a 8 inch bluegill / 3.5 tall. The male was 28in long and weighed 12.2lbs. Mouth gape 4in wide, 3in tall.

Hungry hungry hippos!

That's pretty cool... interesting data.

/c

very nice "albinos" Snakebite!

Sweet! Do you think there is a difference in the taste of an albino vs a common CC once they've had a bath in hot grease?

What I’ve noticed with albino CC, the nasty yellow fat content on the top strip of the back is very little to nonexistent. That’s a plus in my books. The taste fair I would venture to say is near the same. The dark red blood lines are still present, but with proper filleting can be separated easily.

Plus in my book as well. Have you noticed that CC raised on grain based pellets have less of the yellow? I don't know if this is a fact but this is my perception when comparing similar size pellet raised pond CC vs wild caught.

I’ll put it this way Bill, from my experience wild river/lake CC over 8lbs is just nasty. Lots of yellow fat and meat is tough even during the cold months fishing. Blue Flathead even big ones don’t seem to carry the same trait.

You are lucky the big CC don't have near the mouth gape of a Flathead.

The one large had sticks in its stomach. Some could conclude catfish eat sticks. Thus this is how fallacies and wives tales get started. CC often have filamentous algae in their stomach. Does this mean they intentionally eat filamentous algae; I doubt it.

I have always said that the large catfish in my pond are eating a lot of my bluegills. I have seed a dead CC that died of old age (I assume) that was relatively thin. It was 32" long and weighed 28#. I would estimate that it would have weighed in the mid thirty pound range when healthy.

I don't remember measuring it's gape (it was on shore when I came back from a 6 day hunting trip in November) but it's head was 8" wide at it's widest part.

I will try and post a few pics that I have of it when I can. I wear a size 11.5 EEEE shoe, and my shoe is in the picture next to it's head.

I have been using 4 - 7" BG to catch 5# CC out of my pond. They won't take anything else.