Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Catfish are gone

Hello,
It seems that both my neighbors and my catfish didn't make it through the winter. It's very strange, he has a 15' deep 1/2 acre pond with a constant aerator (10' water display) and I have a small 1/4 acre pond with an aerator on 4-8 hours per day. My HBG made it, no problem. Anyone else have catfish kills?
thx,

Odd deal

Sorry to here that. At least they are relatively cheap to replace. If you can't figure out why they disappeared, you might want to restock a small number to see if it repeats next Winter.

Strange indeed!

Any chance that you had a heavy, cold spring rain in March after your ponds already started warming up? That might have caused a rapid turnover of the water and a low oxygen event. If the CC were mostly large fish, it might have killed most of them before the BG.

Also, are your ponds getting close to their carrying capacity of fish mass? CC are very efficient at growing large in Texas ponds and BG are very efficient at creating large numbers of BG. If those fish are not culled periodically or controlled through predation, then your ponds could just be packed with fish. In that scenario, any stressful event can be magnified in how many fish it wipes out.

Finally, any chance you have otters in the area? One family that found a pond full of tasty catfish, could easily clean them all out over a single winter season. They would then probably move over to the next closest pond, and repeat their fish slaughtering process.

We've both had the ponds for 5 years now and yes, they were all 5-10 lb CC. We did have several spring rains, but I would have thought we would have seen floaters if they were all killed in one event. I've never seen an otter, but it is possible. my neighbor has a fountain 24/7 and I run an aerator for 6-7 hours at night. All good ideas, but I feel I'm still missing something. it's just frustrating. thanks guys.

I have a small pond as well. I didnt know i had catfish until i added CC and started feeding them. Then larger catfish started to come in to feed. Point is are you sure they arent in there still?

Good points. I put the CC in ~4 years ago and they have always been very good participants in the hand feeding. Actually running the HBG off as they scoop up the feed on the surface. So, 1 - They are not visible and not coming to the nightly feeding party and 2 - I went down with the ole hook and worm today and let it soak in 3 different spots, no bites. If there's any silver lining, when I first put the pond in, I didn't have a break in the outlet and the neighbor's pond to the south allowed some BHs to swim upstream during a 5" rain. So, I've been dealing with them also. Now, it appears that what ever took the slick skins out, took all the CC and the BHs, but left the LMB and HBG. I will miss the couple of albino CC I had in there. thanks again guys.

The Otter question has me thinking about a game camera though.....I don't see prints, but with a downside bank, they may be just launching and not leaving prints. I'll have to think on that a little. thx.