My small pond is about the same size as yours and when I stocked it, I was told by the owner of Tyler Fish Farms that I should put in copper nose bluegill, fathead minnows and channel catfish. He said he wouldn't recomend bass on that size of a pond. He's a profesional fish biologist with some impressive clients, so I listend to his recomendation.
He said that if I fed the catfish, they would be over a pound by fall, and if not it would take them a year to get that big. This was in April of 2006.
We fed them every night and enjoyed watching them eat the floating catfish food. We tried different brands, but all seemed to have the same results.
This year in September, we started catching cats that weighed 3 pounds and a few that were just over that. The hit on hotdogs and put up a nice fight. The kids love it because they are easy to catch and very exciting to pull in a nice sized fish.
They also catch bluegill on the same bait, but they are just too small compared to the catfish to get them very excited. On a good day, my wife and two kids have cought 18 catfish and ten bluegill. The smallest catfish was over a pound and most were two pounds or more.
Eddie
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