Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Help me grow big Blue cats

Ok i have a .75 acre pond that I thought I would try to devote my efforts in growing some big catfish.

I went to overton fishfarms last week and todd(owner) sold me blue cats that ranged from 10-14 inches.

he said put 75 fish in this pond which he said is a low number and they should grow fairly fast... so i put them in.

Now this pond already has bass and hybrid bluegill. I have harvested 53 10-14" bass from the pond already in the past two weeks, yeah they were overpopulated! I have also dropped in 100 1-3" CNBG per Todd's recommendation. The pond averages 15ft in dept, it was dug out with a dragline.

My question is what else can I do? And can I expect to get any size out of these fish in this small pond?
Add more CNBG?
Keep taking out more bass?
Add another type of forage fish?

What do you think, my goal is to maximize the growth of the blues.

Welcome, chadwickz71!

This would be a good time for you to learn a little bit more about catfish in general. There's information on this site that I think we can find in regards to mouth size of catfish and how it relates to what they can eat. You need to think in terms of maximizing the number of preyfish in your pond at any one time that are the appropriate size for the mouth size of the catfish that you've got at that time. You'll eventually need to find ways to tinker with the bluegill and other prey populations to keep lots of fish in the general size range. For now, I'd like to see if anyone can give us an approximate mouth gape size for 10-14 inch blue catfish.

I'm not sure about 10-14" but I've seen a 36lb blue that had a smaller mouths than 12" LMB. I think they're open water feeders, more like hybrid stripers than channel cats. Threadfin Shad may be your best forage choice for them.

Will blue cats take pellets?

Channel cats that size would have mouths with 1" - 2" gapes. Based on photos, I would guess BC mouths run about the same range.

I think Overton's Blues are pellet trained; Todd could say for sure.

I have a client that says they will eat pellets. I also used to have a few blue cats tht would eat bread balls to catch them. This client adds 50 lb bag of feed/day for channel cats, bluegill and swears the 40 lb plus blues come up also. He also claims to have low recuirtment of bass due to the really large cats. It is one of the best fisheries around so he is doing something right. Lots of 5 lb plus bass.

Then I guess feeding would be an option. I would atleast give it a try. If the Cats don't eat pellets the BG and HBG certainly will.

While the cats are small I would start with Purina GFC. If the cats arent interested in the feed it won't be too big for the CNBG and the HBG.

thanks for the replies everyone. I stayed up all night last night searching and reading throught the forums.

On the mouth gap, They ranged from about 1" to 1.5" wide and probably opened up to about the same amounts.

That is absolutly correct on fish that they can eat. In my opinion the hybrid bluegill are probably 3-4" in the pond. I don't see very many small ones.

I think im doing the right thing by taking out as many bass as i can catch. I just need to get smaller eatable fish in my pond for the bluecats.

Take out the LMB over 6 in and add some more CNBG that can spawn next spring. In the meantime add some additional forage like FH or small goldfish and feed pellets that have fish meal or fish oil in the contents.

Ok I have already put in 100 CNBG. How many more do I need, about that many more?

Also, wouldn't the FH minnows get ate up pretty fast by the remaining bass? I guess I would have to overstock them to make sure the blues get their share.

Ok I can get the CNBG tomorrow for $42 a 100. 1-3"

Man I talked to is David coming down from Arkansas.

If you can get 4-6"+ CNBG you should do that so they survive and can spawn next spring.

Making this simple, if you want big cats they're going to need a lot of food.

First, feed pellets if you can for the cats AND the CNBG. And second I'd treat them like kinda like bass. The old 10 to 1 ratio on BG-bass is now 20-30 to 1 for large bass. Same issue here. So I'd want a bunch in there, but with 1-3" you're going to suffer predation from both the cats and the bass that are left.

If you're only target is the cats then remove all the bass and all the hybrid bluegill you can. I'd replace a hybrid bluegill with a CNBG any day if your goal is to have the BG create food for your cats.

You might want to stock some golden shiner brooders that would be big enough to spawn in the spring. As ewest said with the BG, the goal is to get enough mature fish that you can have really good spawns.

Any guess what the current population is of bass and BG?

Bass/blugill population?

When I walk around the band(the water is crystal clear) I don't see very many bluegill at all. However, they are present in the deeper water as I notice them when im bass fishing. I would say they are "low in number"

Bass? Ok the ponds I think is more like .6 of an acre now that I did a ballpark area estimate. I have caught and taken out 53 BASS in that pond is the last two weeks. I feel i am thinning them down but I will know better in a week or two more of fishing.

The fish guy is coming to town in the morning. I think i'll just put more CNBG in and wait on the threadfins or fatheads untill iv'e taken all the bass out I can catch.

I just need to know what number of CNBG's I can drop in and not harm anything, if that is possible.

chadwickz71, what is the name of the fish supplier?

I ask because there is a scam-type fish supplier that advertises "free fish" and he operated in the Texas/Arkansas area.

Chadwickz... I don't think you can harm anything. I'd go aggressive because a) predation, b) you want a lot of forage, c) with a smaller mouth I'd lean towards a high BG population, not looking at huge BG. With 100 cats in there I'd go with 2000-3000 BG. 1000 would probably be 'fine'.. I'm just worried about the 5-10 bass that might be left that could do a number on the BG in short order. You don't want to be stocking the CNBG and have 80% of them eaten. That's expensive food. If you want big predators - they'll need lots of forage and CNBG are great forage.

If you were doing larger CNBG I'd back the numbers off a bit.

Sunil, I believe his website is fisherstocker.com but its out of order. No, this person comes to my town a few times a year and has done it for quite a while. no worries.

Aaron I have 75 blues in there by the way. Wow thats a large number, i'd have to break out my pocket book on that one.

Is now the best time to put them in here in Texas or what untill spring when they have a better chance of loosing them over the winter to predation?
....Thats probably a loaded question really.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think bass would react to the presence of high density blue cats the same way bluegill react to high density bass--that is the ones that survive the gauntlet have unlimited feeding potential.

Does that make sense to anyone?

It makes sense to me, but what do I know? The (100) blue cats seems a little high for me just considering how to manage things if they aren't going in the right direction

I'm sure it's OK and will be fun, plus the blues are all in now I think.

I put 75 in the Pond everyone, there must have been a misunderstanding in my original post. I bought 100 but put 75 in this pond. 50 is what Im hoping to survive. 10-14" long. most were at least 12"s. bass probably wont bother them.

Where did the other (25) go? Are you keeping a secret pond?

I just did some bluegill fishing to get some estimates.

Well I pretty much could catch a fish on every cast!!! So I imagine of the size I list below there is probably a bunch.

80% of the time it was a 6" long Hybrid sunfish.

20% of the time i caught 8.5" long Green Sunfish.



So, thats what I have so far. I think 95% of the bass were sized about 12" long which in my opinion is why there are a whole bunch of these larger bluegills. I NEVER caught a bass large enough(3+lbs) that could handle the sunfish i listed above. There is probably VERY few if any. I have fished this pond for 20 years and maybe caught 2 total that where 2-3 lbs.


Im thinking I need to pour in a bunch of CNBG as people above stated to get my small fish numbers up. once the Blues can take on a 6" sunfish then they should have a ton to eat. But I imagine this want be untill 2010. Right now at 14" long they have a 1.5" mouth.


Does this sound like im on the right track???

What are you doing with the HBG and Green Sunfish? Ultimately if you can replace those with CNBG you'll get better forage from them. Catching one on every cast - I'm guessing you have quite a few!

Yes you're right about the small bass/big sunfish. Classic. The small bass basically wiped out the spawns each year so the sunfish you had grew to decent size. With HBG and GS you've got fish that don't reproduce as much as CNBG, so you never got any big bass.

I'm going to say that 75 of those guys is a lot, but I'm assuming you want to eat them?? Fewer would grow faster. I guess my main concern would be getting them to eat pellets. If you had 75 of them that could eat a 6" sunfish you wouldn't have many sunfish left very quickly.

First, guys I really appreciate the help, it is nice to get advice when you need it.

Yeah 75 probably is to many for short term but I was wondering how many I would end up with in the long run...
A) how many will die in 4 years from some unknown cause
B) might lose some if the water goes out the spillway
C) bird/raccoon predation
D) AND I could take 25 out next fall and put them in a different pond or eat them.



I may have made a mistake... But that was the reason I put 75 in. Hopefully it wasn't a large mistake.

Come on now! None of us ever make mistakes, ever!

I wouldn't say you've made any mistakes. The whole blue cat thing is 'relatively' new for us, and we're interested to see what happens.

How many ponds do you have?

Well the other pond I have the blues in is .75 acre. I think they will take care of themselves for a little while. 25 ain't to many in a pond that has never had catfish. Im focusing my efforts on this other pond thats a little small but has 75 just because they will need aid in feeding.

when i get caught up im gonna go down to the other pond with 25 cats and catch all the bass out I can. then next spring i'll dump in say 400 CNBG.

That will be my test... two ponds 75 in one, 25 in the other. Im gonna try to feed them the most I can. We'll see what happens.