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.
These 10"+ blue cats were eating more than 50lbs fish food per day in a 1/2 acre pond this summer. They are the largest blue cat fingerlings that we've produced due to super-successful spawn in 2007.
My bad for not recommending a feeding program. Sometimes I do assume that folks know we've been feeding our fish pellets on the farm for economic production, as opposed to live food.
I recommended Chad stock larger bluegill than 1"-3" for better survival rates, and Chad followed that advise by purchasing 3"-6" bluegill...not 1"-3" fish.
Can keep them on fish food, but if you want trophy blues in your pond eventually then better have some live forage. We rarely see blues over 10-12lbs eating fish food on in our broodstock pond, but the largest blues are obese with ample shad and bluegill as forage.
Also we have Texas Hunter Feeders here for sale, and don't worry yourself to death over 75 blue cats in a .6 acre pond....they'll help themselves most of the time. Blue catfish are the closest thing to sharks that you can stock in a southern freshwater pond!!!
FYI THESE FISH HAVE BEEN FEED-TRAINED FOR 1.5 YEARS.
