Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Which pond raised catfish tastes the best?

I'm looking to buy a new place. It has 3 ponds within 150-300 yards of each other. #1 is a 10 ac bass managed pond with no catfish(supposedly) and the other two have whatever the good Lord has put in them. I would like to make those 2 catfish ponds. I'm thinking Blue Catfish (Ictalurus Furcatus)and Flathead Catfish (Pylodictis Olivaris) mainly due to how large they can grow. CC seem to be the smallest of the cats and eat more trash like dead fish and bugs etc. The others seem to enjoy live forage fish more than "junk food". I may need CC in both other ponds for disposal services.

I would really like grow big cats so the kids and future grandkids can catch'em.

Your thoughts and suggestions are solicited.

Actually the CC prefers live food and pellets. Not really much of a scavenger.

What can you possibly stock to feed 25+ pound cats?

Dog,

I'm far from an expert, but I do know a little bit about catfish.

All three types of catfish you mention can cause problems. But, the channel cat is probably the least problematic. Channel cats can also grow quite large in small ponds.



Blue cats and flat heads both have bad reputations for being unmanageble. Many report that they will wipe out virtually all forage.

Channel cats certainly taste pretty good. We are having poached channel cat tonight.

Any catfish is probably going to need forage, unless you continuously feed. Channel cats live very well with bass and bluegill. They are reasonably easy to catch if you don't overfish using catch and release. In that case, they become hookshy real fast.

For us, a 10-12 inch channel catfish becomes a 20-24 inch catfish in one season. For us, they are also a major factor in growing citation size bluegill.

Just my thoughts.

Ken

Good point DD. Real good point.

Cat, thanks for the info. I bet they're fun to catch also. What a beauty you got there.

Once I buy this place, I will get more feed back on the subject matter.

I have only eaten CC. I don't like it as well as BG or LMB (or several other scaled fish), but my kids like it as well or better (they have grown up with it, whereas we rarely had CC when I was a kid). It can taste pretty good when my wife fixes it, and since we started eating them out of our pond, we have only had one bad CC that we could blame on the fish (that one cat was just plain tough and strong) - all the rest of the bad CC eating experiences can be blamed on the chef du jour (me).

Lusk compares BC to Grey Poupon - I got the opinion he meant they have more/stronger flavor than CC>

In my opinion, the CC is prolly the best freshwater tablefare going.

I prefer it to any scaled fish, and to most saltwater fish.

Krogers in Ohio had catfish steaks for sale last week. I have cousins in Texas that swear by these little fish steaks.

Is it worth dealing with the bones in them or is it better to go with fillets?

One last thing...Anybody have a good recipie to fry those fish steaks?

I waited to see who was going to post it and I guess its gonna have to be me.Obviously,the best catfish around,bar none,are the CC that I raise in MY pond.
There,that should start something.

Now we know. Glad that's over.