Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Channel cats won't spawn

I stocked my lake with BG LMB and cc. All the fish have reproduced except the channel cats. Can someone help and let me know. I got a small area of brush and a few plastic skids in there. I might need something for the cc to lay eggs in. Thanks for any help

Channel Cats are cavity spawners. They like cavities with one way in and one way out. Anything can be used as long as its nothing harmful to the fish. crocks, flower pots, barrels and drums. If needed cut one hole big enough for adult cc's to swim through and sink it. They are more likey to spawn with cavities. And they probably wont without them. Also the success rate may be limited with the BG and LMB as they will prey upon the eggs, fry and fingerlings.

urup,

I think Cardell answered it pretty well.

Several years ago I put in several six foot pieces of 8-inch and 10-inch PVC pipe, with a big rock about in the middle of the inside of each pipe. I had one pipe that I could regularly see until the day before yesterday, when we did a little excavating on that pond. For the last couple of years, one end always had a catfish in it, about this time of year, which I assume was fathering some little CC.

Prior to the PVC, the big cats had dug caves into the north side of my pond.

CC recruitment has always been minimal in my pond, yet LMB, BG and RES seem to be doing quite well. Even my black crappie, which were in the pond when we bought it years ago, seem to be doing OK.

For me, I can get CC for about $0.10 per inch, per fish. Getting 4 to 9 inch CC seems to work pretty well. It doesn't take long for them to get to 18-24 inches, and ready for a neighborhood fish fry.

Tomorrow, we are expecting about 50 people at our house for a community father's day celebration. Half the fish are monster bullheads (about 12- to 14-inch average, from Sunil's pond) the rest are CC, BG, RES, and LMB from my pond.

I recently put in a new pond that will be primarily a "put and take" pond. I put in 4-inch channel cats, along with RES and fatheads. Next week I hope to add hybrid bluegill and small hybrid striped bass.and then winter trout in October. I plan to put in at least one more similar pond above this one, so that I can drain and seine them on alternate years.

Anyway, either start a CC-only pond with places for them to spawn, or just plan on buying fingerlings each year. CC and rainbow trout some of the best bargains everywhere.

Ken

We have one acre pond built in 2006. They put about 5 very large piles of large rocks (if you can find them) and pile them up sporadically. Yesterday, we pulled out a 30" 12.43lb catfish (these were placed in September 2006 in pond). And,it was full of eggs. Last year I saw baby cat feeding on the water with the larger ones, pretty neat to watch.