Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain bull frogs

I stocked my pond last spring with 750 blue cats and 100 hybrid strip bass, 1000 perch 50 lbs of fat head minnows and 50 lbs of shiners. I would like to get some bull frogs now, any tips on raising them. will they stick around? will they bread where do I get the big ones?

Some hatcheries sell bullfrogs, or bullfrog tadpoles. I don't know about in TX. They are easy to catch with a long fishing pole, like a cane pole, dangle any kind of bait in front of them and they will hit it. Small pieces of worms, trout flies or small poppers are great for this.

Send TJ a PM, has has a lot of BF tadpoles.

Good luck on trying to buy adult bullfrogs.
The few places that do sell decent size
bull frogs are expensive. I found one on-line
source but the adult size were $25 a piece!
And some of these for $25 are easily small enough
to be a $25 snack for a bass.

http://www.backwaterreptiles.com/frogs/bullfrog-for-sale.html

http://www.petsolutions.com/C/Live-Frogs/I/African-Bullfrogs-Pixie-Frogs.aspx

https://www.pondmegastore.com/shop/product.php?productid=16143

http://www.reptilesbymack.com/amphibians.aspx

you think tadpoles raised will stick around

will bullfrogs hurt my pond are will they even stick around my pond once released

They'll stick around if you have the habitat that they like to live in. They won't if you don't.

If the pond conditions of weed habitat and predators do not allow the tadpoles to hatch, grow, and metamorphose into frogs then the habitat is not conducive to growing frogs thus adults will likely leave or frog production will be poor at best.

Mine just showed up and never left and breed successfully. Weird thing is I get die off of tadpoles every few years but it doesn't effect them all.

How big are those 750 blue cats already? Once they get a big enough gape, if they are hungry, they will definitely eat bullfrogs.

I also like bullfrogs, but I would catch them from other ponds with a fishing rod or my 18' long handled net before I would pay outrageous prices for them.

In TX they might already be frogs, but if you find the right pond full of bullfrog tadpoles you can catch a bunch with a shrimp net.

I would just guess that you would have better luck putting tadpoles in your pond than frogs. Adult bullfrogs may have a homing instinct and they might try to go back to the pond you took them from, unless your pond is ideal for them.

I'm going to make a guess that if you don't have quite a bit of vegetation, and with all the predators you have that Bullfrogs and tadpoles won't last long. My pond was like that once. As it became more vegetated I got more tadpoles and frogs of all kinds. Today I am fully vegetated and I have frogs galore. This last winter I had a terrible winter kill of my Bullfrogs. I thought I wouldn't have any for a couple of years, but guess what, big bull frogs are all over the place. I too wonder where they all come from.

Couple years ago we had a drought dried up 2 neighbors ponds and the BF moved to my pond I caught 65 in one night.. it's hit and miss I would think my pond is perfect I did a count the other day and only see 18 (big ones).. so they come and go.

Put a hurtin on them big bulls tonight pretty much wiped out all the big ones in my pond for this year.. haven't counted them yet but I'd say over 25 less than 35 somewhere in that range.. Kids had a blast the bugs were absolutely the worst I've ever seen it looked like fog was rolling over the pond completely coating the water surface.. All in all great night with my sons..

Cleaned them today ended up with 28.. ended up "rescuing" 3 of them per my son..

So when's supper?.. It'll take me about 4 hours to get there.. I'll bring the beer!!

How big do they need to be? We have bullfrogs but they don't seem to get very big. Are there different species of bullfrogs?

There is a specie called green frog that is very similar to a small version of the bullfrog. Maybe that is the frog specie in your pond??

The bigger the better. Greens are good to but they don't get as big as the bulls.. I hot prolly 10 greens last night too..

Not sure when supper will be my son's bday is Wednesday I'll prolly fry them up then.. I'll post a pic for ya how bout that lol..

I going to catch one and take a pic and post. So I can learn just what I got. I wish I had a smart phone years ago. So easy to take pics and post.

Here is a couple of pics. Bullfrogs?

Bull frogs don't have dorso-lateral ridges or the raised line you see on the back behind the eyeball...So either a green frog or a leopard frog from my understanding..

Frogs in the picture are green frogs: Rana clamitans most recent name Lithobates camitans.
http://www.uri.edu/cels/nrs/paton/LH_green_frog.html

Greeny and a little small for eating unless you catch a 100 or so

Thanks Bill...and your right Bluegill, it would take A LOT of those to make a meal