Channel Catfish near 3 pounds and up are a very effective, voracious predator. If there is an overabundance of small, stunted BCP, HSB could do well for a while, but as RC alluded to, a forage species will need to be there eventually. YP/WE may not be a bad mix. The WE would be slow gtowers, and if the YP eggs do not all get eaten by starving BCP, YP can filter feed to grow.
Chances are, with smaller WE and YP in the water, the CC would ignore the stunted BC for an easier meal, till easier meals are gone.
Rex,
Your last sentence above really strikes close to home. Last week I took two CC from my lower pond. One was about a 5 lbs., and the other about an 8 lbs. As always, I cut their stomachs open to see what they'd been eating.
There wasn't a trace of fish bones or skin in either of their stomachs. Instead, their stomachs were distended due to an over abundance of feed pellets. I'm not sure why they took the hooks I had set out after dark with thawing creek chubs from last fall, and liver. Their gluttonous stomachs were already beyond capacity.
But, CC sure will take take the easier meals.
I don't know what to think of my HSB. Like my big CC, it too is a love-hate relationship. I'm thinking I may need to build two more ponds, one just for CC and one just for HSB. I have HSB in my main BG/LMB/CC pond, and also in my put-and-take CC/HBG pond. The HSB have grown so fast, and are so aggressive, that I can hardly catch anything else.
A few weeks ago I started a thread about HOW NOT TO CATCH HSB. I didn't get any real answers. When I'm fishing for BG, crappie, or even LMB with a flyrod, I like to use the equivalent of a 2-4 lb., tippet/leader. When an 18-20 inch HSB grabs the bait at lightning speed, my stripped flyline will burn through my fingers and hands before I can react. By then, the HSB is free and on its way with a tiny hook and some line in its lip.
Oh, the trials and tribulations of owning fishing ponds.
Dang, I sure to love it.
Ken
