I needed to relax some yesterday so I went up to my lake. I rode my ATV near the shore and was pleased to see fathead minnows about every place I stopped. As I made my way around it, I was starting to feel pretty good. \:\)

When I was almost done, I noticed a black cloud of tiny fish about a foot in diameter... Ding! I've read too much on here to ignore that. I jumped off and managed to catch one. It was a stupid yellow belly catfish about an inch long! \:\(

Like many of the other posters with this problem, I have no idea how that could have happened except that someone "helped" me out. No pond anywhere up drainage that they could have came from. Not really any way they could have came up over the dam from downstream. All the books say forget our feathered fiends as the source...

I guess I no longer have to worry that someone will "help" me out. I'd sure like to "help" out whoever "helped" me out, but I'll probably never find out who that was.

I'll try to get rid of those. They were close to the bank last night. Tonight, I thought I'd try a net of some type to catch them and even thought about shooting into the water (I would take safety precautions) near them hoping that the shock wave would bring them up or kill them.

I had planned to delay stocking fish other than fatheads until next year. Should I go ahead and stock this year in light of this development or will the predator fish catch up to eliminate them even if they have a big headstart?

...I'll post / review again info also over in the other more appropriate threads. This has become like a one thread journal of its progress.

[Linked Image from i108.photobucket.com]