Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Structure for catfish

I am using 35 gallon plastic drums that I got from a friend that owns a car wash. The plastic drums are used for liquid soap. I cut a hole at the end of the drum to create an artificial log for catfish. I drilled a couple hole in the side of the drum and added some pea gravel to sink.

I presume that you DO want your CC's to spawn and reproduce...correct?

I have a tank (pond) in central Tx. that is totally murky with suspended clay. There is one large oak tree in the bottom (15' deep) and that is the only structure. I stocked cc's four years ago with fathead minnows and feed it with a spin cast feeder at the rate of about 4 lb. per day. They are doing great and took out a 10 lb'er 1 week ago. We also caught a bunch (10) of 7-8 inch cc's. Structure is not a big deal unless you have other predators in there.

I would like the catfish to spawn. Do you foresee a problem? I also have brim and bass in the pond.

Getting your catfish to spawn is kind of a paradox. If you have no other predators in the pond, it's easy - very easy to end up with way too many catfish. With BG and LMB present like you have, you can still get them to spawn, but baby CC are so slow and come so late in the year (75 - 85 deg F water temp for spawning) that EVERYTHING else eats them and very few live to grow out of the fry/fingerling stage.

So - you give it your best shot and see if any sizable younger catfish show up.

Two tips for CC spawning: 1) The cavities you provide have to be sized for the cats you have (bigger catfish use bigger cavities, I guess to have room to move around in). 2) Best results are supposed to occur when the cavities are placed in the pond shortly (couple of weeks?) before the cats spawn (to give less time for some other fish to take up residence?) There are a LOT of publications on CC online due to their extensive use in commercial aquaculture.

Good Luck. I had a few containers in last year with no results, I have more this year. I'm not too worried about success, more interested in having the cats convert fish food into fry for the other fish to eat. And I'm interested to see what happens.

At some point nearly all fish are "bottom feeders". I try to push my CC into spawning. Not only do I want a sustainable CC fishery, I also like the addition of swimming protein for my LMB.

I have some questions on this topic.
When do Channel catfish lay eggs?
I have a lot of bream about 4-6 inches long swimming around some washed up Christmas trees by the pier and the bass put very little if no pressure on them. Would those trees be enough structures for catfish to spawn and not have any pressure by what few bass hang out there?
Thanks for the info.

As I understand it, cats are cavity related spawners. Exceptions occur as Casca has related. The timing is mostly climate related. In central Texas, June appears to be the magic month. Bass prey on them pretty heavily. They are slow swimmers and form schools that are easy to pick off by larger fish. If you have abubdant bluegill, some might make it.

Robinson, what about the big channel you caught on a Big O, what about channels coming up and eating FLOATING catfish food? Big Pond come to the defense. Ive caught many on yellow and black little N's. They are a majestic creature.