for a small pond maybe 30x30 or maybe larger id like to raise some bait fish for catfish and possibly minnws for crappie as well but bluegill dont seem to live as long as gsf or rockbass/warmouth they seem to be able to last forever stay ona hook longer too and arnt as wide so would prob do best for the type of fishing im looking to do

anyways do youthink that getting war mouths would be the bets bet? tbh i prob could not raise minnows then due to them being able to eat them all and not sure if warmouth or gsf will eat pellet feed or maybe should try and find some bullheads

I have heard that BH work great for catfish bait because they will live so long on the hook. GSF would be another one because of how tough they are.

exactly but the thing i wonder is they prob wont pellet feed
id need them to be able t pellet feed
bhs will but the warmouths and gsf have bigger mouths so not sur eif they will hit pellets

exactly but the thing i wonder is they prob wont pellet feed
id need them to be able t pellet feed
bhs will but the warmouths and gsf have bigger mouths so not sur eif they will hit pellets

I have Warmouth, GSF, and BH in my pond (just to name a few). When I pellet feed, I have GSF and BH come to the feed. Cant confirm Warmouth, because they tend to look a lot like GSF. The BH are usually a bit late to the party, but they do eat pellet feed.

Bullheads are hard to beat as catfish bait. They can live in less than good water, breed like rats, and take quickly to feed.

i agree but finding them iswhat i worry aboutnot sure how to catch them to then put in a pond.. i need t put least 30 in a small pond if already has fish right

My experience with BH is, while they may spawn large numbers of fry, those fry are almost, if not entirely decimated by everything else in the pond. I used to see swarms of small BH, 30-40 per group, from 3-5 inches long. But since I've got my other fish established, I haven't seen a single swarm. There's still BH down there but I haven't caught anything shorter than 11" in quite some time. I expect that eventually, all those adults will die of old age, if they dont get a grease bath first.

BH have been put in my pond since it was first built by my son and me. I have never caught one but I did see for the 1st time last year the black swarm of fry in some shallows. I continue to put them in when I catch em around here.

I agree completely with that observation.

When my little puddle was still a mucked up mess it was over-run with BH. I had maybe 30-ish CC from 2lbs. up to 20lbs. and half a dozen 4lb+ LMB in there, but there weren't enough of them to control the BH population.

Once we started fishing out the bigger BH and throwing the cast net on the fry ball things changed quickly.

If a guy wanted to grow BH to use for bait it would need to be done in a forage pond that didn't contain any top end predators.

I'm going to dig a forage pond this year. Maybe I'll throw some BH in with the fatheads and shiners and see what happens.

what if bullhead and greensunfish/warmouths are the only fish in the ponds? and no big predators to eat the smaller ones will other bullheads try to eat them all? after a few weeks the gsf shouldnt be able to eat the cats id think

i dont see how people say bhs get put in their ponds i have never seen a company that sold them lol are they in ponds due to people personally stocking them from other lakes?

do you think someone could build a pond with a shovel without buying heavy machinery like possibly a 10x10 or 15x15 sized pond about 3 foot deep? id think i could raise bhs in there and maybe some gsf for catfish bait or when they all die try to raise shiners or something for crappie

since the pond would be no deeper than 4 foot id prob have to line the bottom with a tarp so it wouldnt dry up huh

Probably, unless you had a way to pack it good...and you had the right kind of dirt (typically 60/40 clay/sand which will be a bear to dig by hand.

You can rent a small excavator from any Home Depot that has a tool rental, I think.

I suppose you could if you wanted it bad enough.

If I was wanting a pond that size rather than go to all the trouble of hand-digging a hole I'd just go to the farm-n-home store and buy a 10'x4' round galvanized steel stock tank. Or find someone who's peddling a used above-ground swimming pool on craigslist.

idk what that is if it could cost more than a 100 bucks to rent idk if i could


edited

yeah looks like that would be much out of the price range 2-500 bucks a day i think it might be best to buy a 200 dollar above ground pool from walmart 15 foot circle 4 foot depth should be fine for small fish

maybe i could toss something in to make them spawn maybe some buckets or something so the fish will have babies im hoping if i threw in like 5 bullheads and 10 gsf ect they could repopulate and i feed them daily they wont wana eat the fry

the problem with linings idkif the bullheads would reproduce i heard they like to dig int the dirt to lay their eggs i want them to reproduce so can at least once a week o every 2 weeks go get me about 3 t 4 fish out of it