I was wandering if any body knows how to get rid of a couple of trash fish starting with black bull heades does any body know a way of getting rid of them or at least keeping them under controll with out killing all the fish andmy other question was do LMB eat crappie.

thank you

I have problems with bullheads also, IMO it works best in this order.

1. Hook and line, worm and bobber, and time.
2. Trapping, sometimes it works sometimes not
3. Wait for them to school on top of the water and give them a dose or your favorite .12ga

You can search the past posts, this topic has been addressed many times, and there are some really good threads.

IIRC a Lmb can eat a bluegill 1/3 its length, so I would think its about the same for crappie.

Im not an expert but I know for a fact the LMB will eat crappie.As for as the other question about trash fish,you could put flacjackets on the good fish and use IEDs.I would have suggested dynamyte but Im getting low.

I plan to build a few of these as soon as I get some time. They are said to work well, they can be purchased pre-made on the internet as well.

http://www.catfish1.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38891


Tom, I think you would need a camera on the flacjacket so you knew when to blow them up.

Well a LMB will eat anything that can fit in its mouth, with that said they will eat your crappie and bullhead. As to getting rid of them, the bullhead are easly to catch on rod and reel. The crappie are easy as well with a minnow, not to mention they are great tasting (the best). You can make or buy cages for the bullheads, as well as cages for smaller crappie. When bullheads hatch they stay in groups and they look like black clouds. You can throw a throw net and get most of the little on out, with that being said you would have to fish for the big one. It will be tuff to get all the fish. Unless you want to start from scratch and rotenone it. Which if there are no or not many desired fish in there would be what i do. Good luck keep us post and updated.

Are there any fish that eat bull heads. because me and my causin have gone out and fished for them with worms for hours and caught a 100 in one after noon and yet the next day when the fish feeder comes on there are just as many even if we do this for a week and take every one we catch out.

Yes a bass will eat a bullhead. Flatheads love to eat them as well. If you could find a couple of those that would be great. I just would make sure they are the same sex.

do bullheades bother the bass very much.

Texas fish, what is your water clarity like? Are there so many bullheads present that they keep the sediment stirred up and keep the water extremely muddy looking? If so, is this hurting both LMB and BG reproduction in your pond?

Your best bet to get the bullheads under control is to have an over abundance of LMB present. Consider going catch & release with them until the bullheads numbers are significantly reduced.

As last resort you could stock a few flathead catfish as they are very effecient predators in muddy water. I would only consider this option if your water clarity has degraded to the point that both LMB and BG reproduction is being negatively affected. Flatheads most of the time are a big NO NO in ponds but they can be fished out once the bullheads are under control.

I have drained one of the ponds and when I did there were so many 3-5 inch bullheades that they were stacked up and covered the whole bottum of the pond 2 hi and the pond back then was close to an acre and made the water clarity horrible causing the pond to go to a great helthy LMB pond to when we drained it thier were only 4 LMB. I have a nother pond that has a lot of LMB and a lot of bullheades.

Thanks

Texas fish what are you goals for the two ponds. Are you wanting big bass, lots of different species of fish? What would you like to see out of your ponds? If you answer this we will be able to help make a game plan, then all you have to do is follow it. I ready in another topic that the trash fish are from floods due to heavy rain. Is this correct? If so is there anyway you can stop this from happening?

every time it raines the run off filles the ponds and I don't know where the water comes from but it alwayes carries fish and lots of them mostly trash fish. with the smaller pond I would like to make a LMB pond and with the biger one I would like it to be a combination pond and put Hybrid Stripers, Largemouth bass and catfish plus forage fish.

Thanks

Texas fish, where in Texas are you located?

We had literally thousands of bullheads in our LMB pond two years ago. Last month we had an electrofishing survey done and captured ZERO bullheads in that pond.

We fished them out, we trapped them, and we blasted them with shotguns.

Our bass also put heavy pressure on the vulnerable bullhead yoy that congregate in large black masses near the surface.

We still get trash fish--alligator gar and carp--when the creek overflows and fills the pond.

Having trash fish is something we'll always have to deal with if we want our pond to get any water, and you might have the same problem.

Another thing you could do:
Even though it can be expensive, I'd do an electrofishing survey every year or two years. You can remove any unwanted fish at that time.

thanks

I live in north east Texas.

Does anybody know how to stop the fish in some sort of way from getting in the pond like some sort net in the area that the over flow comes into the pond.

The big problem with that is debris gets caught in the fence/net and during a big rain it will act as a dam, or just be swept away by the powerful water. They sound like lots of work and not much benefit, I think you are just going to have to learn to live with some trash fish and aggressively manage them. Thats just what I think, others may have different options.

Ok then does any body know how to get rid of short nosed gar. I have not been able to catch any because if they bite they cut the line

tf,

I have caught shortnose on a buzzbait fishing for bass. I don't know if it is a reliable technic for catching them or not. May be worth a try. The ones I have caught have been on white 1/4 oz buzzbaits.

I caught an alligator gar throwing a spinnerbait. Luckily for me, I hooked it right in the corner of the mouth and it couldn't break the line. I wouldn't recommend using 12 lb mono like I did, though.

Texas fish, I would use steel leaders with large live or cut bait to catch the short nosed gar. You may also catch some large LMB or CCs with this technique if you have any in the pond.

Otherwise, I would have the pond electrofished by someone like Todd Overton. He shouldn't be too far from you. Electrofishing can be used for culling unwanted fish just as well as sampling fish populations.

I personally like a few flathead catfish of the same species in a pond to thin out the bullheads. It does work! But even if you can't be sure of them all being the same sex, flatheads rarely reproduce in small ponds. When they have accomplished what you want them to, you just catch them out...

I live three hours away from Todd Overton do you think he would electro shock from that far away.

Nothing but a thing for Todd.He's a good guy to do business with,as far as Im concerned.Ive dealt with him,as others here have,and it was a pleasant experiance all around.You should give him a call.
On the other hand,you could get a couple cases of beer,some flacjackets and.....

A cloud of bullhead fry...

in the summer in our biger pond e will have up to about 14 piles that size.

Tom, I make a nasty little pipe bomb! Better get more wire for the detonator though, 500 feet still left me in the fallout zone.

I've got a cool video but ATF might not see the humor.....

Consider feeding the mudcats, grow them to harvestable size, and start eating them.....yummy. They are labeled trash fish, but very tasty. Go with the flow.

Or stock some blue cats, and overload with adult largemouth bass.

I bet the LMB must gorge themselves on those tasty little balls of food...

I had always thought they wouldn't eat them because of there spines.

From what I've heard and observed, the spines on the small bullheads (the ones you see in the "cloud" of fry) are too small to matter.

For the bigger bullheads, the LMB eat them head-first so that the spines stay compressed.

Yes, the LMB swallow them head first... The bullheads in ponds I have dealt with are a favorite food of LMB.

The day that we saw the school of bullhead fry that I posted that photo of there were several large GSF (9 to 11 inch) hearding them around and picking them off one by one until they had their fill. They didn't seem to have any problems with the barbs. We didn't personally observe any LMB feeding on them but if the GSF did I'm sure the LMB would have.

GSF will eat anything they can fit in their mouths! I swear if they could turn themselves inside out, they'd eat themselves! HAHA

Very true, CJ. Further proof that the mighty GSF is a genetically superior fish.