I am managing a 30 year old private 80 acre lake. The lake is only being fished by myself for the last year and before that it was 100% catch and release. The lake has a very big population of 8 - 13 lb. catfish as well as largemouth (stunned - 95% under 16" and over 11") and a decent population of 6" bluegill (very few small ones due to too many bass).
I am culling bass to bring up the relative weights of the bass. I am removing all bass caught under 15". I rarely ever see a small catfish in the lake.

I have not fished for or culled any catfish - should I? Catfish are literally splashing and jumping everyday - don't know what they are chasing as there are no shad in the lake and only bluegill, bass and mosquito fish. Can one have too many big catfish in a lake that are competing with the already pressured bluegill population? We are managing the lake for healthy and possible trophy population - not catfish. The kids like to catch catfish though. So too get more weight on the bass should I remove the bulk of the cats?

Thanks!

Dave
So. California

Well if you read this Nov article, it talks about big cats. But, these cats were blues not channels. The article mentioned that blues were the dominate species and were eating the bass.

Now it seems to me if you are Bass 'heavy' you would want to have some help thining the Bass out. The thing to do is find out if the channels are forageing down on the Bass or are they forageing down on the Bream. If it is the Bass they are eating then, you might want to keep them. There is NO WAY POSSIBLE that you and your family can catch enough bass to thin them out to the right balance.
If they are feeding on the bream you would then need to thin or totally erraticate the channels.

Heres what I would do:
1) read that article in this latest pond boss magizine.
2) Decide if you are really Bass 'heavy' in numbers, or just have 'stunted' bass.
3) Take a sample of the larger cats and decide if they are eating the Bluegill or the bass.
4) If they are eating Bluegill You want to get rid of them...if trophy bass is your goal.
If they are eating your bass, AND you are Bass heavy, I would think again on killing off all thoes channels, because they would be helping you..

If I had to guess, the channels are probebly eating more Bluegill than Bass, being that they are channels not blues. Which in this case you would want to cull channels as much as possible. If you are not bass heavy, but have stunnted bass, that is a tall tale sign that the channels are outcompeteing the bass as well.

Hope that some of the other experts can chime in on this one..

Thanks for the info...I am still waiting for this month's issue to arrive and will read up when it arrives.

How do I determine if I am bass heavy versus a stunted population of largemouth?

Thanks for all your help.

Dave

I think to determine wheather you are bass heavy or not you need to have some one shock the lake and do a sample..I don't know what these guys do in there analysis, but they chart the different size fish and able to tell you that you are bass heavy or not....

Write me back when You read the article and tell me what you think....keep in mind that the article focused on blues NOT channels.

I am little supprised this topic has not got that many replys....

Just about everyone on this forum agrees that the more large catfih you have the more your bass population suffers. I just like fish. If you want big bass cull some cats.

DaveB did you ever get youjr subscription??

I got the newest magazine in the mail last week. Good article on blue cats. Here in Southern California we have some giant blues over 30 lbs.. It's interesting to see historically when these fish were originally stocked and how long it takes this species to get to monster sizes...20 plus years in most cases here. It is not uncommon for someone to catch a big blue on a 12" plastic trout imitation swim bait out here. They love to eat stocked trout!

I plan on start aggressively remove the 5 - 15 lb. channels out of my lake. I was thinking of running 20 jug lines (gallon milk jugs, 30 lb. mainline, no weight, circle hook and a live goldfish or chuck of mackerel). Other than jugging, or a trot line I would think this would be the fastest way to cull out a bunch of these fish.

Dave

I'd love to have your "problem".

Open the place up for a catfish tournament. Charge a $50.00/2-man team entry fee, and let it be known that all of the catfish caught will be served up in a post-tournament fish fry. Offer to pay a taxidermist to mount the largest catfish caught during the tournament, and give him a portion of the proceeds collected as entry fees.

There is a catfish tournament like that here on a local river. It's a great annual event. And the fish are great eating!
:p

I planted Channels as fingerlings in my pond about 6 years ago. Never saw a sign of them until this past weekend when I found a dead one about 24" long! I have a healthy population of Bluegills, some very large, and a good population of LMB. Have no idea how many big cats are in the pond but I'm looking forward to the search. BTW the pond is 2 surface acres and about 15 acre feet so there is plenty of room for growth.
Jim

I have the same problem Dave last night when I fed them I saw at least 30 cats of 8-12 pounds. I normally run trotline to get them out and also jug fish for them. Plan to remove most of the big ones this spring and let the smaller ones grow to eating size. I have found that in the summer the bigger the cats have gotten the more they stir up the mud in the bottom.

Bob

Our big catfish feed heavily on high protein fish pellets and they will not take any bait on trotlines, jug lines or hook and line - until we discoved the "secret" of turning off the feeder a couple of days before fishing.

PomPom flies on 8-9 flyrods with heavy leaders have done a number on them, mostly 6 to 8 pounders. Trying to remove all of them to get ready for our "grow out" HSB's.

Probably removed 50 or more to date.

Fun stuff on a flyrod.
George Glazener

If your bass are skinny it is because there isn't enough forage for the number of bass. You can either reduce the number of bass or increase the forage base. How do you increase the forage base? Catch all the catfish you can. I would also thin the bass. Do you have any idea when the catfish were stocked and how many were stocked?