Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding CATFISH on SURFACE Feeding! WOW! I saw them!

As much as I have read here about catfish feeding on top I never witnessed same until today. I grew up in Louisiana and I was always led to believe they were at the bottom and that is where I fished. The fish in my Indiana pond will be 2 yrs old this September--so far only one catfish was caught. I have the automatic feeder and have trained the fish to feed by the dock. From the beginning two years ago, I mostly saw bluegill, bass and forage fish feeding. I mostly watched when I got home from work in the evening when they fed around 7pm. BUT this morning when the feeder went off at seven, I was outside spraying, decided to stop and go look and I couldn't believe what I saw--HUGE CATFISH feeding on the surface, they would come up and open their mouth and glide across the surface getting lots of feed...this kept on for 15 minutes. Tomorrow, I'm going watch again with video camera in hand. I've been curious what size they are and now I have seen them. I am still amazed as I'd never seen so many of them just skimming the surface eating--it was so fun to watch! I ran and got my husband (he thought I hurt myself as I was so excited) and he came watch too. Ah, a pond is so relaxing. Just wanted to share this with y'all. We're enjoying our pond so.

Good for you!!

Fish feeding can be a rewarding, mesmerizing experience. Can you upload the video to YouTube so we can watch it too?

We used to call them Hoovers because they vacuum the feed off the top. Yep, a neat sight.

We too love to watch the catfish feeding. We feed mostly for the bluegill, but most others are welcome. As Dave said above, they are like big vacuum cleaners. We got rid of most of our really big catfish, but we still have some medium sized ones, and we planted a number of 14-18 inchers this past spring.

This year, a number of bass decided to join in the feeding festivities. So, each night when we feed, we've got bluegill, bass, catfish, our two massive grass carp, and our friend B.O. (Big Orange -- a really big bright orange-and-black tiger-striped koi).

It is very interesting that we seem to have a feeding etiquette sequence. The small bluegill get to start. The bass and bigger bluegill move in. The catfish and grass carp finish up. B.O. swims around the whole time, seemingly enjoying the company.

Over the winter we had very acrobatic rainbow and golden trout graciously entertaining us for their evening dinner.

Feeding has actually become more fun that fishing.

Neat. I love sitting on the dock edge just watching, I guess when I grew up I didn't know they do this. Everyone asks me when I will quit feeding and I doubt I will--the fish have the times figured out and so far (knock on wood) the fish are all healthy and growing. Forage is still very, very plentiful.
I will try shortly to see if I can get that video and if I do I will try to upload. Never thought about it, but yes they skim the surface like a vacuum.

I'm looking forward to the video. I just started feeding this year. I mostly get BG coming to the feeding station but every now and then a small CC comes and eats a few pellets. The big CC prefer the larger feed that my neighbor throws out Although I see the larger CC lurking under the BG as they feed. The CC probably pick off the weak small fish.

I stocked 200 CC in my pond last fall. I have yet to see a CC feeding. DD1 can tell you my ponds are loaded (overloaded with BG) and they are like sharks when blood is put in the water when you feed. I just wander if their activity and shear numbers is keeping the CC at bay. If not I guess I just spent a bundle to feed 6 inch CC to my bass population.

I too have the enjoyment of watching the cc feed an tkids have the named like pac man as thats the way they see them eating. The kids will never tire it seems of watching the fish feed as the drop everything to go watch an some times throw extra feed to watch them longer. the blugill an bass just explode at times in the middle of the cc an put them down for a minute or two then they start all over again.

I apologize if I already shared this on the site but I'm getting old and I can't remember if I did or not. Anyway here goes:

I once set up an icefishing shanty on my trout pond. The dog was in there with me when this brook trout came right up into the hole and lifted his head out of the water actually clacking his jaws together. The dog freaked out and almost knocked the ice shanty down trying to get out. I presume he wanted to be fed. So I went in the house and got some pellets and threw them on the surface of the ice hole. The following picture is of the same brook trout after he started feeding on the pellets.

I don't remember hearing about that.

That's creepy!

May take me a few trys to get that video. Yesterday morning I went outside before work for half hour and there probably were some CC eating along with the other fish but not like the day before where the catfish were plentiful and gliding on the surface getting a mouthful of food at a time. Does anyone know when CC eat on surface if there's a method to their eating--how often/weather/certain time of day, etc. Going try again in a half hour to see if they are there. It's the weekend!

Couldn't wait to start feeding here also. Just stocked our new pond a couple months ago with BG and CC; the bass will come this fall. We have at least 400 BG and 60 CC prior to the spawning we just had. Haven't looked into a feeder yet. I just throw the pellets out.

I was amazed at how fast the CC learned. They are mostly 8-10" now and it only took them a couple weeks to figure things out. The BG are now large enough to eat the Rural King pellets and are feeding in increasing numbers. Should be real fun as they all get larger.

Mealtime has BG following me around the pond awaiting the handout as well as 3 snapping turtles that now can almost be handfed.

Where in Indiana are you located? we are just north of Evansville.

Didn't have any luck this morning but I havent given up. We live West of Richmond near Hagerstown.

Finally! We caught the catfish eating on video (seems my feeder battery died yesterday and wasn't throwing food out). I took a good video even had the albino catfish feeding too. There were probably 20+ catfish feeding so I tried to catch as many as I could. Will try to figure out how to post on U-tube. I'm hooked on watching catfish feed, I'll be out there tomorrow morning watching them again.

Every once in a while I see a ghost trout swim by.

I read an article in In-Fisherman once where Doug Stange or one of the other guys had a musky do the same thing to them while they were fishing open water on some lake up north. The fish actually stuck his head out of the water and clacked his jaws. He said he was afraid to tell anyone as he was afraid someone would think he was crazy.

And some people think I'm crazy when I mention the channel cats that have talked to me after I land them.

Pretty much everyone figures I'm crazy when I mention that the Cats all sounded like Mr. T.

Mine always talk to me -- well maybe they just grunt and gurgle when I pull them out of the water.

But, now and then when I'm feeding, one of the big ones will come up and burp -- or whatever it is that they do. Mine certainly are vocal, no matter what we call it.

About a week ago I caught one on the opposite side of the pond while most were feeding near my dock. When I started to take the hook out of its lip, it decided I should have all the pellets back -- and I didn't even have to use the Condello Belly Massage technique.

Gross! They spit the pellets back out! I've been steadily watching the cats in the morning. Hooked. I originally put 3 albino cats in and 50 regular. How many cats can you put in an acre pond anyway? I don't think I ever figured or read what it should be, I've seen 1,000 and less. That seems like a lot to me. Maybe I need to add more, maybe not.

You can have 1000 CC in an acre, but that would have to be considered a dedicated catfish pond.

Up to mebbe a couple of hundred, you can have as many cats as you want in a mixed species pond. Just remember the more you have and the bigger they are, the more of your total possible fish biomass they are taking up. 50 or so catfish is plenty by my way of thinking.

Thanks, wanted to make sure as those CCs get pretty big and I couldn't imagine too much more with all the other fish we've already put in there.

Mark:

I agree that watching the boogers feed is fascinating. I just purchased a battery powered feeder from Greg Grimes for about $100, delivered. So far, so good. I'm now feeding twice inna morning and twiced in the evening...can't believe how many BG show up, along with a big snapper last night. No CC yet, but I'm waiting.

I go out of an evening and feed about 5 gallon of fish food that floats and the cat fish and bream feed real heavy. Some of my cat fish are becoming very large. I will loose a large cat fish every once in a while, I lost one yesterday. It could be stress.Threw the net two days ago and the fish will hardly feed when I hand feed. Probably one more day and they will settle down and start feeding.

Yes, still watching the catfish in the morning; it's is weird, you see their whole body, eat--go down, come back up, eat--go back down. I did take some videos but too big for U-tube so I have to get some software to cut it up or take a short one. Seems like the catfish took awhile to feed as I would think I would have noticed them before. We have three turtles and had (notice I said, had) one snake but hubby took care of that.

My feeder is finally acting up so I will be buying a newie soon as I don't want to lose sight of the fish habits of feeding at 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. at present.