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Hello, I own some property in southern Indiana and currently have two separate ponds, the smallest one is a whopping 0.25 acres and the other is 1acre. We constructed them in July 2002 and they both filled in early Dec 2003. My family has enjoyed the fishing that they provided us. We are planning to drain down the 1 ac pond, do a complete fish kill, re construct the shallow end, add all sorts of bottom structure, restock, maybe add aeration, and enjoy!

I have subscribed to PondBoss magazine and after 3 issues have found it very enjoying and informative.

I will be spending some time reviewing this forum as I am always wanting to learn more about my ponds potentials.

Welcome from a fellow Hoosier! Having multiple ponds allows for a great deal of flexibility.

Why the draining and kill off? 10 years isn't that old, have problems arisen that require drastic measures?

Hi spark plug,

Two reasons for the fish kill...

1. I have come to the conclusion that the channel cats in my pond are eating all of my bass's food. I could be wrong but I also surrender to catching those blank blank blankety channels cats! They are very very hard to catch. Also, before the channel cats were stocked, and actually for a year or two after, I was able to catch bluegill and bass in all sizes. Not the case today. Basically the fishing is not like it used to be. All of the LMB are 10 to 11 inches. I used to have LMB from fingerlings to 4 lbs and the bluegill were also mixed sizes. My boys and I had the times of our lives fishing our pond! I have been keeping several bass for 2 summers hoping that removing all I can catch would help balance population. So far no change except that there are very few LMB left! I certainly do not claim to be an expert on this matter but I have consulted several and they all recommend starting over for my one acre pond and my inability to catch the infamous catfish that I did not intend to be in there to start with. They told me that once a channel cat gets to be 2-3 lbs that their diet changes to eating smaller fish and their conclusion is to remove all the cats. I want to make sure that they are all gone for good!

2. I plan to drain the pond to a low elevation that will enable me to create some more shallow water area for more spawning areas on the north bank. I also intend to install all sorts of cover on the bottom as well. When we built the ponds they were in ravines with creek beds all in the middle of the woods. My contractor did not have time to shape the bottom of the bowl he created like I was hoping. Also I did not know then that I would have cleared the woods along the north bank for my future retirement home and that is one of the reasons I want to put in fish attractors along the north bank. It is literally a lawn now and has become the place to fish. I hope to have this pond a BG and LMB fishing pond only and welcome all advice and suggestions!

My other smaller pond is full of channel cats and bluegill so I have resources for my fillets! I do love to eat the cats!

Back when we built the ponds I was always planning on the smaller one being for channel cats and bluegill and my larger one for bass and bluegill.

To sum it up I surrender on catching the big cats in my 1 ac pond!

I would love to get all the advise I can from other experienced pond owners on the restocking rates of flathead minnows, regular bluegill and largemouth bass!

I have attached an aerial photo of my ponds and site.

Have you considered draining and rebooting BOTH ponds?

You could have a BG/LMB fishery in the big one and a HBG/HSB fishery in the other one...

Or the small one could be your forage/grow-out pond.

Or you could have BG/LMB in both and manage them differently, one for big BG and the other for big LMB.

So many options!

I know a guy who is getting the equipment this spring who'd come and harvest those hook shy delicious catfish for you.

FISHharvester,

What type of equipment are you speaking of? If perhaps you are talking about electro fishing, I was always curious as to how deep that works? And how effective it is... Someone else whom I requested to do this could not tell me that he would be able to get them all and actually recommended the all out kill if I wanted to remove them completely.


Bocomo,

1 at a time so I can still eat fish! Lol The small pond produces well enough as is.

AMJR

There are many pro's here who can answer the eletroshock questions. My knowledge is from yrs ago and it only worked on fish with skin not scales and it only worked in flowing water. This old school tech is not the same as used today. Are you sure these cats from the river are channel and not flats or blues. I have found that even with channels the ones that come out of rivers are not same animal that are rasied in ponds. I have no trouble raising channels with other breeds. It would be my advice to never add any fish to a pond that came out of a river.

You can click on my profile and then view homepage to get more info on my equipment. I'm working on a model that can be mounted on a dock. I plan to make 3 prototypes. I would make you a deal on one of these if you have a dock. I would only ask for some feed back and maybe some pictures.

Good luck with draining and getting any fish. I've tried everything except blowing the damn. We only end up with a muddy mess and very few fish. They seem to disappear in the muck.

Yep they certainly appear to be regular channel cats but they definitely were caught from the Ohio river one night so I totally agree that they could be different from those from a fishery that I stocked in my smaller pond. Perhaps more aggressive due their genetics from the rivers current?

I plan to use Aquatic Control, Inc to apply Prenfish Rotenone for the fish kill sometime this spring or summer after I lower the level enough to improve the bottom structure.

Hoosier Pond Pros reviewed my records of weight vs length on all species I caught this past summer and they had two recommendations. One is to kill all and restock the other was to be patient and continue to fish more than I have time for and remove those in their recommendations.

The sad part is that the dude who put the catfish in made a huge mistake and put them in the wrong pond. He doesn't speak English very well and just misunderstood me. He is a family members friend and he really feels bad about it but it is what it is.

The fish kill using rotenone is the only way to be sure that the cats are gone for good. It is still something that I want to do so that in a few to perhaps 5 years when I move there The pond will be good bass and bluegill fishing again! I hope!

I am researching a surface fountain also. Hopefully that won't be a negative addition?

My primary reason for the fountain is not particularly for aeration but I would like to have some sort of surface water movement to dissapate tannic acid brown film that shows up occasionally in the summer.

I'm no fishing expert at all but I remember spending time on the bank of a river over night as a 9 or 10 year old and my older brothers used limb lines and trot lines to catch flathead catfish. Seems like they caught some channel catfish also (and occasional gar which they were never too happy about pulling into the boat), but memory has faded.

The reason I bring it up, is maybe there would be another technique to catch those CC's. In Kansas at least, a pond is private property and the fish in the pond are considered livestock. So they can be harvested by any means, and not limited by what a fisherman would be limited to in a public water. After all, in this case it is about catching the fish, not being a sport about it.

What about setting a bunch of limb lines or a trotline at night or even some jugs with bait and see what you have in the morning? Make the bait and hooks large enough so the BG are not likely to get caught, put the bait on or near the bottom on a treble hook, and see if you can get em. 20 bank lines set or even a trot line across the pond gives you a lot more firepower than you sitting at the end of a fishing rod.

Just an idea. Like I said, I'm really not much of a fisherman. Others may have better ideas. Shame to nuke the pond while you have good fish in there. Especially where you like to eat the CC's

Here is something I found with a Google search that might be interesting. I'm interested because we stocked CC's and I might be looking at the same problem some day. Will probably start harvesting next summer.
Trotline tricks