Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations catfish ate all my bass?????

My Parents have a small 3/4 acre pond and 3 years ago I put in 25 8-10" channel cats. Well they have ducks and snapping turtles and my mom throws in quite a bit raw chicken almost every night becuase she thinks if she feeds the snappers they won't eat the ducks. anyways...

Last weekend I was fishing in the pond for the first time in quite a while and what use to be a heavy bass pond, to my demise I didn't see or catch a single bass However,I Did hook a MONSTER catfish that was literally pulling my lil' rowboat. I was screaming and fought with him for about 5 mins with my zebco 33 with 10 lb. line. I got him close to boat and he snapped my line. I would estimate his size to be 8 lbs or more... he was HUGE.

Is this the reason why all my bass are gone?

What else is in the pond? More particularly, what is the forage base? Do you have small bluegills? Your cats probably haven't eaten all the bass at 8-10 pounds, but may, along with the adult bass, have cleaned out all the forage, and prevented recruitment of any smaller bass.....perhaps you have a few good sized bass, currently occupied with spawning, and a bunch of hungry cats and turtles. BTW, the chicken may be helping grow bigger turtles, but is probably not satiating them-if they can get to it before the cats!