Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations My catfish spawned - picture

I am out of the county ritht now, but last week my dad told me that I have several clouds of something dark floating around the pond. I just got off the phone with him and now he saw couple of 1.5" dead catfish.

The pond is 3/4 ac with the dreaded chocolate milk color from suspended clay. I don't want to clear it because I am planning to have a track hoe enlarge it this summer and it would just be a waist of money right now. The pond was made and stocked couple of years ago with bluegill, fatheads, channel and blue catfish. This year I added 3-4" hybrid stripers and black crappie. My objective is to manage it for crappie and hybrid stripers. (will stock LMB if crappie overpopulate) Both are probably too small and too low in numbers right now to make a dint in these catfish. I have two questions. Given the water clarity, how can I check if my bluegill spawned? If I just increase the amount of feed and maybe add aerator to take care of the extra "nutrients", is there any other adverse effect of having bunch of extra catfish? I am planning to start heavy harvest this year.

BTW, the snakes also had lot of young this year.

In my area of the country Bass are the best for eating catfish fry but only as long as they are under 3". Bass love the thick black schools of slow moving young.

I also should mention that last year was the first time I saw the Bullhead swarms and this year my water is also cloudy with suspended clay. I had a pro look at it last week and his best guess was that the cloudiness is being caused by the bullheads. I stocked an additional 40 LMB in my 2/3 acre pond to try to correct the problem. I also am looking for a suitable fish trap.

I think you are in for a mess. Don't let the catfish get too big for a bass to eat, you'll end up fishing them out. Get LARGE bass in there now to eat what they can, harvest the bass after that. I would recommend a cast net too...you have hard work ahead my friend. I believe baby catfish are at the top of the list for bass of all size.

Thanks for the advice. I haven't seen them yet, but my dad said that they are swimming in about three tight groups that could possibly be sained out. I have no idea how many fish that is. Putting a big bass in right now would geopardize my small crappie and hybrid stripers that I just stocked.

I am thinking about just saining out as many as I can and giving them to my neighbor. I was going to stock about 50 catfish this year to replace the 50 I plan to eat, so maybe I just saved some money. The situation should not repeat itself next year because the crappie and HS will eat the catfish and I should get the situation back under control. I am going to adjust the feeder to keep them all happy and aerate if water quality becomes a problem.

Did I miss anything?

Ed, I don't think you have a problem. The chance of baby catfish surviving in a 3/4 acre water hole are awfully slim.

I am really curious what I find when I get there. The naighbor told my dad that they are mudfish and that they need to be taken out before they take over the lake. I have never heard of mudfish and the search engine returns some fish native to New Zeland. They are breaking up in smaller groups and are now more aware of human presence, so I will have to do something quickly.

Ed, if your neighbor is referring to "mudcats", they're nothing but trouble. They can grow up in a hurry and take over a pond, the size of an adult is 8-12", they are a nightmare to remove. Get busy fast, or you could be in for years of fishing them out. This is a real THREAT to your pond ! Surely one of the pros on this board can relate to the trouble they cause, and probably assist with removal tactics.

Well, I am afraid that that is exactly what I got. Black clouds of little one inch catfish that nothing will eat because their fins are already rasor sharp. They already broke up into so many little groups that there is no way I can get them all. I may be able to get as many as 50% with a seine. The question is, how did I get them? They look somewhat like a blue cat except darker, so I wonder if I got them when I bought the blues. Or they came from one of the ponds above. If that is the case, even starting over will not help - I know I already have greenies coming in that way. Shotgun sounds good right now (for the fish).

Ed, I see the same black clouds of baby cats in my pond. It was stocked with channel cat and bluegill last fall this past april I added bass. I was told that I would not see the bass eating the baby cat but rather they would slowly disappear. I think that instead of panicing you should wait and let the bass take care of your problem.

That would be OK if I had any bass. What scares me, is that I don't have any control over what gets in my pond. I am fairly certain that these catfish are not in the only two ponds upstream of me (100 ft or so). There are at least a dozen farm ponds and 11.5 thousand acre lake within 1.5 miles. Someone on this site said that was the limit on how far birds can carry viable fish eggs. If this is how they get in, it makes the whole concept of managment pointless. The big lake has white crappie, white bass, walleye, LMB etc.

What eates them? YOU!

You can bet on that. I am sharpening my knife as we speak. They are greedy little suckers and it seems that when I fish a worm off the bottom, they are the first ones to get it. I have to learn how to recognize them from the blue cat, but I think they are darker and have a blunter head. Fish fingers sound good.

But I guess I should have asked what eats them other than, obviously, LMB.

I am surprised that this topic doesn't come up more often, like the the green sunfish. I guess if you have LMB, this is not a problem.

Ed, mudcats have square tails and blues and channels have forked tails.

If your catfish are like mine, they school around shallow water. I caught some and they have forked tails, just like Brian says. Mine look like black blobs lazily moving along. I really don't think you have any cause to be alarmed.

As stated earlier, last summer was the first year I saw the schools of black fry. Unfortunately I had lost most of my bass to winterkill. I have stocked 40 7-9" bass this spring to try to fix this. Bass will not eat the bullheads once they are over 3". I caught over 50 4-5" bulheads today in 2 1/2 hours. My water is very turbid and I beleive they are the cause. I am thinking of using fish traps and continuing to fish for them heavily.

Any other ideas?

OK, here is a picture of one of those baby cats, enlarged about 3x I am thinking blue cat, and given what I stocked it would make the most sense. But the pictures on Texas parks and wildlife make me think it could be a black cat. Any second opinions?

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fish/infish/species/catfish/

Thats a bullhead. Baby blue cats are light blue and streamlined and have a forked tail. If you look look at the tail you can see that it is proubly a bullhead do to it being nearly square.

Bullheads are usully more speckled but it is for sure not a channel or blue cat. The bass do eat 4-5 inch bullheads I promise you. Do you have lots of hiding places, sure the bass made it through the stocking. Maybe the bass have not had time to start to reduce numbers?? Do you have lots of weeds?

Yes trapping would be a good choice.

Thanks to all for your help. I guess now the only question is what size LMB to stock and how many. I don't want them to be able to eat my 4" stripers at the feeder, but they should do a number on these 1-2" catfish. I guess 6" bass would be a good choice. Let's say 20 to 30 for the 3/4 ac pond? I am going for decent size bluegill and black crappie, so I don't mind stunted bass in few years. As long as enough bluegill and crappie survive.

I would go heavy on the bass now, 6-8 inches, around 40 if you can get them. With the abundant supply of baby cats, the 4" stripers should be ok. You can easily remove bass after they do their work, but I think you should invest in a cast net if possible. Do you have a jon boat you could throw it from ? I've seen this done effectively, you could make a huge dent in their population that way. Believe it or not, I also saw the "shotgun" tactic as well...While it did kill a few, and was very funny to witness, I think the best benefit of was the release of frustration, we were all craking up. Just be patient, get some worms, and toss the cats up on the bank. It looks like you're unable to control the unwanted species from washing in, I think that dictates a need for a bass heavy environment to manage correctly. If you turn over your bass population on a regular basis, you should be able to have fun raising the other fish you mentioned.

For my bullhead problem I should have stocked the Bass last summer but it was too hot before we saw the bullheads to stock bass. This year the pond has no visibility. All this in less than one year. I have caught 150 Bullheads in my 2/3 acre pond since last Sunday. 2 were large and all the rest were 4-6". I am going to fish them heavily and I ordered 2 traps to place next week. I will work the traps and keep fishing until the catch rate drops to zero. I stocked 40 7-9" bass that were born last spring. They are very aggressive and have eliminated all the frogs in less than a month. Hopefully I can catch enough bullheads to clear the water enough for the Bass to get any bullhead offspring born this year. It is unbeleivable the damage done in one year. The pond was crystal clear one year ago and I use bacteria every year regardless of the cost. I have less than 6" of visibility right now with using bacteria. It is all suspended clay I am sure. I caught 50 Bullheads in 2 hours last Sunday without moving my chair. The fishing is slowing down a little. I only caught 20 tonight and am starting to catch a few yellow perch. The bullhead population has stunted my perch as they compete for the same food sources here, at least in part. My perch had good growth rates until the bullheads invaded. Any ideas on good trap bait? I thought of using dead cut up Bullheads, I have a huge supply of them. I have heard of using dry dogfood. I need all the help I can get including anyone in the Green Bay area with kids that like to fish.

Brian,

I've got the same problem down here !...dont' know where the @#$ things came from, just know I want 'em gone !...please let me know how sucessfull you are in trapping them...if it works for you, I plan on attempting the same process...BTW, where did you order your traps from...

Thanks for any info, Torchy

A few years back, we wired the lids on ten black plastic garbage cans and cut six inch holes in the tops. We then staked the containers out in the pond, hoping that the bullheads would spawn in the containers. They did. The cans barely floated but it was enough to allow us to locate each can. Every other day we carefully turned the hole up and allowed the water to slowly flow out of the container. We did a lot of dry-run pre spawn, spawn, and post spawn container lifting were able to remove adults and eggs. After doing that for three years, we no longer had a bullhead problem.

Dudley, do you have a picture or a diagram ? Sounds like something I'd like to try...I think my B'heads have spawned already, but next spring I wanna attack, attack, attack ! Thanks for the input...

Torchy