Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Bass, Channel cats and mud cats

I have a question about putting more Bass and Channel cats in my pond. its a 7-8 acre pond and currently has some bass but not many. at least I can catch any if they are in there :-) and unfortunately a bunch of mud cats. I have been trying to fish the mud cats out but they keep multiplying faster than I can fish them out.

My goal is to catch fish. Im not interested in record bass I just want to catch fish and my sons loves fishing for bass and I like Channel cats so I thought I would stock some large, hopefully 1 pound each of both. I don't want over do it but I don't want to get things jump started so I currently have ordered 200 pounds of bass and 300 pounds of channel cats. both pellet feed I'm sure. is this amount going to be a problem? and do you have any recommendations.

I currently have 7 vortex aerators and 3 large fish feeders. I don't want to cause a fish kill with to many fish. I did have a fish kill a few years ago during the drought so I'm a little worried but at the same time I want to catch fish this summer and thought I would buy a bunch of fish and give it a try.

any thoughts?

Welcome to PBF!

Sounds like you have a pretty nice setup. I see you have 3 feeders. Do you currently have other fish besides mudcats (I assume these are bullheads, BH) and a few bass?

Bill D.

Yes there are some bass but I dont know how many or if they are big or not. We have only caught 3 or 4 over the last year. we do have a bunch of bream, at least as far as I can keep the darn cormorants form eating them this winter. GRRRRRRRR. and yes a bunch of bullheads. most are small to as big as your hand. I might have some black crappie but I have never seen one.

I hope that helps.

catching12345,
Welcome to Pond Boss....tons of good info and a bunch of good helpful folks here...

IMHO the amount of CC and LMB you ordered will be fine in a 7 to 8 acre. One idea, since you are not after trophies and want to get rid of the abundant BH, you could not pellet feed the LMB and CC. That will make them full time anglers focused on those BH and bream for forage. Hopefully, one of the pros will chime in with an opinion.

If you have lots and lots of small BH, the LMB will put dent in them. You may want to possibly consider stocking 2-3 Flathead Catfish which will prey heavy on BH. Once the BH start to clear up, catch out the Flathead.

1-5
Welcome to the forum. Give us some details if you can on your pond such as age ,depth,any other details like underwater structure... Lots of smart folks on here that have seen it all,so ask lots of questions and give lots of details of your pond.

What part of the state are you in?

Thanks everyone. Yes I do have a bunch of bull heads. Thanks for the advice on feeding and trying to thin out the bull heads. Don't know where to get flat heads though. Can I buy those? I'm guessing the pellet feed bass will transistor over to feeding on fish with out a problem is that correct? I was thinking that as well but didn't want to lose a bunch of bass and CC.

The pond is about 10 years old with some brush piles in it. We put those in a year ago and kinda wish I hadnt. I know it give the bass a place to go but ever sense I put them in we have caught but 4 bass. Maybe there either not there or just fat and lazy. 😄. Either way that's why I am getting more fish. We catch nothing but BH. No fun there.

IMO You might have trouble finding FHC to buy but I could be wrong. Another option is Hybrid blue cats or just blue cats if you want to add to the predator base. IMO once your CC get to 3 pounds or so they are pretty formidable predators on their own though.

BTW once your stocked anglers have had some time to thin that BH herd, you might be surprised by much larger BH that are worthy of table fare.

As far as keeping the bass you buy on pellets. From what I have seen so far the number of fish per acre has a lot to do with it. The magic number seems to be about 50# per acre. At that rate they seem to be competitive enough to stay on pellets very well. At a lesser rate they will still take pellets they just aren't as aggressive. If the bass you are adding are pellet trained and have never seen live forage then you will need to feed for a few months befor taking this off feed as there is a learning curve that they need to get past before becoming competent predators.

Have you considered rotenone and starting over?

Thanks for the info. I will feed for the first few months and then ween them off and see what happens.

I have considered starting over and honestly I should have done that 2 years ago when I had the fish kill. I should have made sure everything was dead back then but I thought everything was but low and behold a couple of breading BH's survived and by the time I had restock some bass the BH's had plenty of time to multiply. :-( flash forward 2 years and here I am. The bass I put in are either dead or have a serious case of lock jaw because we cant catch them. I did have my pond shocked last April and pulled up about 10 1-2 pound bass and a bunch of BH's that we tossed.

should I seriously consider killing everything off and start over. I keep thinking if I can get a good predator population that will keep the BH's down but maybe I'm a dreamer and need to wake up. :-)

On a secondary note I did have my water tested and there was nothing out of the ordinary that would have caused the kill. so there was really no determination other than low oxygen levels that caused it.

I would give you the whole entire history but it would probably bore everyone.

We like stories.

The problem with fish predators that I've found out is that they don't listen to you very well. You can tell them to only eat the bullheads, but if another fish swims by that they can eat just as easily, they won't swim past it and target the bullheads.

As for Flathead Catfish, same thing. You can't tell them to eat only the bullheads and not the LMB.....

My vote is to drain it down as low as you can, while leaving a few feet of water in it and push the reset button. Even to the point of applying the rotenone twice, making sure that every teeny, tiny puddle or wet muddy area is hit by the rotenone.

I, like Dave Davidson and ESSHUP, am 100% for starting over.

The fish kill you experienced a while back could be due to several factors that happen to ponds and lakes every once in a while. Frequently it is due to a "turn over" where the good water at the top gets replaced with the bad water at the bottom. The bottom water has little oxygen and it has other toxic nasties from decaying aerobic materials. A cold rain, especially with wind and/or a cold front, is all that is needed to turn your pond water upside down. There are other causes for fish kills too, but that is probably one of the most prevalent.

I just hate to see anyone add flatheads, bluecats, or bullheads to a pond. The size of your pond is probably on the border line size for whether or not crappie are a good idea.

If as you mentioned, you are willing to put in 1 lb. feed trained bass bass and 1 lb. channel cats, you are well on your way. I'm just not sure I would recommend adding as many channel cats as you are thinking about.

As I've said many times here on the forum, I have a real love/hate relationship with channel cats. I always suggest going light on the channel cat stocking quantities. They are really easy to grow. They grow really fast. They are fun to catch. They are great to eat and will substitute in recipes for many other high-end saltwater or freshwater fillets. Unfortunately, as they get larger than about 2 pounds, they become troublemakers in a pond, plus they get hookshy and hard to catch, if not impossible to catch. They become the top-line predators in your pond, competing hard with your bass.

I don't have a problem with the numbers you are proposing -- but I'd spread that out over about 3 years, with 1/3 of that quantity per year. Maybe double the quantity of fish you plan to harvest the next year. That will still give you plenty of fun and good eating. At the end of those three years you can re-evaluate how many more you need to restock each year.

We have a long time friend and PB member here on the forum, in Texas, who stocked too many in a pond/lake that is probably about your pond size, maybe bigger. He has been fighting that decision for a number of years.

Any channel cat much more than a pound should not be released after hooking, as they have very long memories. But, they will also make a great meal.

You really should include some forage fish for the bass and the channel cats, even though they may primarily be pellet eaters. I'll let some of the others address that.

Lastly, there are other great fish to add to a pond. Being in Texas, think hard about adding Hybrid Striped Bass. Like the channel catfish, they readily take food. They grow really fast. The fight nearly till they die, so most shouldn't be thrown back. They are incredibly delicious to eat. They don't cause a lot of problems.

I've gotta go to dinner. I'm sure a few others will pipe in with good ideas.

Welcome to the forum,
Ken

A benefit of pumping out most water and leaving only enough to trudge through is you may identify a fish or two you wish to keep ... a large bass or what not.

The problem with keeping the large fish and restocking them into the newly sanitized pond is the price of the stocker fish. They have to be larger than what can be eaten by the LMB, or stocked in a much larger quantity. Both drive up the price of restocking the newly sterilized pond.

A benefit of larger forage stock is they mature faster and start reproducing faster (than stocking pure immature forage).

Imagine if when lowered you found a few LMBs 8 lb and larger ... I would restock them into the clean pond with plenty of forage, knowing what it takes to grow a bass to that weight.

The other benefit to larger forage stock is catchability - catching bluegills that are hand size out of the gate if fishing fun is a goal for the project.

But, where would the LMB be kept for the few weeks that the pond is not fit for habitation? Rotenone doesn't disappear in a day, although you can use PP to neutralize it, but even so the fish have to be kept alive for 4-5 days outside the pond.

If the pond is partially drained, killed, and completely drained for renovation, the LMB would have to be kept somewhere for an even longer period of time.

Like I said, it all depends on your pocketbook. When you are talking about 2"-4" BG at $0.65 each, or 6"-8" BG at $4.50 each, stocking a couple thousand fish per acre is a significant price difference.

I would stage any keeper fish in a filtered, aerated container (for me would be an above ground pool size dependent on size and number of keeper fish). I would go through my pond after lowering to select all fish I wanted to keep. One reason is what you have referenced - price. If I can identify health and desirable forage fish, why toss them only to repurchase them? I've already got X number of them, I'll stage them until the pond is cleaned and refilled. I also understand the value of predator fish, so again, I would either donate to food shelter, sell to others, or stage them until the pond is ready for their release.

FWIW If I was going to nuke the pond, I would struggle with wasting fish large enough to fillet. If I was doing it, I would lower the pond and, at the very least, remove as many of those fillet size fish as I can, invite friends over for a filleting party and send everybody home with fish for their freezers.

How old are your sons? If you start over, it likely will be at least two if not three years after the reset before there are any decent size fish to catch. Do you want to wait that long?

Would it be possible to build another small pond, say a quarter or half acre, to put stocking fish in and grow out to sizes big enough to add to your main lake? Might be an option.

Small ponds are a lot of fun.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=397375

Good idea snrub!

That is an excellent idea! Thanks SNRUB.

Almost four years ago I enlarged a small settlement hole from about 20 x 20 foot, to about a 1/4 to 1/3 acre pond. It is only about 6 foot deep.

Within 12 months of digging it, it became, by far, the most fun pond to fish. In about March four years ago, I started with about one hundred 2-4 inch hybrid bluegills, twenty-five 4"-5" channel cats, and a couple of 5"-6" inch koi. I setup a feeder that fed twice a day. Later that season, and the following spring and fall, I added the same number of hybrid bluegills and channel cats. Then I added some hybrid striped bass.

I'm in what is usually cold and snowy territory (except for this year). From about April into October I can take totally inexperienced kids to geezers to that pond. Within a few seconds of most baits hitting the water, they have a decent fish on the line.

I'm a big fan of multiple small ponds vs. one big pond or small lake.

Good luck,
Ken

Awesome discussion everyone. Thanks for all feed back. My kids are 14 and 18 so time really isn't on my side. I know I should have killed everything off a couple years ago but even then I had no idea anything actually lived. I shocked the pond right after it and we shocked up 3 tinny BG. Amd I mean tinny. Honestly I think your right I should kill the pond off but that would set me back 2-3 years. 😥. So my oldest is already bored fishing because we don't catch anything but BH and my youngest is the same. If I can get 3-4 years out of this stocking before I get into population trouble im ok with that. What do you think.

Don't have a money bag either so making a secondary pond to hold large stocker fish I don't think is possable. I do have plenty of room for one just not the funds to make it happen. :-(

As far as forage I do have a crap load of BG in the pond. When the feeders go the water boils with feeding fish. I feed for 8 seconds at a time 3-4 time a day amd the feed is normally gone with in 30 seconds of the feeder stoping.

I had no idea that the CC are hard to catch once you caught them. :-(. That's disappointing. I figure I'll lose 20-30 percent just by the shock of stocking them. Does that sound normal. I always figured on getting 70 percent of what I stick just due to the shock of transportation and other factors.

Another question they said they will be stocking later this month. Is that a good time of the year to stock CC and bass. I am in east Texas.

Catching, as far as stocking next month, there is a favorite saying here and that is "it depends". The weather this year is unusual or outside the norm here in E. Texas. For me, I kept a fishing journal for 15 yrs recording the weather and water conditions and what fishing lures worked best per each month on the lakes around the Ark-La-Tex. I was a fishing nut for sure. The magic date for lmb to start moving into the shallows and became active was Feb. 20th give or take a week as the water would warm up and the fish became active. So keeping that in mind, I stocked some additional RES and FHM's in my pond in late Feb last year. They did good.

Tracy