I see that young man has mastered the "Fisherman's pose" of extending the arm towards the camera. Fish looks almost as big as him! Great job on the young angler man!....and the CC! 5 pounds is time to meet the hot grease! I have a few CC over due I need to get out.....
We had a nice month of fish removal in June despite not running the fyke net as much as I would've like to have. But made up for it by getting the seine in the water last Sunday (pictures below). The seine wasn't as productive as years past due to it getting twisted up on trees that had blown in. But still produced 50 carp, 68 crappie and a dozen small channel cats. But most importantly it allowed me to evaluate the growth of my blue cats, and it was shocking. We caught about a half dozen that were 16-20" and up to 4 lbs. And they were just stocked at 8-10" last fall. I'm very impressed. Thanks TJ for sourcing them for me.
My fish removal totals for June are: 97 Carp, 70 crappie and 37 small channel cats. All of these fish were cut up and used to feed the blue cats. I wish I would've gotten a better picture of the blue cats, but was in a hurry to get them back in the water.
Interestingly, my secchi disc reading was 13-14" at ice out. While my water generally runs at a horrid 3-4" of clarity. I'm assuming most of the clarification is due to less fish activity during the winter months, but I also can't help but wonder if the 350 blue cats had an impact on last years carp hatch. Or I've entertained the idea that feeding my channel cats so much created a class of channel cats that grew large enough to become piscovorous and helped eliminate a few carp. Looking forward to starting my trap net again to see if I had an impact in 1) the number of carp and 2) the size of carp. I'd assume if my carp have gotten larger, that is most likely an indicator that there are fewer for the ones left to compete with.
Just a quick update on this for my own records. A couple days of fishing over Memorial weekend and I think I have a decent grasp on some trends in my pond. Over 2 days time, we caught 25 catfish. Of those 25 fish, 16 were blue cats. 13 of those blues were fall of 2016 stocking, and 3 were fall of 2015 stockers. The fall of 2015 stockers were 16.5", 18" and 19" in length and very thick. Of the 9 channel catfish we caught, 1 was 6 lbs, 5 were 4 lbs, and 3 were 1-1.5 lbs.
Some observations.... while I don't have any idea of the number of channel catfish in my pond, the fact that I only stocked 350 blues and 2/3 of the fish I caught were blues is very surprising to me. I'm not sure if I don't have thousands of channel cats as I suspected, or if the blue cats are just more aggressive right now. Probably a combination of the two, but this surprised me very much. Also, the size of channel catfish that I caught last year averaged at least a pound, if not a pound and a half less. So feeding seems to be paying off.
PS For those wanting to catch large catfish, using skipjack on jug lines seems to be very effective on my pond.
1) I've gone away from the trap/fyke net for now as it was just too much work for the amount of fish I'd trap. I've gone back to using the seine and found a much better method of using it. By that, I've added a feeder toward the tailwaters of my pond. This attracts and concentrates the fish to that area, which makes it a much shorter pull, without as many snags to mess up the net as we pull. The first time we did this we seined over 400 fish. Great for evaluation and population adjustments. Amazingly, we caught nearly 200 of the 350 blue cats we had stocked. So its apparent they are drawn to the feeder.
2) In years past, I've gone thru about 1500 lbs of 32% protein catfish feed. That seems like a bunch, but apparently for a 15 acre pond of catfish that's not all that much, and its probably about as far as I wanna push my budget (wife) for now. And my poor relative weights (RW) reflected such. I haven't kept good tabs on RW, but on my channel cats they've certainly not been above 100. My blue cats seem to be quite a bit higher though. Which I am pleased with, yet don't quite understand. Maybe they are preying on the small crappie and carp better? Not sure. Anyway, in the last 2 weeks I've stumbled across an idea that I've began to implement. My cousins own a commercial trout farm about 4 miles down the road in which they have about 60-70lbs of cleanings (heads and spinal/belly flesh) leftover each week. I've had them freeze those cleanings and I cast them off my dock about 4-5 days per week. Not the best of chores, but its free and I'd hope a much higher protein food source. We will have access to these trout for 50 weeks of the year, which will come out to nearly 3000lbs of trout remains. They seem to take to it well as we catch fish rather quickly if we put a trout head on a hook. Not sure how it'll impact my fishery, but will eval as I go and any insight from this forum would be appreciated.
So...... long story short, with my goals of creating a trophy catfishery and minimizing the carp population, I'm hoping to reduce my number of small catfish and other undesirable fish thru seining, creating less food competition for the large fish. I'm also hoping to improve and increase the food intake for these large fish by continuing with catfish food and supplementing their diet (if you wanna call it that) by adding 3000lbs per year of trout cleanings.
Any suggestions, cautions or additions are appreciated. Thanks.
1) I've gone away from the trap/fyke net for now as it was just too much work for the amount of fish I'd trap. I've gone back to using the seine and found a much better method of using it. By that, I've added a feeder toward the tailwaters of my pond. This attracts and concentrates the fish to that area, which makes it a much shorter pull, without as many snags to mess up the net as we pull. The first time we did this we seined over 400 fish. Great for evaluation and population adjustments. Amazingly, we caught nearly 200 of the 350 blue cats we had stocked. So its apparent they are drawn to the feeder.
2) In years past, I've gone thru about 1500 lbs of 32% protein catfish feed. That seems like a bunch, but apparently for a 15 acre pond of catfish that's not all that much, and its probably about as far as I wanna push my budget (wife) for now. And my poor relative weights (RW) reflected such. I haven't kept good tabs on RW, but on my channel cats they've certainly not been above 100. My blue cats seem to be quite a bit higher though. Which I am pleased with, yet don't quite understand. Maybe they are preying on the small crappie and carp better? Not sure. Anyway, in the last 2 weeks I've stumbled across an idea that I've began to implement. My cousins own a commercial trout farm about 4 miles down the road in which they have about 60-70lbs of cleanings (heads and spinal/belly flesh) leftover each week. I've had them freeze those cleanings and I cast them off my dock about 4-5 days per week. Not the best of chores, but its free and I'd hope a much higher protein food source. We will have access to these trout for 50 weeks of the year, which will come out to nearly 3000lbs of trout remains. They seem to take to it well as we catch fish rather quickly if we put a trout head on a hook. Not sure how it'll impact my fishery, but will eval as I go and any insight from this forum would be appreciated.
So...... long story short, with my goals of creating a trophy catfishery and minimizing the carp population, I'm hoping to reduce my number of small catfish and other undesirable fish thru seining, creating less food competition for the large fish. I'm also hoping to improve and increase the food intake for these large fish by continuing with catfish food and supplementing their diet (if you wanna call it that) by adding 3000lbs per year of trout cleanings.
Any suggestions, cautions or additions are appreciated. Thanks.
Great update! I don't have anything to add -- just wanted to say that I'm following this story and I'm betting that trout offal will grow you some monsters. How big are the blues now?
The ones I stocked in the fall of 2015 seem to be in the 3-4lb range right now, and seemed to have taken a big growth spurt lately. Keep in mind I haven't really sampled any since I started feeding them trout. They were 1/4-1/2 lb on average at the time of stocking. The ones stocked in fall of 2016 are around that 1 lb mark, but they appear to be in the best condition and have the best relative weight. But that is just visual observation. I plan to pull the seine again when the water cools off in September and get a better feel for numbers, relative weights, etc. I'll try to update then.
Will do. I realize a trophy blue catfishery is kind of a unique experiment. So I plan to document it as much as I can without boring people with excessive dialogue. I've got a young kid in high school who loves to help, so that should help me moving forward with this project. In fact, I believe he's on this forum. So if he gets this message I hope he chimes in and introduces himself. It may also be interesting to follow the knowledge he gains over the years.
The great thing is that the life span of blue cats is seemingly forever in the fisheries world, so this could be very interesting to document.
Anyone have any idea of what type of conversion ratio I'm going to get by feeding my blue catfish these trout cleanings? It looks like I'm going to be feeding 50-70 lbs per week. I believe the usual conversion ratio of catfish weight gain when fed 32% pellets is around 2.2:1. I would assume the conversion would be better when fed trout, or is that not so sense the composition of the trout is largely water? I have no idea about this stuff. Just curious as to how many lbs of fish I'm adding to my biomass by throwing 3000lbs of trout out there per year.
I haven't 'seen' them eat anything, but assume they are eating them because when I bait a hook with trout heads, tails, etc. they hit pretty quickly. Usually what is left when I get the trout is the head, caudal fin, some belly fat portions, etc. Essentially whatever is left after the filets are removed. The gill section is pulled out when the whole fish is left for marketing. And the catfish love to eat that section, so I frequently use that for bait.
As noted above I've gone to feeding my catfish some cleanings from a commercial trout farm up the road about 4-5 miles. The catfish have taken to it much better than expected. I feed about 15 lbs per evening (4-5 nights per week) and throw out about 2-3 lbs every minute or two to make sure it all gets eaten. They've patterned to it well and hit the cleanings within seconds of it hitting the water. In fact, two nights ago I observed what I believe was a 15 pound Channel Cat hit 2 trout heads as soon as they hit the water. Quite the sight. I'll try to post video once I get them feeding closer to the dock and feeding more aggressively.
This brings me to a question, and maybe I should start a separate thread on this. Right now it appears as though my Channel Cats are consuming most of the cleanings. Many of the fish feeding on the cleanings are too big to be my Blue Cats that I stocked just a year and a half ago. From what I've read in the past, BC tend to feed better in cold water periods than CC, and CC tend to feed better during the warmest water temps. Do we presume that BC are going to become more active when I feed in the later fall and winter months, and the CC less active? Is there literature out there describing metabolic differences between CC and BC (I'm looking at you esshup and ewest!!)? I'm just kind of curious if I may see a shift in the feeding when I keep a small section ice free this winter and continue feeding. Or if there's anything I can attempt to observe so our board can learn from my experiences, mistakes and opportunities.
Also this quote.... -- Optimum growing temperature for blue catfish is reported to be about 24°C (75F), compared to 30°C (86F) for channel catfish (Collins 1988). --
As I described above, I've had the good fortune of getting access to about 100 lbs of trout cleanings per week. Tonight I had the fortune of having someone there to video me feeding them. Here's some decent shots. This was my first attempt at getting them to take one from hand. It went well.
I suspect CC feeding will wane and BC will continue longer into the Fall for the reasons you stated above but it's based on the same criteria you mention, not based on my own experience.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau
I tried seining again this fall to cull some of the small CC but it didn't work well. Most likely due to not baiting the area as well as the times before. I need to continue to assess the situation and modify what I want kept and what I want removed, but as of now the plan is to seine in the spring and fall to remove CC under 5 lbs.
Although I'm wondering with my feeding and some other changes I've made in my pond if my carrying capacity has increased significantly and I should just leave the smaller CC to be taken by rod n reel. I'll probably let relative weights decide that for me.
I suspect CC feeding will wane and BC will continue longer into the Fall for the reasons you stated above but it's based on the same criteria you mention, not based on my own experience.
I'm hoping so. Eventually I'd like the BC to dominate the feeder and the trout feeding station. No use feeding a fish that won't get over 20lbs. LOL.
BTW, I plan to keep water open around my dock and try to feed trout cleanings through the winter. That could be a learning experience. With low metabolism and high caloric intake, it may really pack the pounds on them. Will see.
Had some hobo roll in off the road claiming he knew how to fish, so we went after some catfish yesterday. Ended up with a new pond record (twice!!) and caught over 70 lbs of catfish with nearly a 6lb average. Bruce ended up pulling this double with a 7-6 and a 9-1. Which was the new pond record for a short while.
Later my friends son pulled in a pond record tying fish. Another 9-1 channel catfish.
All in all, the best day of fishing I've had on my pond. The relative weights have improved approximately 20% or better in the 2 months I've been feeding trout cleanings. Bright future ahead.