Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations BIG CAT!

Well Big_Pond I have an answer to your question as to which species of catfish grows faster. On Wed November 5, I caught about twelve catfish a combination of blue and channel. All of the fish were about the same size around three to four pounds a piece.

While taking fish number twelve off of the hook, my other rod went flying through the air and was just about in the water when I grabbed it. The result was a 8lbs. Channel cat. I couldn't find my digital camera, but I did get some regular photos of the fish. I guess I'll scan them at work and put him on the site to show ya'll I am not full of it.

Now mind you that this pond was stocked in June of '02 so that is a lot of growing in a short period of time and I have the feed bill to prove it!

8 lbs is huge!! In just 2 years...You sure it was a channel? If the channel is 8 lbs then there are blues around 14 - 16 lbs! Blues deffinetly grow bigger and faster.. I know shane is like the two of us in that he grows blues as well. But he has a 30 acre Lake though!!

No, I am sure it was a channel cat. I have caught quite a few blues and none of them have come close to to this one. Maybe it was a freak. I'll have to get the picture on the site for you to see it.

Hey take some pictures of some of the blues as well!!

Zach said one time that he was growing both blues and channels and the blues were two to one over the channels. He said after a year and a half he had 8 lb blues and 4 lb channels.

I have a small 1/2 acre pond that I stocked with blues and fatheads. The hatchery guy told me that they were accidently mixed with channels. He picked them out one by one but when I released them, I saw one channel.
I guess there were two channels because the NEXT summer they found a place to spawn and I had thousands of tiny channels.
The first summer I had a bnch of blues that took a long time to start coming to feed and stopped in the heat of summer.
The second summer I had blues coming up verociously for a short time too and then found they only wanted to come upn in evening. I also had all the baby channels and caught a parent at two pounds. The blues were closer to a pound.
The third summer I didn't feed as much because I wanted to thin everything out. The channels were always there and the blues maybe were. Blues two pounds.
The fourth summer (now) I had blues feed with the channels for most of the year but disappeared when it got hot. The blues are two to three pounds and I caught a few channels at about two pounds!
The hatchery guy told me that channels grow faster until the blues reach two pounds. I think that showed true. But then I had a screwed up pond with all the baby channels and I fed less. I think the blues ate the hell out of the fatheads (which don't produce like high protien feed).
I have the channels thinned and hope next year I can get some growth out of the blues.

I also put some of the baby channels in another small pond with hybrid striper and in two years I caught a four pounder. The smallest brothers and sisters in the othe pond are still six inches. Point: They grow by how agressive they are.

Hmmm sound interesting..Sounds like blues don't take to the pelleted food as well as other fish! I know that Bream and channel take after pelleted food real well.
How aggresive do the hybrids take after the pelleted food?
I can't figure why the channels grew faster with the hybrids than with the blues???

You Know I think it was Zach that had the 30 acre lake that was "chalked thick" full of threadfin shad..He said the blues were about 8 lbs in 18 months! and the channels were half that size at only 4 lbs.
You mentioned that the blues probebly eat the fathead minows.
It really sounds to me that blues have very different feeding habbits from channels. I have heard that they were very similar to stripers! (not Hybrids)..Newbee you told me before in an earlier post that you caught blues on artificel bait as if you were fish for bass..right?
I wonder if you and newbee were to creat a heavy forage base of ethier bream or shad..and see if this does not improve your growth rate of the blues. It would be real interesting...

Hybrid stripers attack the food. the channels with the hybrids were fed Aquamax 5D06 (I think 41% protien) and they scoop the food while the hybrids eat one at a time. Also, I fed a lot twice a day in the spring and once when it got a little hot. That is why the channels grew so fast.
The channels with the blues were overpopulated and I fed them one small coffee can a day. That is why everything grew so slow.
Blues are supposed to be as predatory as yellow cats, but the are a little more limited by mouth size. I think they like the feed okay but something ate most of the fatheads. These overpopulated fish were hungry. This year I added what I bought as small redear but as I grew them out in anotherpond, they looked a lot like bluegill--maybe crosses. I bought them from a truck at a feed store instead of traveling to my reliable suppliesr.

Well it sound like Channels and Hybrids are similar because they both prefer floating feed over any other forage!
While Blues and Stripers are similar in that they prefer live bait like shad and bream. I think Zach has it right, he has a ton of shad in his fishery this is why his blues grew so quickly! Like you said before, they realy ate the Fatheads up..you should get an improvement in your forage with the bluegill (if they actually are bluegill), because bluegill spawn many times a year...

Some people say that channels outgrow blues durn the first 2 to 3 years. I really think it is because they are strickly feeding them pelleted food, and the blues have to "adjust" to this food source that they naturally do not prefure...my thoughts on this...

Big_POnd I have in fact caught a great deal of catfish (both species) on artifical lures, mostly spinner baits (white). I can tell you that both the channels and the blues are eating the pellets feed primarly. I have looked in the stomachs of these fish and all of then including the big one had fish food in them. I did see that a few of the blue cats had eaten what appeared to be small bream not sure, as digestion had taken its toll.

I think my assumption that channels grow faster than blues may be flawed. As most of the fish I have caught have been around the same size and only the very large fish that I have told you about stands out. Now there may be a very large blue cat that I have not caught yet. I'll keep fishing and let you know!

I only have channels but by far the biggest channel I have caught was one of my albinos! He was about 3 pounds heavier than the largest regular one.

Newbee so you have caught quite a few cats on spinner bait? Which do you catch more of Blues or channels? Which ones fight the hardest? What else do you have stocked in your pond and how are these other species doing?

My experiences have shown that, under hatchery conditions, channel cat outgrow blues the first year. The second year, blues catch up, and in the third year, pass the channels. But, not many hatcheries keep fish in their ponds longer than a year or two.
Given "perfect" conditions for each fish, blues do outgrow channels by the second or third year.

I have sort have asked the same question under the Hybrid topic, but....what is the life span of these different fish? the Channels, Flatheads, and Blues?

I don't know which ones live the longest, but i will tell you that the blues are not nearly as hardy as the channels. When hooked and released I find that a lot of the blues go belly up and very few if any of the channels die. Maybe Bob Lusk can shed some light on why this is.

To answer your question, Big_Pond both species readily take artificals. I can't comment on which one fights the hardest when hooked. It appears that this is just relevant to the weight of the fish

I'd like to know why the Blues are not as hardy as the Channels as well, you are not the first person who's said this, this really bothers me.. :rolleyes:

Yer right, Newbee. I jes never put it together. Caught and released two and a couple days later, both daid. Couldn't have been more daid. Now any blue caught will go in the hot oil or will be friz. Think i'll begin introducing channels.

Wow! someone say this isn't so!! I know that newbee's lake is around 3/4 acre, but Dudley how big is your lake?
I know that blues have a harder time with low disolved O2 levels it must be that they "sufficate" durin the fight when hook.
But newbee, has any blues at all survived when released? They couldn't have all died did they?
Zach, I know you are running blues in you big lake are you seeing problems with the survivel of blues when being released after caught?

Bout seven acres, but dat don't make no difference cause dey still daid. Dey white bellies shinin up to dat big pond in de sky what dey done departed to, rest dey ten pound souls.

If you really think about it, how many fisheries do you know that sell blue cats. Not many I found and to continue that thought how many fish producers (market catfish producers) use blues for their product. The answer, I have never heard of them using anything but Channels.

Know why is this so? I would say that it has to do with the species being less hardy than the Channels. When I stocked my pond (relayed in an ealier post) the only fish that I lost were the blue cats and not one channel. I will have to defer to someone that is an expert on this, as this is just my experience and not something based on any study or scientific knowledge.

I have heard this from a few different people as well.
I think it is more of a disolved oxygen level problem more than anything..This seems to be the same problem with the stripers, which are similar to the blue cat. I guess if the conditions are right then the Blues would have no problems..Zach have you had any of these troubles or has anyone for that fact had these problems with blues?

Do Flatheads exibit these problems?

big_pond I'm not expert on catfish, but I will agree with your point on stripers...

However, one thing I have noticed is that the larger fish seem to be more susceptible. I know normally if you catch a smaller fish(in the 18in and under category) then they normally do fine. I think it may have to do with the fight as mentioned earlier. Big fish take a long time to reel in and therefore are most exhausted at the end of the fight. Take for instance....if you run constantly for 5 minutes at the end you maybe a little out of breath and a sweating a little, but if you run for 30 minutes as fast and hard as you can imagine what it would feel like. I think this might be the same thing that happens to the larger fish.

But I'm not expert, just something to add to the pot of information. Maybe Bob or one of the others can add in factual proven information to the topic.

Chris

Big-Pond,

I don't think that lack of Oxygen had anything to do with my fish loses and to that end with any of the catch and release loses. I really feel that the species of fish (ie. Blue Cats) just don't hold up as well as the Channel Cats.

On a related note, I would not spend my money again on stocking Blue Catfish in my pond. The reasons are simple, they were more exspensive than Channels from get go, less hardy, and from my experience do not grow any quickier than Channels. An additional reason is that they do compete with my LMB for minows, blue gill and other prey.

I know that the Blue Cat is one of your favorite fish, but from my point of view I really don't see their advantages.

As noted earlier, I have a small pond with blues and channels. I came to the conclusion that blues need more oxygen but then last summer I seined and caught more than I expected. I packed a lot in a cooler and drove to the house where I put them in a live well. I had five or six blues about two pounds and sixty-something channels from five inches to two pounds. Two blues looked liked they took the trip harder than the rest but when the pump clogged I lost about 15 channels (all sizes) and all the blues survived.

The man at the hatchery complained that blues stuck in the nets worse and I think myself they thrash around more when handling them.
I've also hooked two now that have jumped like a bass--almost two feet in the air!

Newbee doesn't think much of blues and I kinda like them. You'll have to get some and make your own decision.