Originally Posted By: Augie
Originally Posted By: Mike Whatley
My experience with BH is, while they may spawn large numbers of fry, those fry are almost, if not entirely decimated by everything else in the pond.


I agree completely with that observation.

When my little puddle was still a mucked up mess it was over-run with BH. I had maybe 30-ish CC from 2lbs. up to 20lbs. and half a dozen 4lb+ LMB in there, but there weren't enough of them to control the BH population.

Once we started fishing out the bigger BH and throwing the cast net on the fry ball things changed quickly.

If a guy wanted to grow BH to use for bait it would need to be done in a forage pond that didn't contain any top end predators.

I'm going to dig a forage pond this year. Maybe I'll throw some BH in with the fatheads and shiners and see what happens.


do you think someone could build a pond with a shovel without buying heavy machinery like possibly a 10x10 or 15x15 sized pond about 3 foot deep? id think i could raise bhs in there and maybe some gsf for catfish bait or when they all die try to raise shiners or something for crappie

since the pond would be no deeper than 4 foot id prob have to line the bottom with a tarp so it wouldnt dry up huh