My thought: BTW, I’m generally wrong.
I’ve never really thought that we, or at least I, could make much difference by fishing. Compare culling with the number of eggs laid, hatched and fish that escape predation. And, if I really work at it, the fish get hook shy. Natural predation is the most powerful tool at our disposal.
Well said, and I don't think you're wrong with this one, lol. I think the smaller your pond is, the more you can control the population via fishing. Larger ponds will need to rely more on predation, and focusing on keeping the right sized predators in there to control the size of the prey you want to get munched on.
Growing trophies, and maybe a record someday, does take a lot of work, and more importantly, knowledge. You need the perfect water, perfect predator-prey ratio, the perfect forage, perfect habitat, etc. The odds of an uneducated rookie pondmeister just throwing a bunch of fish in a pond and creating a state record are about zero. My thinking with the White Catfish wasn't necessarily that I'd need to create the perfect habitat to grow a record, it was the fact that its a highly misidentified fish, and in public waters that contain Blue Catfish and Flatheads, the White Cats become nearly extinct, or just can't compete with them for food, so they stay small. The NC state record is only 59% of the weight of the world record (13 vs 22), so I think I could do it.
Steve, to answer your question about filling out the paperwork for the state record YP, No, I haven't. The reason is I want it to be a friends kid or somebody that doesn't really fish a lot-or doesn't GET to fish much.
I've been blessed with the ability to fish some great waters, where known large specimens swim, and I've held 2 state records myself. I've caught 5 of the 6 YP that bested the record, some by a few ounces, the last by a pound, but our KS state record is only 1.06lbs and 14.25". I think it would be a priceless gift to have a kid get that document and title, I am sure the kids wouldn't care that the YP got bigger because there was some supplemental feeding happening. It's purely the moment in itself that they (and I) will remember the rest of our lives.
Feed on peeps, Feed on..
Hey, I can respect that. I guess with me being relatively young (38), I'd selfishly want the record books to have my name in it lol. But if my son got it, I'd be just as happy. Does Kansas split up their state records between pond and public waters?
