Raising Catfish

[hotbiggun42]

I bought a piece of land with a old forgotton pond. Currently its overpopulated with Goggle-eye, a few snapping turtle and one bug bullfrog.
I know goggle-eye are tasty but i love catfish. Anyone have a catfish pond or any ideas on raising these fish?

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Googl-eye is like pan-fish, or blue gill? Had to look it up, never heard that name for them…

[Straight Shooter]

Shoot/catch get rid of the turtles first.
My experience is this: Right now..I know of several old ponds WAY older than me { Im 57} teaming with fish that have NEVER been done nothing but left alone. Fished them for 50 years or more. Grew up fishing an adjoining property that had a spring fed 2 acre pond FULL of arm length & longer cats, bream, perch, sunfish and 5-8 pound bass.
Also a lot of turtles. I could catch them on rod and reel, or many times my sunny summer days sit on an overlooking hill and sniper the buggers. But get em out somehow, they are very detrimental. But, these ponds are self sustaining, is what Im getting at.
When we would keep and clean an old cat outta these ponds, their bellies would be full of moss, frogs, minnows, ect. So, you might consider adding some baitfish to the pond, or even a solar/battery powered feeder to the pond. We have a fish hatchery in my county thatll come out and pour fish right into the pond even.
What are goggle eyes, btw? Not heard of them. Bug-eyed bass, maybe?

[1_click_off]

Got a buddy doing this right now. He has a couple other ponds. He tries to keep cats in the cat pond bc he says they muddy the water up. Didn’t believe him, but the ponds he has bass and bream in are much much clearer than the cat pond. Get as many turtles as you can before they catch on. They will be curious at first and then super spooked. He tosses dog food for them until the bream become the feeders.

[hotbiggun42]

Goggle eye is a sun fish of sorts.

[lovetashoot]

I don’t know what state you’re in, but check with your Dept of Natural Resources/Fish and Game. They’re is likely a fisheries biologist that your taxes pay to help you with just such a thing.
My dad and I did something similar with a small (0.2 acre) pond we have. We used a chemical called that kills the current stock of fish. We lowered the pond level so that we wouldn’t need as much rotenone. I rode around in a small John boat with an electric trolling motor to mix the chemical. Voila, fishies no more. We raised the level and waited several weeks before stocking with cats to make sure the water was good to go. Then we fed the fingerling cats with floating feed. Fast forward a year or two to a catfish stew with neighbors.Btw, rotenone is a PIA to get now.

[Straight Shooter]

We drained a leaking pond once during a very very hot summer. Dad had a guy come out on a big Cat dozer. He cut a big hole in the bank, letting out the water mostly, I had told Mr. Taylor, the operator..to holler out whenever he saw a turtle and to let me come over and shoot it. Man,those damn things were the size of Chevy truck tires & buried DEEP in that stinking old sulpher mud. I shot many that day. Anyway..that pond dried out to DUST that summer. No water or mud at all. About 3 years or so later, I was catching little bass in it, and sunfish & bream were. We didnt do it.
Point of story- if you want a dedicated pond for catfish, thats an option and will allow you to get rid of the turtles, for awhile anyway. Make it deeper and clean out the bottom and you put in structure and plants for other fish too. Put in a supply of reproducing baitfish, add some feed now and again & youll have decent fish real quick.

[1_click_off]

We drained a leaking pond once during a very very hot summer. Dad had a guy come out on a big Cat dozer. He cut a big hole in the bank, letting out the water mostly, I had told Mr. Taylor, the operator..to holler out whenever he saw a turtle and to let me come over and shoot it. Man,those damn things were the size of Chevy truck tires & buried DEEP in that stinking old sulpher mud. I shot many that day. Anyway..that pond dried out to DUST that summer. No water or mud at all. About 3 years or so later, I was catching little bass in it, and sunfish & bream were. We didnt do it.
Point of story- if you want a dedicated pond for catfish, thats an option and will allow you to get rid of the turtles, for awhile anyway. Make it deeper and clean out the bottom and you put in structure and plants for other fish too. Put in a supply of reproducing baitfish, add some feed now and again & youll have decent fish real quick.

And mark your structures with a gps so you can find them when pond is full and you are on a little flat or canoe without a fish finder

[ryr8828]

How big a pond do you have? When I was a kid Dad had a pond dug. Acre, acre and a half maybe. He had channel cats stocked. We'd go down and feed them. They'd come swimming to us like dogs.

I always read/heard that channel cats wouldn't raise unless the water was moving to tumble the eggs, don't know if that's true or not.

[1_click_off]

Another thought…. If you start thinking about digging any of your pond out, my father in law wrecked his little cow pond letting a guy come dig it out. Guy went through the clay bottom and it leaks now. Water used to come up high on the bank and you could Bushhog right up to it. Now the water is low on the bank and trash trees started growing around it. So now it is low and tree locked. Been clearing some out lately, but unless I drain it and cap it with drill mud it is a lost cause.

Neighbor core drilled his pond site before digging and was advised to only go 6-8’ deep.

[hotbiggun42]

You guys saying to rid the pond of turtles, snapping turtles are pretty good to eat so i will leave a couple in there.
The pond is small about 1/8 of a acre or so. Im in southern Lauisiana.

[pinzgauer]

Our pond was full of fish and also had large snapping turtles.

I have read that they (snappers) have minimal impact on live fish, and our experience seems to back that up.

However they are deadly on ducks and the ducks and geese will not land in our pond except for winter time when they are hibernating. How the birds know I do not know.

Once otters moved in the neighborhood our ponds were cleaned out, and most likely all the others in the area. According to general consensus they move from pond to pond and will roam 10 to 15 miles up and down a waterway. We have seen them leave a large Creek at the edge of our pasture that is 100 yards from our pond. But they also move up and down even wet weather creeks connected to the outflow of our dike.

So while I'm happy that otters have recovered, they will flat out destroy a pond managed for fish.

[hotbiggun42]

Sorry to hear that. I suppose shooting otters is a big no no? I didnt know Snappers ate ducks but kinda makes sense.

[gsd2053]

Shoot/catch get rid of the turtles first.
My experience is this: Right now..I know of several old ponds WAY older than me { Im 57} teaming with fish that have NEVER been done nothing but left alone. Fished them for 50 years or more. Grew up fishing an adjoining property that had a spring fed 2 acre pond FULL of arm length & longer cats, bream, perch, sunfish and 5-8 pound bass.
Also a lot of turtles. I could catch them on rod and reel, or many times my sunny summer days sit on an overlooking hill and sniper the buggers. But get em out somehow, they are very detrimental. But, these ponds are self sustaining, is what Im getting at.
When we would keep and clean an old cat outta these ponds, their bellies would be full of moss, frogs, minnows, ect. So, you might consider adding some baitfish to the pond, or even a solar/battery powered feeder to the pond. We have a fish hatchery in my county thatll come out and pour fish right into the pond even.
What are goggle eyes, btw? Not heard of them. Bug-eyed bass, maybe?
Dead turtles make excellent catfish food. ;)