Stocking my little pond

[EddieWalker]

Here's a little update on the fish in my small pond.

We had a party here yesterday, (Saturday) and had just over 30 people show up. It was a good excuse for a fish fry!!!

Last year, Steph cought several catfish over 3 pounds with the biggest at 3.5 pounds. We were expecting them to be bigger, but were suprised that they were not. The biggest fish caught yesterday weighed 2.75 pounds.

I'm thinking that they lost weight over winter. I'm not sure as it could be that of the 17 catfish that were cought, none of them were as big as what we were catching last fall. Any thoughts?

Here's a few pictures.

Eddie

 

[PineRidge]

Here's a little update on the fish in my small pond.

We had a party here yesterday, (Saturday) and had just over 30 people show up. It was a good excuse for a fish fry!!!

Last year, Steph cought several catfish over 3 pounds with the biggest at 3.5 pounds. We were expecting them to be bigger, but were suprised that they were not. The biggest fish caught yesterday weighed 2.75 pounds.

I'm thinking that they lost weight over winter. I'm not sure as it could be that of the 17 catfish that were cought, none of them were as big as what we were catching last fall. Any thoughts?

Here's a few pictures.

Eddie

Hi Eddie!

Feed those puppies. We use the floating fish food made by Purina. I believe the bags weigh 50 pounds each. Within the 1st couple of years the cats in our pond put on lots of weight as a result of regular feeding. The pond is now 8 years old and most of the cats are in the 10 pound range with a few bigger. The water boils every time they are fed.

Feed them daily, and at about the same time of the day if you can. We started by slapping the water after we threw the food to get their attention. We only needed to do that for bout 2 months. Pretty soon they'll know you're coming and be waiting for the chow.

 

[meadowlarkponds]

Eddie,

Those are nice eating size cats. I'm not surprised they lost weight over the winter. They just don't eat much. You can throw food out there all day and they won't eat a bite at lower water temps.

I overwintered some Pacu this winter and the largest one dropped from 7 to 6.5 pounds even in a heated pool.

Did the water ever clear up in the small pond? That can affect the weights on sight feeding fish like bass, but not the cats so much.

 

[Tororider]

I don't know about cats, but I know with bass you can slot them out in a small pond. If you get a bunch of one size, they can crowd out the smaller ones and reduce food source for them and the larger ones, not allowing them to grow to the next larger slot. Also, could your big ones have gotten hook-wise?

 

[MossRoad]

I was always taught that a body of water can only support X many pounds of fish depending on the nutrients available that come from within the body of water and/or the watershed that feeds it.

For example: lets say you have a 1 acre pond that can support 1000 pounds of fish. That could be:
100 ten pound fish
or
1000 one pound fish
or
10,000 one/tenth pound fish
or
a mix of different sized fish, all adding up to 1000 pounds of fish.

Maybe while your big cats were shrinking, your small cats were growing. Most likely they will even out in size eventually, and, if they are reproducing or more are added to the pond, they may all eventually get smaller.

If that is the case, the only ways to get bigger fish is to either supply more food for them or remove lots of the smaller ones. Have more fish fry's with the sandwich size ones.

 

[Tororider]

MossRoad said more eloquently what I was trying to say, but add that once a certain segment of the population gets to a certain size, that segment can be stunted because of the lack of nutrients/food that MossRoad was talking about.