My dad has a stocked pond, with some nice catfish in it. My question is, will catfish reproduce in a pond about 4-5 acres in size? I was under the impression that catfish needed some moving water/current for spawning. Is this true?

Thanks,
Mike

 

What type of catfish? Channel and Blues need moving water but Bullheads do not.

 

That's what I thought. They are channel cats!

 

yea bullheads are bottom feeders found in alot of lakes and stagnent ponds...pretty good eatin though as long as you keep them feed nice instead of them eatin alot of slime....nice fighters too so good for fun fishin'


also see if you can put in some bass and blue gill and some nile perch those are pretty good eatin too with some heafty fillets

 

They don't need running water (almost all farm-raised catfish are channel cat), but they do need oxygenated water. That's why you see all that aeration equipment spewing water in those catfish ponds.

 

I agree with Big Orn, I do not think they have to have moving water.

 

I know where I go fishing is a great pond about 2 acres in size and it is great for channel and bullheads. There is no moving water and the pond has produced well for the past 8 yrs. No one stocks it either since you have to hike about a 1/2 mile ot get to it.

 

There are many of those old ponds where the natural flow of things take over - survival of the fittest.

And the catfish taste so much better from those than the farmed variety.

 

Keep in mind that studies have shown that you can only have so many pounds of fish per acre foot of water. Your local Game and Fish would help you out with proper species and such for the area, water conditions and stuff.

 

a 4-5 acre pond would be fun ............

I would love to fish in a stocked pond. I just entered a father and son
fishing competition (I have a 5 year old boy) for this coming weekend.
And you guessed it........channel cats

Please let me know if you need somebody to cull your daddy's catfish due to
over population. I'll keep the grease warm just in case.

I love catfish

 

They will not reproduce if you fish with dynamite either.

 

A guy I worked for had a pretty good sized pond, within a year or two of introducing just a few catfish, the thing was totally overrun with the cats. It was bad there were schools of hundreds all over it, he wound up poisoning and starting over with NO CATS.

 

Procreating little buggers aren’t they.

 

My dad had built a small pond and stocked it with channel cats and some hybrid blue gill. It is now full of cats and it even appears the hybrid bluegill have reproduced. There are some huge bluegill and some small ones and there is no way some could have outgrown the others by this much. It only has a small amount of incoming water.

 

Since you've mentioned fishing with dynamite and elevating a shed with dynamite, I'm beginning to be concerned about you.