Where are my catfish??

[zesty]

If the DNR can't help you, I certainly won't be able to figure it out. I'll take a guess anyway...

"About 3 years ago I stocked 300 bream and shellcracker , all of a sudden I can't catch a catfish at all"

Disease. The new fish brought in something that the catfish couldn't handle.

 

[xrayman]

On crap i had not thought of that. The only thing is I got them from the same hatchery down in Abbieville at the Bowen Mill hatchery....

 

[Bull0ne]

I have exoerienced A similiar situation ad the OP. Had a farm pond we stocked with channel catfish fingerlings, and got them to the 10-12 inch class. They would eat a half a bucket of floating feed in 10 min or so. ( easily a couple hundred fish visible at feeding) We had big plans for sustained catfish frys all lined up!

Then i roll up to the pond one day, throw out the feed, and one solitary catfish comes to eat. I waited it a few days, instant reolay. Only one catfish remained in the pond. Easily a couple hundred catfish had disappeared in a 4 or 5 day window between feedings. ( no tresspass fishing, baskets, poison or otters could have eliminated all those fish in the short amount of time )

During this time in life, I was fortunate to be under guidance of a retired fisheries biologist with over four decades of experience. I called him in on the situation in order to solve the mystery. He rolled up to the pond in question, saw the huge run around at the end of the dam that was gaulded after the pond had run around just days before because the spillway on the pond couldnt handle the 2 day spring rain event that had just occurred..........and he explained to me catfish in general are the only fish that will sense a current flow and be drawn to go downstream to where more water would be found. I.E. My fish had swam out the run around, headed downstream in search of more water. ( most scale fish would do the opposite when current was sensed, unless spawning dictated a different respond )

The biologist reported to me that he'd seen this happen many times in farm ponds with excessive runoff and spillway systems that are not sized large enough to handle the huge runoff that comes from open / farmland type ground around the pond when a rain event occurs.

Since that time, i have encountered other pond owners who experienced similiar " escaped catfish " scenarios........and some have even walked the branch behind the pond after the run around quit running, and found a few catfish that got beached due to subsiding current.

May not be the OP's case.......but if there's been water go around or over the dam, odds are, the catfish are somewhere downstrssm.

 

[Cowboy23]

keep trying all kinds of baits like everything you can think of before i got in to bass fishing had this happen when i change up bait its help i mean try minnow worms calf liver beef liver bugs everything than that sould help hope you start slaming them soon

 

[Cowboy23]

forgot to say try small bream for bait

 

[xrayman]

Well I am going to try again y'all, spending 400 bucks more for catfish. This time I am trying Arkansas pond stockers, they are coming to my town (Dublin) hopefully they will survive the summer and winter and I can grow them big enough to fry.....thanks to all who responded.to my problem and questions....Many thanks Jim

 

[Jasonj1300]

I did nuisance wildlife control for years and dealt with this problem.. every time I saw it it was due to otters. They target catfish in particular because they are especially easy and sluggish targets in the colder months. They will eat them until they are gone in a matter of days and then disappear completely. Maybe it’s possible this happened during a time you weren’t around your pond and before you put out the trail cam? They normally move in groups of 2 or 3 from my experience. They would have left bones and fish heads wherever they were sitting to eat the fish, and normally otters would have one particular spot where they would feed and toilet around a pond like you have described (aka there wouldn’t be sign everywhere). Normally this area would be between the pond and the water source where they came from, maybe for quick exit purposes, not sure. They have the potential to eat a ton of fish in a hurry! Normally I would see the otter problems when a pond was within 1/4 mile of a pretty large creek or river. May not be your issue, but just sharing my experience. Thanks for letting me talk about water trapping for a min!

 

[Shmelton]

Catfish don’t reproduce in small ponds, so I have been told.


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[59gagohunt3]

Catfish don’t reproduce in small ponds, so I have been told.


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I have heard this over the years too. The only catfish that I've seen reproduce (in ponds) are the round tailed bullhead type catfish that would be native to the ponds feeder creeks/streams.

 

[Just1more]

Need some brainstorming from bigger brains than mine. I have a small fish pond around 3\4 of an acre i have stocked around 2000 catfish in it over the last 5 years fed them well they were in the 1 to 1 1/2 lb in size. About 3 years ago I stocked 300 bream and shellcracker , all of a sudden I can't catch a catfish at all. Nothing but bream come to the feed. No sign of otters or tresspassers no fish kills no pond overflow. I am stumped I even talked to the DNR about water quality they said everything was perfect. This is a mystery to me. Help please....

curious as to what kind of catfish did you purchase? I’m getting ready to stock my pond and haven’t decided between channel or blue. Right now I mostly have small bass.