Stocking the Pond with Channel Catfish 

I wish the kids could be home now but school and activities keep them away more than grandma would like.

Yeah, they start out pretty good size. They have grown so much since last year. They are waking up now and coming up to feed when we throw out the floating food. It's fun to watch them! Thank you, Robert!

They put up a good fight. Thanks for watching and commenting.

Yes, I'm looking forward to some good catfish one of these days. I wish the fish would bite right now. It's been to cold and then too windy. Maybe I should go out there right now and throw a line in. Thank you for watching! ~Janette

@@TheNealsHomestead nice... how much for that batch of catfish?

I'm ready to catch some fish, but nothing has been biting! It's warming up but the wind keeps wanting to blow. ~Janette

I'm tryna catch some today before the sun comes out. April is always great

Thank you. I need to check out your pond again! ~Janette

Thank you! Welcome aboard and I hope you enjoy it! 😃

Hello Zak in Portland. Thanks for watching, commenting and subbing. We'll be doing more fishing videos, along with other stuff we do around here.

Kids usually love fishing....if the fish are biting. We haven't been successful this year at catching anything! I'm ready to fry up some fish. Thank you, Tom! ~Janette

@@TheNealsHomestead Not an expert here, but sometimes those catfish like biting after dark. At least in streams.

Thank you!

We are throwing a little feed in this late winter but they haven't come out of "hibernation" yet. I'm ready to see them again. They grew a lot over the year.

Do Goldfish reproduce?

@@TheNealsHomestead yes, I bought 10 last year, now there are over 30 in my pond

Scott George and Greg white you must own a private pond cuz it illiegal to realize gold fish into the wild

yes, we've been catching a lot of the catfish and thoroughly enjoy them.

Thank you!

We need to, but now winter is close. Hopefully we'll fish more next year.

Our lake is 40 ft deep at the dam end. I expect them to be fine. Thank you!

Blue cats on the Mississippi get to 50-70lbs

We had it dig out for years, then built a dam back to make this little pond for the bluegill.

Yeah those freakin bullheads lol

They should breed in our pond.

I've been told if you stock your pond with fathead minnows they're bigger but slow movers and help the cats grow out quicker but they don't reproduce fast enough before eaten by the cats. If you stock "red shiner" minnows (a.k.a. "red horse" or "rainbow dace") not to be confused with "rosy reds" which are a variant species of the fathead, the red shiners reproduce rapidly (up to 6 times a year) and provide a constant source of food for the cats so you don't need to spend so much on catfish food pellets. If you have some kind of underwater structure for the cats to get in/under, they should keep reproducing with a good food source.

This size should be safe from predation.

We ordered them through our local feed store and went there to pick them up on a specific date (a Saturday). I think they were something like $.85 each. It's been almost a year ago. The fish food comes in 50 pound bags and cost is similar to dog food. We fed them all last spring, summer and fall and have already started tossing some food out, but I haven't seen them come up yet. We will continue to feed them. It's fun watching them get the food.

We haven't been able to see any of the bluegill yet. We are pretty sure that some of them got into the big pond when it rained heavily. There's so much to do around here that the bluegill checking gets put on the back burner. We have tried a little fishing but nothing is biting!!! I'm so ready to catch a mess of fish and fry them up.! Thank you! ~Janette

I think we'll wait until they are at least 15-16 inches. I can't wait! Thank you, Ryan! ~Janette

As soon as it warms up a bit more well be doing any update on the carp and catfish.

That sounds like a good idea. We'll see about it.

Yes!!!!! Was gonna say that. Dive the pond and see where you can create some nice habitation to promote security and promote breeding. In other words, make them "cozy" and they'll settle in quite nicely. 👍

Should we put clay tiles in the shallow end of the pond, and do they need to lie level or can they be oon a slope? Thank you!

3 to 5 ft is what I did they just need to be able to back in I'm not sure on the slope thing

Just put 300 in my pond 6 to 8 inches

We're in Missouri. Thanks for visiting!

We are in Missouri

The biggest risk of that is potentially introducing possible parasites and disease into your pond. Otherwise it's a cheaper route to go.

Feed it from a well

I think channel cat.

The Neals' Homestead thanks!

The pond is somewhere between 1 and 2 acres. Nice size for us. Thank you, Jennifer. ~Janette

There's a hatchery that delivers to s local feed store several times a year. We place orders and then pick them up on a designated day.

This was nearly a year ago and we really enjoyed feeding them all last spring, summer and fall. You throw the food in and come swarming like a bunch of chickens. I've been tossing some food out since it's warmed up a bit, but haven't seen any come for it, yet. Thank you, ~Janette

I think the ones we bought cost 70 cents each.

awesome price. thank you

@@jackjacke4654 6 to 8 inches I paid 112.00 for 300

We paid 95 each for the six to eight in channel catfish. I just picked up a new order page at the feed store and the price is the same this year.

They should be edible, although not big, by August. Thanks for watching and commenting.

@@TheNealsHomestead heck I started to skin a few of them out when I dumping them in the pond

yes, we did build the pond. It was a large ditch which we hired someone with a bulldozer to dam up. But first a large amount of trees were harvested from the ditch. It's been a blessing to us, right out our back door.

Flathead and blue cats are predatory and they will clean out a farm pond quickly.Neither are recommended for stocking captive ponds. I had a couple 5-6 lb blues in a stock pond along with channel cats. I regularly moved green perch ,pumpkin seed and bluegill from a creek across the farm into the ponds. When the creek potholed we moved the perch to the catfish pond.30 to 50 perch transplanted twice a year and they were gone in 60 days . The channels and blues did hybridized, I did feed the pond everyday . I stocked a different pond with a heavy perch population and several generations of bass from 3 inches to 6 lbs. I added 5 breeding size channels in April, then 25 6" channels in May, 30 breeding size Tilapia , and 3 lbs of Fathead minnows. Second round of stocking in Sept, 50 more channel cats 6 " , 50 coppernose bluegill ,50 shell crackers and another 3 lbs of fathead minnows .The bass ate juvenile Tilapia like popcorn and the small bass gorged on minnows .I added aeration to the pond in Sept. , big improvement in water quality and it allowed the fish to move deeper into the pond in freezing weather. Installing artificial fish habitat in my spawning bed areas when the water warms and I see perch on the banks.

ALLEN SANDERS , I lived on a two acre pond and we had flatheads, blues, channels, bluegill and bass. After ten years, nothing has changed. The fishing is still great

2 ACRES is a fairly large pond if it has good structure and or cover I could see higher survival rates on your other fish, as I said my ponds were all standard stock ponds which are basically just smooth bottom scooped out oval bowls with no structure so no protection for feeder fish. Flatheads are an apex predator in a pond then bass.Big cats will eat small bass. If your cats are continually growing them something is being sacrificed in that pond for food. You must have excellent fertility in your pond with very good spawning habitat if your small fish are able to outproduce the large predators.Thanks for sharing

@@allensanders4204 I always heard perch don't do good in farm ponds how's yours doing?

@@MrRedforman1 Hey Seth, to answer your question my experience is you can grow perch to large sizes if the pond has good food sources. Plan on stocking fat head minnows twice a year and make sure the perch have the genetics to get big.Dont expect green perch to grow to 1 lb plus sizes even if you feed them . I feed my fish pond to grow the coppernose bluegill and the catfish faster.Once the gills reach reproductive size you will need a few bass in your pond to control population of your sunfish or you will start to see stunted fish from lack of food . The bass in my pond switched from eating bluegill to eating tilapia when I stocked breeding size fish in the pond. They reproduce every 3 weeks so they were able to keep up with predation , those 5"-6" tilapia stocked the last week of May grew to 3 + pounds by the last weekend of Oct. when the water temps plunged from a deep freeze and dropped water temps below 50 degrees which sent the tilapia into shock. I netted all the big tilapia before they died and we had a fish fry.I left all the 1.5 lb and smaller tilapia in to sink to the bottom for the catfish.

PRACTICALLY ANYTHING SINCE THEY ARE BOTTOM FEEDERS. ✌️

Cats!

The really like the catfish that come out of our pond! Thanks~

You have to keep a good grip or it will flip around and stab one of those fins and you and it will hurt for days.

Catfish will reproduce in ponds, my buddy put that size in his pond they grew up to 15 lbs, in a few years, and we seen hundreds of baby cats, in a huge school and a mother catfish was with them,

@@nickshuler6633 what does he have for a pond bottom

@@GreatNW mostly sand. And some clay. With lilly pads and small quarter size rocks. And a sand beach. 4.75 acres pond size. 22 ft. Deep in the middle

Fortunately we are stocked by the state so we don't have to let people fish here. I would be surprised if you would like people coming into your back yard, either.

@@TheNealsHomestead I DID stopped it had trash stuff come up missing