# Catish Dying?



## Rod Hawg (Jan 13, 2011)

I have a 3acre pond. It is loaded with Giant Bass, It produced a Record Sunfish, and it has some Big Channel Catfish. It also has Crappie and Perch. My question is does anybody know hy the catfish could be dying. You'll just find them on the shore and such. They are around 19years old because they were stalked in their when the pond was built. Why do you think they are dying?


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## RiverDoc (Mar 12, 2010)

Nineteen years sounds like the upper limit of their longevity. The ones that are dying, are they all the same size? Or, are the sizes variable?


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

How big does a 19 year old channel cat get???


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## Rod Hawg (Jan 13, 2011)

They are the big guys. THe 8+ pounders and saw a one that looked to be a fifteen just sitting on the bottom in shallow water dead last summer.


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## timmyv (Apr 26, 2006)

Tell me more about this record sunfish...are you the new record holder? How big was it?


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

an 8 lb channel is probably about 7-8 years old at best, I know in 3.5 years, i know have 6 lbers although I do feed them and there is no shortage of food in the pond. When they die, are they all dying at the same time? or is there just 1 here and 1 there durring the year?? any farm field run off going into the pond? perhaps low oxygen with winter snow, perhaps a hard oxygen turnover in spring and fall or perhaps a hard turnover from a real cold water thunderstorm in mid summer. lots of reasons and as typicaly bottom feeders, im guessing its lack of oxygen related. Do you aerate the pond?? remember, big fish need more oxygen to line then smaller fish. any other species ever dying at the same time?? Lots of questions....sorry, but all will help us determine why they are dying.

Salmonid


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## Rod Hawg (Jan 13, 2011)

No other fish kill. Unless I eat em! No. They are dying every once in a while. You'll find around 1 per month in the summer I don't know how many die after that? I just noticed it was bad when I was catching up to 10 Cats per day in 08. Around 6 per day in 09. And I was lucky if I caught 2 per day last year But no Gills/ Bass/ Crappie/ or Perch die unless I eat them which I don't keep a lot of fish. And yes the pond is aerated. All of the fish I catch are feed well. The Cats usually are as fat as footballs. The Bass are skinny at times and are fat at others. The Gills are huge considering a 13in State Record was caught last year. The Crappie and Perch are pretty much normal. Not fat or skinny. So I don't know whats wrong? Their is no farmfield runnoff their are springs and aereaters in their. The Giant Bass can be up to 27in Long! So I don't think its lack of oxygen. Heres a pic of a Cat.


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## katfish (Apr 7, 2004)

Rod
You seem to be somewhat schooled on managing your fish.
Did you know that although they spawn in the pond your channel cats are not reproducing? All the fish in the pond regard the baby catfish as food and they completely eat all the channel cats reproduced.

The hatcherys brood pond produced more eggs than needed. I told the manager that the little cats would soon populate the brood pond. He said there were 6-10 rock bass in the pond and they would eat every baby channel cat every year.

Have you stocked additional channel cats since the original stocking?
To keep the population up you should stock some every other year or so.
7-10 inch stocked fish are pretty safe from predation.

If you spot ailing fish you should net them and see if you can find visible cause for the problem. It could be someone is helping you catch them and not very gently releasing them afterwards.


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## Rod Hawg (Jan 13, 2011)

Some of them are bruisers with marks on them. And no we don't stalk the pond. We have a bunch of barrels in the pond for them to spawn in in around 4-6ft. of water. And I usually see them under rocks spawning in July. So what your saying is the fish do reproduce but the fry don't make it. I see tons of Gill and Bass fry. Even some Crappie fry. But never see little Whiskered fish cruising around. P.S the pond has around 20 boulders and probably 30 christmas trees.


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## Rod Hawg (Jan 13, 2011)

Also. When I catch the fish they are quickly released after I take a pic, measure them and weigh them and they swim off. So I try to take the best Care of them as I can when they are out of the water.


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## [email protected] (Feb 29, 2008)

Rod Hawg,

You've covered many of the usual suspects that cause fish mortality. Judging from the pictures the fish look to be in good condition and have nice color. Are you sure you're the only one that fishes there? Maybe others do not treat the fish as well as you do. Even if the pond is aerated it could still be an oxygen issue. Do you have diffused aeration or surface and how many locations of aeration? If a pond is very productive the activity of the plants, usually planktonic algae, can cause dramatic daily swings of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and pH. High levels of CO2 are toxic and at the very least cause stress to the fish. pH outside of the range of 6-9 also causes stress and possible mortality. In ponds where I've seen this, it is common to have very turbid green water. 

It is not uncommon for catfish to have some scarring during spawning season (June in Ohio) as the males will bite each other. I would be surprised if you do not get any survival from natural spawning in your barrels. The 7-8 lb catfish are probably not the fish stocked 19 years ago, but could be. The oldest recorded channel cat is 40 years old. You would expect a 19 year old cat to be larger than 7-8 lb but it depends on more than just age. I've pasted part of a CCF fact sheet here 

"In natural waters, the average size
channel catfish caught by fishermen
is probably less than 2 to 3 pounds,
but the world record of 58 pounds
was caught in Santee Cooper Reservoir,
South Carolina, in 1964. The
size and age that channel catfish
reach in natural waters depends on
many factors. Age and growth
studies have shown that in many
natural waters channel catfish do not
reach 1 pound in size until they are 2
to 4 years old. One study in the Lake
of the Ozarks, Missouri, found that
channel catfish did not reach a size
of 13 inches total length until they
were 8 years old. The maximum age
ever recorded for channel catfish is
40 years, whereas most commercially
raised catfish are harvested before
they are 2 years old." SRAC Factsheet #180.

If we have ruled out water quality and other environmental factors we start to look at disease. As mentioned I do not see anything obvious from the pictures. There are diseases that affect only catfish but what you describe does not really follow normal patterns of disease. Usually disease hits at a certain temperature or a specific time of year and you see more that just sporadic mortality. If you like we would be happy to assist you with getting one of your fish to a diagnostic lab for testing. 

I hope this helps.

Ps. Do you have any pics of the 27 bass? Not that I dont believe you but


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## Rod Hawg (Jan 13, 2011)

Thanks. We have Perch in their which are moslty on the bottom and they are generally spawing and very little fish kill. I highly doubt anyone is fishing it beside me because the pond is right in front of our house. The Channels seem to be found dead right after ice out( which I'm sure is common) and they'll die throughout the year. Also. That Bass length was a estimate. I was fishing for Catfish and saw him cruising the shore line chasing Gills. He didn't look that thick but he was looooonnnnnnnggggg! But I'm sure he was anywhere from 24-27in but proabably more towards 27. Also I saw a monster Bass eating Gills next to the shore while I was walking my dog. He looked thick and was around I'm guessing 24in. Their is one aereator and a large fountain. The water color is a Dark Blue color because we died the pond a few years ago with aqua shade. Their is no additional runoff guranteed. And the plant life is abundant but not terrible. We have our weed beds but then we have spots where the bottom is completely clear. I just find it strange not many other fish are dying?


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

the comment about them dying right after ice out is a clue that it very well may be Oxygen related. Al;so fish die through the winter but the ice preserves them so while a few fish die over the last 3 weeks of ice cover, once it melts, it look s like they all died at the same time sometimes. even though it was 1 here, 1 there for those 3 weeks. 

With crystal clear ice you see floaters under the ice all the time, BtW, you have Bottom aeration and fountain, are you running both of them now or not?

Salmonid


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## Rod Hawg (Jan 13, 2011)

Just running aerator. If its lox oxygen then how come the Gills, Crappie, Perch, and Bass don't seem to die? Not that I don't believe you but I'm just curious. Is it because the Cat's are the biggest fish in the lake? And they need more oxygen.


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## keith_r (Jun 18, 2010)

any salt runoff going into the water? i recently read that catfish don't tolerate it like yp or bg, or any of the other species you mentioned..


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## Rod Hawg (Jan 13, 2011)

No salt. We do have a few rocks and boulders in their but I don't think that would affect them considering the pond is around 3 acres big.


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## WiseEyes (Apr 7, 2010)

Rodhog I am close to you in Randolph, In our pond we had the same sort of problem. It was some kind of fungus that was killing ours. it was inside there gills and on the skin. Waited a year and then restocked never had the problem again


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

WiseEyes said:


> Rodhog I am close to you in Randolph, In our pond we had the same sort of problem. It was some kind of fungus that was killing ours. it was inside there gills and on the skin. Waited a year and then restocked never had the problem again


WiseEyes, I was going to mention a fungus or a disease problem but you beat me to it.......You certainly have the right name.


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