Hello I've got a pond that is 1.5 acres, its over run with bluegill up to 8". I was looking to throw in some catfish to feed on them and cut them down. How long would it take the cats to get enough size to start eating the middle aged gills. How well do blue cats do in tanks, or just stick with channel? At full the depth is around 15' and stays above 10' through the summer. lots of vegetation. thanks

Blue cats do exceedingly well in ponds...so well that at some point all you will have will be one or two big blues and not much else remaining.


Bass will do a number on those gills and provide you with some great fishing...and much better predators than channels and they will reproduce leaving you, if stocked properly, a relatively balanced pond.

I was afraid of blues growing to large. I have to many large mouth as well, The larger ones I've caught some 23" ones that should be 8 lbs that are so skinny. I know I need to cull the small large mouth they are over crowded too. I know they are feeding on the gills but its not enough to keep up. The big gills seem to not be slowed down they are booming. I need something to put them in check. Channels get a good size but not to massive I was wandering how long it took to get them 10 lbs or so, or if they even will reach that large in a 1.5 acre tank

I guess my question would be why? Why do you say "you need something to put them (big gills) in check"?

If your bass are skinny, then most likely you don't have a problem with overpopulation of blue gills....you likely have a problem with too many bass. Evidence of numerous 8 inch 'gills is not indicative of overpopulation of blue gills, quite the opposite. Adding catfish to the mix will simply compound the problem of skinny bass.

I guess your right I was looking at it wrong. The problem is the smaller bass. I need to weed alot of them out.

Yes, get aggressive at removing all the small bass that are caught, under 12 to 14 inches, and you will soon begin to see dividends.

My son lives on a 12 acre lake that has 8-10 houses around it and 4-5 people fish on it and it was stocked with some blue cat years ago and some of them have been caught that weigh 30+ lbs. It has coon tail and other grass in it and they catch some 8-9 lb bass out of it and some 1.5-2 lb. crappie.It also is loaded with blue gill. It is 25 ft deep when full. I think the blues are keeping the lake balanced.When i first heard of the blues being in there I thought not good but I believe I was wrong

Start catching those blue gills and eat them, better than catfish and bass.

I had blues up to fifty pounds. They would eat out of my hands. They died over the years. We put in 80 more back in the spring. They are up to a pound already.




A couple of alligators moved in. I'm not sure what they ate. Seems as if they got along well with the turtles.

LOL, Now thats a cool set of photos. thanks for posting them.