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It took a pond builder a week to build my pond, and Nature 5 or 6 months to fill it. One can never hurry nor short-cut Nature. But finally, there it was, six feet deep, surrounded by the woods on one end, and a meadow on the other, glistening in the sun. There was just one thing missing now-fish.
A rainwater pond is perfect for raising the amazing catfish.
Catfish are one of the oldest species known, ranking second only to the most primitive living fish, the armored sturgeon. They can survive for quite some time even in dried- up ponds in the mud, until rains bring water to the ponds again, which I kept in mind, since we’re prone to long, hot, dry summers.
The feline-like whiskers of a catfish provide it with an extremely delicate sense of touch that enables the fish to find its way along the muddy bottom without depending on eyesight. And since a catfish has no scales, it can breathe through its skin like a frog. Should the murky water fail to supply sufficient oxygen, the catfish comes to the surface and renews the air in its swim bladder or gulps down air and gets additional oxygen through stomach respiration.
In the strange foreign watery realm that all fish inhabit, senses other that sight are highly developed. The blinded pike can detect its food through vibrations in the water, certain minnows can detect sugar and salt hundreds of times more readily than humans, and the amazing catfish has its taste organs scattered outside its body. As a matter of fact, it's estimated that an adult bullheadcatfish has as many as 100,00 nerve sensory sites on its body! So finding food in muddy dark waters is no problem for the catfish.
When a catfish broods its eggs, it tastes them continually with its fin or body to test the progress of incubation. And it is the male catfish that does this, watching over the brood until they are hatched.
Thirty-nine species of catfish are said to be native to North America. Usually they are grouped into three major groups, the large catfishes that often weigh over 20 pounds, and include the flathead and blue catfishes. Then there are the bullheads, which rarely weigh more than 4 pounds, and finally the tadpole madtom, which are the smallest catfishes.
Of course, catfish are easy to distinguish from other fish. They have smooth, ascaless bodies, eight whiskers about their mouth, and the strong, sharp spines located at the insertion of the dorsal and pectoral fins.
So I decided to stock the pond with flathead catfish fingerlings, which one could readily order from the local feed supply store. I brought them home in a large, plastic bag, and after tempering them off a bit, released those cute little fingerlings into their new home, and have watched them grow into huge specimens of their species.
Every evening, just before dusk, I walk to the pond with a bucket of catfish pellets. I take handfuls of the pellets and begin tossing them in the water. In seconds, the water comes alive with whiskered torpedo’s that scoop up the floating pellets, and then jump into the air and land with a splash back in the water. I am always amazed and delighted by this lively spectacle.
After a time of doing this, the catfish knew when I was coming, and began splashing before I even reached the pond. How did they know? Most likely by the vibrations of my foot steps. It got so that they splashed around whenever I was in the back yard, even long before feeding time.
These days, catfish farming is big business in the south, and it's no wonder, because the amazing catfish are not only a challenge to catch, but delicious to eat!
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