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Fish and Game Warden. [Bull. No. 1. 



all three kinds from the same pond. While it is true that the 

 larger bullheads will eat up the smaller crappie and the smaller 

 sunfish, yet we have no record of finding a bullhead in the 

 stomach of another bullhead. 



We find, however, that it is a very easy matter to overstock 

 a pond with bullheads where the water is not well supplied 

 with food. If thousands of young bullheads are placed in a 

 small body of water they will almost starve before they will 

 eat each other; even then the live ones eat the dead ones by 

 nibbling off pieces, and not by swallowing each other whole as 

 the cannibalistic bass would do. If the water is overstocked 

 with sunfish or bass, the larger and stronger fish will feed upon 

 the smaller and weaker ones. In other words, the stronger 

 specimens survive at the expense of the weaker, and thus the 

 balance of nature is maintained and one of its hardest and 

 most cruel problems is solved. 



Should Keep Track of Fish in Ponds. 

 Ponds stocked with such fish as bullheads, where there is 

 not sufficient food, should be drained and the fish sorted in the 

 fall or in the early spring before spawning time. This should 



This picture sliows the Hatchery fishermen removing the larger fish from a pond. 

 Notice how well banks are protected by swamp grass. This grass has grown and 

 spread from strings of sods only one foot wide that were planted along the edge of 

 the ponds in the spring. 



be done once a year, or at least once every two years. If the 

 ponds can not be drained they should be seined and the fish 

 sorted. From one hundred to ten thousand catfish of the same 

 size and age could be placed in some special pond, depending 

 upon its size, where they could be fed until from two to three 

 years old, when they would be of fine size for table use. If 



