Quote Originally Posted by kscatman View Post
Craig,
Are the blue cats you are stocking into eldorado reproducing? I'm very excited about having a place to fish for them in a few years when they get much much bigger. Do you feel at some point it's going to have a nice fishable population?
Thanks,
Travis
Travis,

I documented natural reproduction of blue catfish in El Dorado for the first time on July 22, 2009. Blues were first stocked in El Dorado in 2004 with some larger/older fish stocked in 2005. It takes about seven years for blues to reach sexual maturity in Kansas so more than likely some of those fish from the 2005 stocking were able to get a spawn off in '09. Each year during my summer electrofishing sampling for blues I am finding increasing numbers and sizes and they appear to be doing well. As soon as we have higher numbers of reproducing individuals in the lake I think we will be on our way to having a good blue catfish population. Blue catfish are quite slow growing, but your patience will likely pay off! Milford Reservoir currently has a good population of blue cats with large fish caught. If you are trying to scratch your blue catfish itch, then Milford would be a good lake to fish.