Pictures of unusual fish behavior

[guzzijohn]

A week ago we had some flooding in the area and my watershed was very high for a few days. Went to look at the overflow pool below the outlet pipe and this is what I saw. The white catfish is a mystery as it appears to be about a 3-4 pound fish but with a straight tail end, not forked like a channel cat. The other photo is a number of small channel cats swimming along the surface like they are skimming it with their mouths.
GuzziJohn

[Graybeard]

Nuttin strange about that. Catfish often go around slurpping down food on the surface in the manner you show them doing. Every time I feed them in my pond using floating catfish food that's what they do. Obviously at that spot there was a lot of something on the surface they were eating.

[born-to-hunt]

are you aloud fishing in there it looks like it would be fun but yeah my grandma feeds hers hi protine dogfood and they do something similar

[CannonKrazy]

I don't think it's nothing to worry about. It aint nothing a dip net and a pan of hot grease wont take care of .

[guzzijohn]

The vast majority of the fish are channel cats with some carp, crappie, perch and a couple of bass thrown in. The small catfish looked so weird due to just skimming the surface with their whiskers up in the air like antennas. I have observed the pool under similar circumstances in the past but have not seen the number of fish of this kind of behavior.
GuzziJohn

[blind ear]

Did any of the fish die? It appears to be a low oxygen problem. That shouldn't happen if water is flowing through the lake.

If it is an empoundment and it gets hot it may have inversion layers, or thermals, warm water on top with oxygen in it and cooler water on the bottom without oxygen. When it rains the cooler rain water causes the water to mix and the result is low oxygen. It will usually result in a big die off. In the past it was called "the lake turned over".

Low oxygen can result from feed deteoriation if the fish are feed and the oxygen isn't monitored and aeriation available to stir the water. Low O2 due to feed or a high organic load will usually ocure before dawn. If the fish live until 10:00 AM they will usually go back downif the sun is out and it isn't heavy hazy. Heavy hazy and dead air/still no breeze, look out.  Don't feed in July or August unless you have an O2 probe and aeration.

The water in such a lake is usually "off flavor" and the fish taste bad, like mud or something dead. Catch them live and put them in fresh waer 3 or more days and they will taste as good as the fresh water.  

The white fish could be a channel cat. Do you have fish farms in your area. Albino cats appear often in hatchery fish, as do club tailed and crooked spined fish. It is thought to be due to inbreeding in the farm raised confined situation.

Good luck.
eddiegjr

[guzzijohn]

Everything died off. This is the first time I have seen that happen in the overflow pool. What I think may have happened is that after this bout of heavy rains for what ever reason there were way more fish in the pool than I have seen before. Once the water level dropped to where they had no escape there was just to many fish. I checked the lake closely and I have not been any dead fish. The albino catfish has a straight cut tail instead of a forked tail, that is what got my attention.
GuzziJohn

[blind ear]

If the overflow pool catches rain water you could be right or if the pool is deeper than the surface area and does not get a lot of wind action that could be key also. Rain water is well aeriated but it has no plankton or alge to create oxygen. As the water got lower and heated up it would hold less oxygen plus it couldn't "make oxygen" without alge or wind action. The fish used the o2 faster than the surface area could release co2 and absorb  o2.