How to get rid of reeds in a pond

How can you get rid of reeds in a pond? Find out what the experts at Purina Mills say, as they help out a pond owner in Central Texas.

Robert is in Texas. He’s on the line right now. Hey, Robert.

Hey how are you fellas doing?

Excellent. Thank you.

I have actually two questions for you guys. I have about a four to five acre pond in Troy, Texas. We just acquired it, and it has some real tall reeds. It’s probably or maybe twenty feet deep at it’s deepest point, and the reeds are sticking like way out of the water and I want to know how may I get rid of them, and I also want to know how do I know if I have catfish in the pond.

Throw a mouse in. Four to five acres, that’s a large pond, right?

I’ll tackle the reeds part.

Alright.

Anytime you have something growing. It’s because all the things exist that we talked about earlier. You’ve got the right habitat, you’ve got the right food okay and so on. In the case of reeds, reeds like to live in soft soil. So as the pond ages, it begins to silt in, and that silt moves into the shallow areas, and that’s where the reeds start. So the only way to really really get rid of reeds is to eliminate what causes them to grow, which means they probably need to be excavated for a really long term control.

Gotcha. Alright, and how does he know if he has catfish or not? It’s not the mouse, I know that.

Well, the most fun way, of course, is to go fishing.

Exactly.

And many many many ponds, especially the size that this gentleman was talking about, can be effectively sampled by, actually, with a hook and line. You can get a really good idea of what’s in there and the size. If that’s not of interest to him, then he can certainly hire a professional fisheries biologist, that can come out with the appropriate gear, and tell him exactly what’s in there.

And Bob, had his hand up.

Oh yeah there’s another way too.

Alright.

Feed them. You can go to the feed store and buy a sack of game fish chow, present it to those creatures. And if you’ve got catfish, they’ll be there within a few days.

You’ll know it.

That’s right.