Although not done for all ponds, many fish farmers drain their ponds by 20 to 30 percent to get the catfish into a smaller area and make harvesting easier. Those catfish farmers who plan to harvest catfish of only a certain minimum size generally do not drain down the level of their ponds.;
, Seines are large nets used to scoop the catfish out of the ponds they were raised in. A standard seine to harvest catfish runs a length of 1,000 to 1,400 feet (300 to 420 meters) and has a depth of either 6, 9, or 12 feet (1.8, 2.7, or 3.6 m). The seine mesh size ranges from 3/4 to 2 inches (1.8 to 5 cm), which allows catfish weighing less than 1 to 2 pounds (2.2 to 4.4 kg) to slip through so they can grow to a harvestable size.


The seines are framed with half-inch (1.25-cm) rope at the top and bottom. The top rope is laced with floats at least 3 inches (7.5 cm) square spaced at every third tie. The bottom rope features 2-ounce (5.7 g) weights spaced at every second tie.
The mesh ropes are covered with plastic- or petroleum-based materials to prevent the spine in the catfish's dorsal fin from getting caught in the net.
 The catfish seine is wound onto a large hydraulic reel. The truck- or tractor-driven reel can reel the seine in or let it out as necessary when harvesting the catfish.


In smaller ponds, the seine can be pulled by hand, and so a seine reel is not needed.
 Starting at the deep end keeps the larger catfish from escaping into deep water as the seine is trawled through the pond. If the shallow end is deep enough to accommodate the seine, however, it can be drawn through the pond from the shallows to the deep end.


In larger ponds, the seine is drawn off the seine reel using another truck or tractor on the opposite side of the catfish pond from the tractor holding the seine reel. A boat with a push rack comes in behind the seine to keep it from bogging down in mud at the bottom of the pond.
 This will gather the larger catfish into the net while letting undersized fish slip through. The harvesting area is created when the 2 tractors reach the opposite end of the pond and start converging to close the net around the catfish, which may number from 50,000 to 100,000, depending on the pond's size and catfish population, and how large the mesh is.


In some ponds, a basin-like area is dug out specifically for harvesting the catfish.
, The live car, or harvest sock, is a collecting mesh into which the catfish are shunted through a funnel in the seine. It measures 8 to 10 feet (2.4 to 3 m) wide by 50 to 100 feet (15 to 30 m) long and is designed to hold 50,000 to 100,000 pounds (22.7 to 45.4 tonnes) of fish at a density of 20 pounds per cubic foot (320.4 kg per cubic meter). As with the seine, the live car has floats along the top to keep it above the water and to keep fish from escaping into the water.


As with the seine, the live car's mesh size is designed to separate out larger from smaller fish. The mesh size used varies according to the minimum size of fish required by the processing plant to which the harvested catfish will be shipped.
 As the seine is pulled slowly and evenly on either side, the harvested catfish are drawn into the live car. Workers keep the top of the seine from going underwater, which would let fish escape.
 If the weather is hot or if the water has been muddied from the seining, the live car can be pulled into clear water and staked in place. An aerator is connected to the live car to keep the fish alive until they can be loaded onto a truck.
 Some catfish farmers repeat the seining process until about 80 percent of the fish have been seined. They then drain the pond and continue seining until all the fish are removed. Catfish farmers who harvest only catfish of a certain minimum size do not repeatedly drain and seine.
 Known as grading, this process segregates the larger, more profitable fish from the smaller, less profitable fish. Fish are herded into loading baskets with a dip net or another piece of mesh designed to separate fish by size.
 Catfish are transported in trucks equipped with live wells, where they are killed and skinned. Some are filleted, and some of the fillets are cut into nugget-sized pieces.
Drain the pond level to concentrate the catfish.
Choose the right catfish seine.
Load the seine onto a seine reel.
Immerse the seine in the deep end of the pond.
Draw the seine through the pond's harvesting area.
Stop seining when the catfish seine is full.

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Zip a live car into the catfish seine.
Pull the seine and live car to shore.
Detach the live car from the seine.
Seine the pond again.
Separate the larger catfish from the smaller fish.
Transport the harvested catfish to the processing plant.
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