I had an amazing experience last night. Almost otherworldly.
I went to the horizontal aeration pond, which had received all of the yellow perch raised in the tanks last winter. Our water temps had fallen into the low 40's for a few day, but recently we had a warm spell, that culminated in an 83 degree day yesterday. On a whim I decided to see if the fish would take any pellets. I propped up a lawn chair on the dock and threw in some Aquamax pellets. The water has recently cleared so it has a secchi reading of two meters.
To my utter amazement, big 11 inch yellow perch started creeping out of the depths and plunking pellets. They ate so many pellets that I had to go back to the Morton building to get more! It was SOOOO cool to see the bright yellow and black perch tip up at about 40 degrees and slink up to the pellet. I watched it at least 200 times. Then a big 10.5 inch male bluegill rushed up to smash a pellet. I was beside myself with joy to see the process repeated over and over again in the middle of November. I even called my Dad and talked to him while it was going on.
I don't get enough of this kind of thing, but when it does happen it makes all of the hard work, and failures worth it.
Big smiles
