In the UK a pond owning fishing club has 70 carp and 34 members. Each member has caught each fish at least once. I may be off on the numbers, but not the each catching part. Carp are probably an older species than bass so may be less intelligent.

I will agree with Aarron and Bill, partly, that anything that causes fish to eat less will contribute to a slower rate of reaching maximum size. Measuring it will be difficult.

In my pond the fish themselves create negative reinforcement. The barramundi nip fins and tails from the tilapia while the tilapia eat the pellets. The barrimundi also eat each other, the pacu eat first and the biggest pacu eat first of all. The pacu, like the barimundi were all stocked from the same spawn and some are nearly twice the size of others.

As Bruce said, you can put them off their feed for a short time, but mine come back with a vengence in the next day or so.


1/4 & 3/4 acre ponds. A thousand miles from no where and there is no place I want to be...
Dwight Yoakam