Very good question. The answer is "it all depends". It depends on at least three important things. I am giving away all my secrets.
1. It depends on how domesticated the original stocker perch were. This item is very important. The more or longer the stock had been domesticated the easier, quicker, and more likely the youngsers will take to feed. I prefer to deal with a strain of YP that has been domesticated since 1979 - 30+ years. A very high percentage of each generation of these fish easily take to pellets. It is importrant to know the history of your stocker fish.
2. Size of the pond. The smaller the pond, the larger the percentage of young YP are exposed to pellets and thus the larger the percent of each year class that takes to pellets. Crowding seems to be imporatant in pellet training.
3. Efforts to pellet train. I make it a point each year to catch some (50-80) YOY perch from the pond and pellet train them in a cage for 6-12 months. Releasing them back into the pond then insures numerous pelleting eating fish.
4. I think it is important to use softened or hydrated feed esp when pellet training.
Another thing I once or twice do annually is to fish with minnows in the pond and remove all YP caught. This tends to thin out minnow eating YP.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/26/10 08:21 PM.
