Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations when will fish start feeding in Michigan

Folks,

Thanks for being patient with me. I have had my pond two years now and seem to still need lots of answers. Ma ny of you know from reading my previous posts that I thought I had an otter in my pond doing lots of damage. Through some trapping methods I have removed 4 big muskrats and I dont think I have anymore...my problem is that none of my fish are eating my pellets. They have all been pellet trained and ate like crazy last year. I know my perch are sitll alive because they have laid their eggs. but today I watched probably 10 frogs just swimming around and not one bass or anything even nibbled at them. I did have about 15 floaters this year but none others. Do I have a problem or is the water temp just not warm enough yet for the HBG, YP and LMB to begin pellet eating?
Thanks.

PS I did not have any floaters in the walleye pond-maybe they made it

What is the water temperature? Another thing that can throw fish off feed is lot of natural feed. If they have a choice many times they will switch over to natural feed.

I just saw my first BG gingerly take a floating pellet yesterday. He spit it out, grabbed it again and it was gone. Other than the trout feeding, that was the first "warm water" fish that I've seen this year take a pellet.

My water is just breaking into the very low 60° temp range on the surface, so I'm betting your water temps have a lot to do with it.

Scot,

My BG's in the cage and the pond have been feeding aggressively for at least a week. However I hydrate my feed (but they still float) and that makes a difference.

I gotta take a video of the trout feeding. They are jumping completely out of the water when they're taking the floating pellets now. The BG only took the pellet after it was floating for about 10 minutes, so I think that it was pretty soggy. There's quite a bit of natural feed in the pond, and I figure that they have their choice of items on the dinner menu.

Only one floater in the cage, I brushed the outside of the cage yesterday.

Yes trout are very aggressive feeders.

There's another kind of jumping too. That the is jumping browns and salmon do during spawning when they are not eating. You remind me of the two Orvis purists that flailed the water with ity bity flies when my browns up to 12 lbs. in the pond were in their spawning mode. It's pretty cool when you see a monster brown come up as if to take a look at them and have no interest in their flies. I tried to tell them they would have better luck with the pantyhose pellets later in the evening but they wouldn't have any part of it. Not even a strike. Served 'em right.

The fish are feeding very slowly right now, but the bass are getting more aggressive. By the end of this week everything should be feeding pretty heavily

my BG have been eating for about two weeks. very aggressively the last couple of days. LMB and YP have never really fed, but a couple have joined the BG.