Update: With the water temperatures rising, I've been feeding more as time allows. With the longer daylight hours, I have been able to go out to the pond more and check the fish. A few I caught last week were in good condition, but not excellent like I would prefer. I was curious as whether it would be more economical to stock tilapia at the earlier-mentioned density of 5-10 lbs per acre and feed a lower (32%) protein ration, or omit tilapia and feed optimal bluegill feed. Obviously it'd be best to do both, but it makes me cringe a little to think of spending $150+ on tilaplia and another $200+ on feed. My hesitation with going the latter route is that weeds could get to undesirable levels and discourage natural predation of YOY gsf. The concern with doing it the first way mentioned is that I can't control what percentage of the feed I throw to the gsf and not the tilapia, meaning that the gsf would either eat less, or eat more of the (I'm assuming less nutritious) YOY tilapia or YOY gsf. I should mention that I am going to build multiple traps to set out around the pond to catch younger fish and fin clip them to make them easier prey, whether or not tilapia are added.
