So the last year has been busy for me. I was having troubles getting bluegill going strong enough for a forage base before i stock bass. 8 acre pond in SE Illinois, average depth is 4-5 and 10 around the levee. I added 6 bottom diffusers, over 50 bluegill beds. 30% of the shoreline is now in cover, maybe 5-8% in open water. Well... my numbers have blown up and now I'm wanting to start feeding soon. As seen in the picture, the pond is surrounded by trees. My thoughts, if anyone has experience in this department. I plan to drive treated 4x4s in open water, put a cross arm at the top and throw up a few texas hunter hanging feeders. Are they decent quality or should I just buy 1 bank feeder? Also, I can't afford to feed these fish at will. I know something is better than nothing but at what point are you feeding them for growth and not recreation? My plan was 2 feeders, 200lb "total" of optimal per month during peak growing times, 100 lb early and late season, and shut it off in the winter. Thoughts?
I think the standard rule of thumb from Texas Hunter is 1 feeder per 10 acres of water. That said 1 feeder for 5-10 acres sounds like very isolated coverage. I'm on a smaller body of water than you are and went bank feeder only because I wanted ease of access to fill and much easier to seem them getting after the food (how long to feed at each cycle as it changes through the year).
... Would 100-200lbs of optimal split between 2 feeders monthly make a noticeable growth difference to your BG on body of water this size?
Clint you have a lot of water at 8 acres. It looks like you plan to feed 100 a month for the first and 6th months of a 6 month growing season. For the intervening 4 months it looks like you plan to feed 200 lbs per month. This is 1000 lbs for the season and I will work with that figure.
It would make a difference, more in some fish than others. The 1000 lbs will do as much in your pond as in any other in terms of total gain spread across the population. It's not clear if you are working with a budget but I am getting the sense that you may not want to take things to the limit. The 1000 lbs seems to be a number that your are comfortable with. I will mention, however, that this is a relatively low rate of feeding (125 lbs per acre per year).
Sometimes it is good to look at what you are spending and then what you are getting so you can make a personal judgment as to the value and return of your investment and whether it is too much or just not enough. First let's consider the pond in its natural state. What weight of fish can it support on its own? Is it fertile country or infertile country where it is situated? A lot of water in the agricultural regions of Illinois can maintain 300 lbs/acre (in some cases more) naturally. Is your pond one of them? If so, without feeding, you could maintain ~ 250 lbs of BG and ~50 lbs of LMB for each acre of water you have with no feeders and no feed added. Just judging from the photograph, your water will probably maintain this weight of fish give or take a 100 lbs That's your starting point. Is 400 lbs of LMB and 2000 lbs of BG enough? If it isn't, then feeding can add to that carrying capacity. I will mention, greater weights and numbers of fish require proportionately more effort to manage (just population wise) and also will require additional investment for the energy that supports them.
Optimal isn't just Optimal. They have different formulations. An arbitrary 40/12 formulation will support around 0.45 lbs of BG for each 1 lb fed annually. It can do that IF it can convert at 1.5 pounds of feed to 1 lbs of flesh when consumed at 3% of body weight daily at 75F. I cannot vouch that Optimal BG can at that consumption rate so don't bank on that number. It may not be as good as that. Not dissing the feed. It is very good feed that is as good (probably) as most other 40% protein feeds or possibly even better. At any rate, this gives you a starting place that IMO is not likely to understate its support to your pond. So you can calculate how much additional weight that 1000 lbs of feed will add to the ponds BG and LMB populations. It calculates to 450 lbs BG standing weight and 90 lbs of LMB standing weight additional for feeding 1000 lbs of arbitrary 40/12 annually. That's pretty darn good, don't you think? A little less than $3 per pound of additional carry per year. I think it is an excellent value especially when a pond cannot carry as much standing weight as one would otherwise want. On a per acre basis you will be getting around 11.25 extra lbs/acre of LMB carry and 56.25 extra lbs/acre of BG carry. Is that enough extra? If not then you will need to feed more.
Your BG are already grown by the ponds foods. If they haven't yet, they will fill the carry capacity some time this year. If they have already filled the carry capacity of the ponds natural production of foods, you can expect the gain from 1000 lbs of feed to be in the neighborhood of 450 lbs of BG. At first glance it may appear that the BG are converting at 2.22. But actually no. 2000 lbs of BG are being supported by the pond's natural foods and this is equivalent to around 4500 lbs of 40/12. So the BG are eating foods that are comparable in digestible energy of 4500 +1000= 5500 lbs of 40/12. The Gross conversion is actually an FCR > 11. Most of the consumption maintains the population once the population has some weight to it.
But I just said an arbitrary 40/12 may convert at 1.5 above? Yes, but this requires consumption >=3% of body weight daily. If you have 2000 lbs of BG naturally and want to feed them at 3% of body weight daily we are talking 60 lbs per day just to start. The amount you would need to feed would grow every day as they grow. You are quite simply never going to do that unless you harvest them out every year as an aquaculture business.
This year, you can expect 450 lbs of additional BG carry with 1000 lbs fed. This is 22.5% increase in the average weight if you are starting with 2000 lbs of BG. Average is what it is. It tells you nothing about what an individual fish does. The feed (thankfully) will not distribute its benefit equally among your BG. Some will consume more than others and these you will notice. If it were to be equally distributed, the average BG would gain around 6% in length from the supplement (assuming standard weights). You may not notice that. But as I said, some will eat their fill while others eat none so you will definitely notice the partakers.
One last note. Almost all of the food in the pond is going to go towards maintaining your fish. They will rapidly grow into it. But because they grow into it, it doesn't make sense at all to consider feed an important contributor to average individual growth (unless a significant proportion of the standing weight is removed each year). Maintenance is all that matters. If you remove 35% of the biomass, next year all that was removed will be gained back. They will fill the carry every year but they will not grow past it. If you don't have mortality, expect the "average" fish to gain nothing in weight where the population uses all of the available foods for maintenance. If you stop feeding, expect all the gains in carrying capacity (gains from feeding)to be lost over the next 12 months.
Just my 2 cents, I wouldn't want to have to launch a boat every time I had to refill a feeder.
Further, one of the great joys of feeding is getting to observe, visually, the various fish hitting feed; so feeding off a dock or shoreline is easier all around.
(I don't have any feeders at my place, so this advice is just from reading this thread.)
If I was utilizing the hanging feeders, I would put them on a long horizontal "swing pole". Could do that off of the end post of your dock. See how far the feeder throws from X feet above the water. Then size the pole length so it throws feed just short of the edge of the dock.
Just rotate the pole onto the dock when you need to refill.
Same thing might work for your shore feeders. Much easier to set one post on dry land, rather than set posts out in the pond below the water level.
The smallest typical oilfield pipe is usually dirt cheap. You could drill a hole in the pipe and put a piece of rebar in the post to make your pivot. That will be very practical, but maybe too ugly on the dock. Maybe paint it your favorite colors?
The swing pole could also be used to attach a camera to observe feedings, etc.
I have a TH Hanging feeder here that a customer changed his mind on - he went with the directional feeder and put it on his dock. Mostly due to the ease in filling it vs. the hanging feeder.
There are no TH brackets to "bolt it" to a post - it has to hang. You could bolt it to a post by drilling a couple of holes through the feed hopper but then you'd have to waterproof the holes AND make sure that the feeder top is above the post to get the lid on and off.
How will you fill the feeder? It slings the feed in a 360° circle, and you add blocking panels to make the feed "not" throw to the side that you block off, but the feed will then drop straight down.
Filling it from a boat will take 2 people. One person to hold the boat steady by the feeder, the other person fills the feeder...
esshup pretty well covered it.
The TH hanging feeder is well built, but it's basically a corn slinger over water. Every blocking panel you add, will mean 25% of the fish food will fall straight down. I bought one 4-5 years ago, and still can't find a good place to put it.
So pre turnover. It wasn't uncommon to catch 20 or 30 on a low front in a few hours, ranging in that 1 1/2- 4lb range.commonly a 5 or 6, and rarely larger one. For the first 2 years after the turnover, I didn't catch any bass. Even bluegill were poor "10-15" in a few hours of fishing. I caught 3 bass all year long, around that 1.5-2lb range. They looked like little footballs with great color. The bluegill numbers blew up last year. I caught roughly around 400 in a week in early may throwing those tiny mepps #0 spinners with single hooks. Thats when I noticed a bunch of small bass. I caught around 100 small bass last year on those spinners in that 4-5" range. I took the kids out last night and caught 6 lmb in that 5-7" range. The body size seemed to have tripled from last year. Unless they were last years spawn, which still seems like slow growth to me. Also, I had stocked gs in there years ago, and last year we caught over 100 in that 5-6" off of spinners. Before that, had never seen them before.
Clint,
The fish kill kind of throws a wrench into the works. Much less predictable results. Some might advise to kill it out and start from scratch. That would "not not" be good advice. You didn't mention if you want the same results or fewer bigger LMB this go round.
From a remedial stocking perspective, it will be very important to stock LMB that are large enough to exploit the current large population of intermediate sized BG. Not 2" size LMB fingerlings. If I were to remedial stock LMB in this BOW, I think I would go with 1lb to 2lb fish. I think I would personally go with 56 of them in total, I would fin clip at least these fish in such a manner that I could identify them as the initial (post kill) remedial stocking. If things are like you say. A half ton of intermediate sized BG to eat, it should be four or five years before food is limiting growth and you might grow bigger fish than before. One current advantage is an extremely low population of adult LMB. It could work. Best of luck to you. Please let us know what you get worked out and please record in a thread here so we can follow your progress.
I like the idea of this spring adding 50-60 bass in the 1lb to 2lb range. This puts proper predation on the size class of BG that now need to be thinned . These larger bass will / should grow fast to get to the 7-8lb sizes which should happen in 5-6 years. IMO I would fin clip them as jpsdad suggested because IMO this is less stressful on the fish. If I had 8 ac with annual new crops of LMB occurring I would be contacting Herman Brothers Fish Management group 3004 N Taylor Rd. Hanna City, IL 61536. https://hbfisheries.com/
for learning the availability / feasibility and ordering for fall purchase of 5 to 7 tiger musky to add to the pond to help thin the recruitments of 1yr old and 16 month old LMB. As the hybrid musky grow larger than 36" they may also be eating some 12"-14" 2 yr old bass. Heavy reduction of small bass allows more forage available for skewing the selected LMB toward larger individuals in the fishery. You do not want a lot of your LMB poundage tied up in bass smaller than 2-3 lbs.
I have two TH bank feeders and one TH hanging feeder in a 9 acre pond. For 2023, I went through 1600# of feed. For 2024 I ordered 2000#, I'll have no problem using this increased amount of feed this year.
The bank feeders are a breeze to fill, and do a terrific job to throw the feed out a good distance over the water. They leave little feed wasted at the edge of the bank. I set them at max elevation at the emergency spillway elevation as to hopefully never flood. They are 3 yrs old with no issues other than some minor adjustments and new batteries.
To get the hanging feeder out over the water, I first set about 3 ft of 3" steel pipe at the waters edge. I used post hole diggers and cemented the 3" in place, leaving the inside clean. To make the hanger, I used 2 3/8" OD pipe to make a big "L" - about 8 ft tall and about 4 ft long, welding them with support at the joint. This big L was lowered into the 3" and now I could swivel the feeder out over the water. A good portion of the feed falls in the water near the bank. I think it eventually gets eaten but not ideal. This was kind of a PITA to put together but it works. The hanging feeder was a few hundred bucks cheaper than the bank feeder, but I really didn't save much in the end.
