I have read many threads on don't feed more than the fish will eat in around ten minutes.

I have a hard time seeing the small pellets I feed. I have 0.4 acre pond with a lot of fish in it. I have a TH and am feeding 8 seconds at sunrise and 8 seconds at sunset. I have watched and they swarm when the feeder goes off for a couple minutes then stop. If I then manually activate the feeder for a few seconds they swarm again then stop. I have sat there and manually operated the feeder 5 times for 3 seconds each and every time they swarm for a little while then stop. I am guessing they are eating it all but don't know for certain.

It seems they will eat as much as I throw.

Is there another guideline on a maximum amount of feed per area per day or week that I should be concerned about?

Is two feedings a day at sunrise and sunset good or should I have more feedings with a shorter duration?

My cnbg will eat as long as I keep sending food their way. I have a 2 acre pond and 50 pounds of feed will last me 3-4 weeks.Also using a TH feeder. More you feed the more they poop and the more they fertilize the pond.It really depends on what your goals are for your bluegill. Looking for trophy fish? Could depend on your pocketbook. I call mine supplemental feeding and keep it at about 50 pounds a month. If they want more than that they better start hunting for themselves!! Just my opinion.

Feeding too much will lead to water quality issues is what I have learned from the experts. Bill Cody has mentioned more than once anything over 10# per acre of feed is asking for trouble but in my own pond I personally would limit it to half that.

The more you push growth, the more important close management becomes.

Thanks guys. Cost is no issue. Just want what is best for the fish.

10# per acre - I assume that is per day?

For my .4 acre pond that is 4 lbs per day max.

Assuming my TH is throwing a pound every 12 seconds my two 8 second feedings are 1-1/3 lb a day.

Maybe I could safely bump it up to 12 seconds in the morning and 12 seconds in the evening and feed two pounds a day and be at half the max?

I do have aeration if that helps.

The pond is couple hundred feet from my back door and I go out there daily. What do I need to be watching for to know if a problem is cropping up other than dead fish floating up?

When we stocked it about a month ago I think we had too many catfish in the cooler we transported them in and around 60 died in transit. Over the next couple weeks we saw 3-4 catfish a day floating up but have yet to see any other dead fish. The catfish mortality stopped last week we had not seen anymore. I think they were just stressed too much from the trip.

I have a aqua pro feeder (poor mans TH) I stocked my CNBG back in Dec and I was feeding them only once a day in the morning for 3 seconds, and they still became lil butter balls, but now that more have gotten bigger, which mean bigger bellys to fill I feed 3 sec in the morning and only 1 sec in the evening, seems to be working well. I have more show up in the morning but that me because they havent gotten use to the feeder going off in the evening yet.

I have started to back off a little. I'm trying to make a 50# bag last me 1 month in my 3/4 acre pond. We hand feed our fish over a 40' area twice a day. We have a boat load of fish that come up to eat. How many is a boat load? Well...best as we can tell, they are thick enough to walk over if you huddled them in a 12' diameters circle. That's why we space ourselves out over 40' when we feed. I'm trying to ensures that all of them can get a little bit. I really don't have any set goals other than a recreation enjoyment. I figure long about Sept, I'm gonna harvest all the big ones I can catch in Catfish and Tilapia. Oh and all the GSF I can catch. The purpose will be so I can add about 30lbs of trout in December, so I can fish all winter.

John F would be a guy to talk to. He has been pushing his fish growth and feeding to satiation till recently. Here is a problem that may have been caused by feeding enough to push the pond beyond carrying capacity for hot weather. He will probably chime in.

John F low DO thread

I was feeding 2.5 to 3 pounds of food per day in a 1/4 acre pond. I have backed off to about 1.5 pounds. Since the low DO event, I have taken out over 58 pounds of channel catfish. I think there are about 40 CC still in the pond at an average weight of about 2.75 to three pounds, or 110 to 120 pounds of CC. I need to remove about 20 more in my estimation. There are 10 to 11 albinos, and I intend to leave them in.

The CC are getting increasingly difficult to catch.

I have found it rather easy to catch my hard to catch cc by using juglines baited with smaller bluegill from the pond. Spend a day tossing out lines and coming back to check on them.

Can you explain your set up on your jug lines? Length of line, weight, type of hook, etc. I've been trying this and it's worked reasonably well. Just hoping to improve.

If you have any fish in there you don't want to lose, then don't use jug lines. I have used them in the past (not on current ponds) and caught LMB in addition to CC. They almost always swallow the hook, leading to death on the line, or later. In a pond, use milk jugs, cooking oil jugs, or two liter bottles with about two feet of strong nylon line tied to a single hook. Bait with very small BG or green sunfish, live or cut, and toss out to float around.

I only have perch/bluegill and bass - no catfish or other species - I am feeding a one acre pond entirely for the bluegill to grow and spawn more for my bass to eat - I only care about growing bigger bass - I throw feed 5 times per day at 5 seconds each throw - the clean it up in under a minute - I cannot imagine how long and much I would have to throw to last 10 minutes before it was gone. They devour my feed

That is the way my BG are also. They tear up the feed.

I do have CC but they get little of the feed any more as the BG clean it up so fast. I hand feed over pretty much the entire perimeter of the pond by hand about 3 or so pounds of feed per acre per day.

Actually I have not seen my fish for close to a month now as we have been on an extended motorcycle trip so my daughter feeds them and she gets it done 4 or 5 days a week. Their dinner bell is the sound of a Polaris 900XP UTV and they come runnin when they hear it approach the pond.