We just finished building a 3 or 4 acre pond in North Georgia. It has around 200 acres of watershed and a strong creek feeding it continuously. Our primary goal is to grow healthy 8-10lb large mouth in it. We dug the pond with that in mind so there are multiple points, islands, mounds, holes, everything. I plan to run 1 Texas game feeder and stock Bluegill and shad the first week of march and then come back in June and stock F1 hybrid bass at 35/acre.


Feeding- Should we purchase feed for the bluegill and then switch over to feeding the bass in June? Would it benefit to feed both in separate feeders?

Cost is not an issue - i want the best feed we can get.

You will find proponents on here for every feed manufactured under the sun. I personally like the Purina Aquamax products mostly because they are the easiest High Protein feed for me to get. The feed store in my town can order whatever Purina product I want and have it here in a week with no shipping charges. The Aquamax MVP has multiple sized pellets which makes it a good feed for fish of different sizes.

I am sure you will get many more opinions soon. There are also a lot of existing threads on this subject if you want to dig around for them.

Practical research suggests better results will be seen if you use one feeder per 1-2 acre of water. Many fish will not travel long distance for feed. Often they stay in the vicinity (IMO mostly abt 200ft) of the feeder. If you are feeding LMB or HSB they are more likely to travel farther distances from the feeder.

I would start by stocking pellet raised bass. Monitor your fertility and plankton density weekly to favor shad production. Newer production philosophy of producing bass suggests stocking a higher ratio of BG:LMB than the standard 10:1. For producing big LMB lower numbers of LMB / acre is gaining popularity. Proper harvest of offspring bass is critical to maintaining a big bass fishery. In your state look into bass growing techniques of Greg Grimes at Aquatic Environmental Services, Inc 2050 Howell Bridge Rd Ball Ground, GA 30107 lakework.com. They can get bass to over 8 lbs in 3-4 years. Dave Beasley (Solitude Lake Management) likes and has written a few articles in PBMag about using all female bass.

Stay up-to-date with the current ideas of growing big bass from past articles in PB magazine and past discussions on this forum. Examples: Trophy Largemouth Bass Fishery Keys to Sustainability: PBMag Nov-Dec 2017. Be well aware of: BASS BEHAVIOR CHANGES WITH SIZE discussed by Ralph Manns in PBMag Sep-Oct 2017. BUILDING BIGGER BASS (at LaPerla Ranch bass grew from 6 lb to 9 lb gaining 3 lbs in 3 months near Laredo Texas)- PBMag Jul-Aug 2017.

Do good homework by reading through the bass growing and management information in the abundant links from the Archives about LMB. There is lots of information in those links about how others are growing big bass.
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