My question...At what depth of water should I hand throw the feed for the best results to get the fish to start feeding?
background info:
I just stocked my pond with feed trained RES, HBG, and HSB. The pond is plum full of FHM.
I have a deer feeder set up that has been slightly modified to throw fish feed, but I do not want to start using it until I know the fish will consume the cup or so of feed that the feeder throws on it's lowest time setting...so, I will be hand feeding after work for a while and just throwing a 1/4 cup of an evening until fish start eating well. My dock extends out into the pond just over the 8 foot deep mark and the feeder will eventually hang over the side in the 7 foot area.
My feeder is in 8’ and throws into 12-14’ and they tear it up, or I can hand throw it into the shallows and it doesn’t matter to them. They hear the floating pier move and bob and they are ready wherever I throw it by hand. I use cargill 45% 1/4” and they love it. If your fish are small I would feed in shallower water till they grow unless you have no predators yet
My Texas Hunter feeder is on my pontoon boat dock in about 4-5 foot of water and slings it into about 8-9 ft mostly. I feed 50 pounds about every 3 weeks.
I think u will be just fine the way you describe your feeding area. I think the fish will eventually learn the sound of your feeder going off and will also come to the sound of it all along with the food.
From experience I would hand throw in the area that your feeder will eventually throw. I had thrown feed for about a year at the closest point to my house. That was the obvious location so I didn't have to walk all the way around the pond. My bro-in-law bought me a tree-mounted Moultrie feeder for Christmas this year. The only tree that was close enough to the water to mount it to was on the opposite side of the pond. It took my fish a good month before they figured out that the feeding location had moved. A few feet one way or the other shouldn't matter. But I wouldn't move the feeding location all-together like I did unless you have to.
Great info, I appreciate your inputs. It looks like I am in the ballpark. I have taken food to the pond 3 days now in the evening and tossed a little here and there around were the feeder will be mounted, but no takers except for the FHM's that enjoy pushing the pellets around until they dissolve.
I have some of the stocked fish schooling in a couple of places, but they get spooked a bit when the food hits the water and then they kinda return and sit there, apparently fat and happy. I know they are not fat because I would guest they are on the low side of the relative weight chart. Some had sunken bellies while most were just trim and none were fat. Maybe they have already filled up on natural forage and pellets aren't that interesting. I'll keep at it.
Just a thought....You might try hydrating the chow before you toss it to get them started. It worked for me. I use 1 part water to 5 parts chow. I think it makes the food more palatable and also gets the smell into the water more.
Noel
You say the fish are feed trained then they aught to take to the feed fairly quickly. What size are they?
I can certainly soak some food beforehand. Right now the FHMs push it around until it's soft enough to mush, but no action from the big boys which are anywhere from 2 to 6 inches. The RES are on the smaller side, the HBG in the middle and the HSB tend to be 5 - 6".
I did get one splash last night towards the end of my patience (20 minutes maybe), but I also noticed that the swarms of top swimming water bugs seemed to be few and far between. My fish may just be full of minnows, leeches, waterbugs, spring peepers, and such. The little pond is stupid full of small forage.
Maybe "feed trained" is too strong of a word. The fish farmer said that he feeds the fish to make more fish, not necessarily to make big fish. I took that to mean they are accustom to eating pellets.
Anyhow, I love going to the pond of the evenings more now than before just to see what happens next.
Keep feeding in the same place and time. With water warming it should not take long.
Noel what size are the pellets you are feeding?
I'm feeding Optimal Starter #4 slow sink (2.5mm (0.1") rounds) and Junior floating (3.5mm (0.14") diameter pellets with varying lengths), 50/50 mix. I only throw about a 1/4 cup so that I am not wasting food and loading the pond up with unneeded nutrients. I am worried about the amount of nutrients in there anyways. Pond seems to be pretty green.
Update:
FHM's are still enjoying the food, in fact, they have spawned and there is now many little ones tight to the bank. I have seen some of the HBG and RES hovering in the water column where you can barely see them just a foot or two under the feeding FHM's. I did see one HBG take a sinking pellet and spit it back out, but that's all the game fish feeding I have witnessed. Some of the HBG are on beds, however, and I am seeing them more frequently in small schools here and there especially near the fresh beds. I will keep hand feeding between 4:30 and 5:30pm anticipating that "feeding frenzy" that so many talk about.
The 4" HBG are starting to come around to feeding and seem to be more aggressive with the larger Junior floating (3.5mm (0.14") diameter pellets, but also peck at the smaller Starter #4. The feed seems to get more attention near and over the beds. That may be because it's shallower in that area and I can actually see the fish where in deeper water I think the fish are waiting for feed to sink before nabbing it in the darker depths.
At any rate, the FHM have reproduced even more, the HBG are on beds and I wonder if I should discourage their spawning by raking the beds so that I don't get too much forage this year. The amount of FHM's is amazing! No signs of the HSB, but they are there...somewhere.
The FHM's will really go to town the first year and into the second. By the third year you likely will be hard pressed to see any.
My first year it was mostly the FHM we watched feeding. Then slowly the BG started getting active around the dock (where we sat and crushed pellets with pliers for the FHM while we watched them). By the second year we had lots of BG feeding all around the pond. Now it looks like a submarine flotilla coming at me from all the BG wakes in the water as I drive the UTV out to the pond.
Another update for the record...I'm still feeding most daily and have increased the feed from a small handful to 4 regular handfuls. More and more fish come to the party with every day that I feed. It's still not a "submarine flotilla", but I believe the HSB may be hitting the feed as I have been throwing some of the larger feed far out into the pond and there are some splashes that are not only larger, but also have a different sound and some repeating nature to them. The further out fish will occasionally hit top water 2 ,maybe 3 times in a split second where the HBG just hit the pellet and go back down. I will be adding the feeder to the mix soon to get some feed thrown in the morning also. I will continue to hand feed in the evening merely because it's a nice break to regular life there on the dock and my regular timing in the evening would not guarantee that I was there for the feeder to go off and I would miss the fish.
Side note: I trapped some FHM's for taking to the river for fishing bait last weekend. The strange thing was that I knew the larger FHM's stayed lower in the water column than the little ones, but I figured with the trap set at about 4 foot deep that I would still have to pick out some small minnows that would not be big enough to take a hook. We caught about 30 minnows all in the medium-large to large classes. No small minnows to pick out and off to the river we went.