Last fall I had 100 feed trained Northern LMB stocked in the lake. Average size around 1.5 pounds, I think.

I'm now faced with the question of what exactly should I put in the 4 feeders on my BOW. Been using Optimal and happy with it, but which Optimal should I use?

They offer bass feed, regular BG feed, smaller BG feed, and really small stuff for tiny YOY BG.

Best guess is about 50/50 mix of Bass and regular BG feed, but so far this year have seen few BG compared with bass.

PS I watched live facebook broadcast on Texas hunter feeders on youtube, but nobody asked about feed trained bass.

Have you seen the Optimal Bass food? It is not great big pellets. I would guess just a little larger than Aquamax 600 pellets.

My larger BG gobble them up (not to mention the CC). Optimal also makes a Hand Throw feed which is more the size as Aquamax Largemouth.

I can't tell you what to feed, but some people may mistakenly think the Optimal Bass is comparable to Aquamax Largemouth but it is much smaller pellets. I suspect they made them specifically so they will still work well with commercial fish feeders.

Optimal Bass compared to Aquamax 500 size

Optimal Hand Throw compared to AM500 size

Thread showing pictures of popular feeds

Frank, I hope to adjust some of my lmb genetics and will soon have some feed trained lmb delivered (from Overtons) to the pond and have given some thought as to what to feed them but also where to feed them in the pond. Having one TH feeder per acre, I think I will use one feeder to feed the lmb along with the hsb and the other two feeders dedicated to the CNBG. One reason for doing it that way is because I lost a nice sized HSB the other day due to it choking on an oversized cnbg. Both species were being feed at the feeder by using 1/4" and 1/8" Cargills feed. I hope by removing the smaller sized feed at the one feeder might reduce the cnbg feeding there. It may not change anything by feeding that way but thought I would give it a look and see. Oh! I plan on feeding Aquamax lmb along with some of the 3/8" Cargills and some Optimal feed but not sure what size Optimal I will end up using. I also figure by mixing all three then the fish wont be picky as to which one they prefer and if I can't get one of the feeds, I can use the other feed.

They will all show up at every feeder unless you feed at exact same time. Even then you will get a mix of fish. You can make an area where water is to shallow or to thick with cover for larger fish. I have seen BG swim all over a big pond headed to the next feeder to go off. Same for HSB and LMB.

My situation was different in that I hand-fed my 2 acre pond and at the same location daily. I used to toss out the AM LMB food and AM 600 at the same time but found the LMB and HSB didn't care, they went after everything, leaving little for the BG, if not scaring them out of the area.

So, I started filling up the LMB and HSB with the AM LMB food until they were full, then tossed out the AM 600.

Similar to Tracy's comment, is it possible for you to do the same? Use the bigger feed to fill up the LMB, then shortly after send out the smaller BG food? That this might eliminate or slow the competition for food?

Just a thought but I certainly noticed a difference with more BG coming to the buffet than before.

Food for thought!

Perhaps the lack of BG at the feeders is partly due to the very aggressive Northern feed trained LMB hogging the feed. And eating BG!

My observations are that BG size feed is mostly ignored by the LMB, but they chow down on the LMB food. Definitely the northern feed trained, as the Fla strain didn't show very often last year.

Will try a 50/50 split between LMB and BG sized feed and throw more, I guess. Also will try to more closely synchronize feedings, as geese love to dine on feed and will go from feeder to feeder if they can.

Water temps up to 73F today and the N LMB were going nuts at the feeders! Finally saw some BG show up too, though not on their beds at all.

Really instructive to see 2 plus pound bass wolf down 5 or 6 bass pellets at a time. No wonder they are growing so fast!

But the geese also love fish food. Arrgh!

I feed Aquamax MVP because the pellets are a variety of sizes and some float and some sink very slowly. I have Feed trained LMB, BG and HSB all coming to one TH LM135 feeder. From my experience, they are all feeding on floating pellets at the same time.

Not sure if BG are getting eaten below the surface as they were stocked as 5”-7” adults and the bass were stocked as 1-1.25 pounders last spring. The bass likely are not big enough yet to choke down a 7” BG.

The bottom line is, in my opinion, you should keep it simple and feed MVP from each feeder as the pellet sizes vary. BM61.

Optimal now has a 1" dia bass pellet for hand feeding, or the new Texas Avenger fish feeders can throw the big pellets.

I am working with both Optimal and with TH to see if I can find a way to modify (that TH can easily replicate) a part in the TH feeder that will allow a 9-10mm pellet to be reliably thrown out of the feeder with a minimal change to the feeder. Reliably is the key. If it bridges or jams the feeder than the project will be shelved.

If I can make the modification, and TH thinks it's worth while tooling up for a new part, then a pond owner that knows how to use a screwdriver, and an allen wrench can replace the part and adjust the feed plate for that sized pellet.

If there is enough demand for a 7-10mm bass pellet, then Optimal could do a small production run.

I talked to Walt from Overtons about what choices I have when it comes to using a feeder to throw out some LMB, HSB pellets. He is going to talk to Texas Hunter about getting some feeders out to market like me and some of his other customers to throw the lager sized pellets. He said Swanson(I think that was the name) used to make one that would throw the feed but they no longer make it. So, for now, looks like I will be hand feeding when using the 3/8" Cargills, Optimal's lmb pellets and Purina LMB pellets. I don't live at the farm and I visit it most days but not sure how I am going to feed twice per day, everyday if I don't have a feeder that handles the larger feed.

I could soften up the 1/4" Cargils and then squeeze up a baseball sized and throw 60 of them once per day

esshup, Texas Avengers feeders? Can u tell more or have any experience with that company and their feeders?

Here are some pictures of Optimal feed including their Bass feed and their Hand Toss Feed.

Pictures of Optimal feed compared to AM500

In an earlier post in that thread are pictures of Aquamax feed including Large Mouth.

snrub, the Optimal bass size u posted up, looks similar to the Cargill's 1/4" size based on the size of them against the lettering on the bag and the Purina feed. If it is , then my TH feeder should throw it. But the Purina bass food sized, Cargills 3/8" and the Hand tossed Optimal are all to large for the TH feeders I have. I saw a feeder at the PBC that would shoot out fish food 40 to maybe 60 yds or so, sounded like a cannon going off. It was a nice feeder and would be fun to have but just a little over my head I'm sure. Overall, when looking at the cost of it all and I'm not even sure it would throw the larger stuff, but I thought it was a neat air cannon all the same.