Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Feed trained bass - growth

I stocked 6-8" feed trained bass in our 4 acre subdivision detention pond in May of '08. I've been feeding AQ LM for about a year and maybe 15%-20% of the bass I stocked still come up and eat it. We've caught some recently and they are 15-17 inches and all are over 2.5 lbs....with the largest caught being 3.4 lbs. I was blown away at how much length was added and the weight they've gained.
I'm assuming this is pretty normal for folks feeding AQ LM around Texas and other southern locales....but I'm amazed at what it can do. Anyone else experience the same growth with AQ LM?

I was amazed how much weight my FT LMB gained this year on Largemouth pellets. For the good eaters Wr jumped from the 90's to the 140's & 150's.

I have a question about feeding fish. I have beed told that if you feed pellets to bluegills,when kids go swimming or dangle their feet off the dock, the fish will nip at their toes. I've also been told by a gal that a fish ate a mole off her back! (or at least nipped at it) Sounds silly but my wife and daughter don't want me to feed our fish because of what they have heard. They also saw a video that a guy made feeding his fish and the whole pond was boiling up with fenzied eating fish.
I think it scared them

We have had a number of discussion about fish nipping at swimmers here, with experiences ranging from "We've never had fish nip at us while swimming" to "we get nipped so bad while swimming we wear protective garments", but I cannot recall anyone correlating feeding fish to their incidence of nipping.

I have fed the following species in my ponds: CC, LMB, BG, RES, GSH, YP, and (least intended of all) GC. The CC, GSH, and LMB could be said to have frenzied while feeding. We have never been nipped at while swimming, which has always served to make fish very scarce from the vicinity of the swimmers. (GSH, when still present, would go airborne while frightened by swimmers, and did manage to hit us in the heads once or twice - but they have no sharp edges or pointy fins.)

From a speculative standpoint, I would think a good feeding would make fish less likely to nibble at swimmers, if they had just had plenty to eat.

I have had the same experience as Theo. One idea is to feed in a different place from where you swim.

While some species are more prone to nipping (GSF and HBG) you may get nipping from others. We have had that in one pond before we started feeding and it is no worse (maybe even less)now that we feed.

LMB fry nip us at our pond and we've never fed. I don't think nipping is a function of feeding at all. BG and GSF don't bother us but for some reason we get packs of 2-4 inch LMB yoy that will follow you around and nip at you while in one of those floating chairs. It doesn't hurt it is just more startling than anything.

Thanks everyone. Now to convince my wife to read your posts.