Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding How soon after ice-out...

...do you folks start feeding again? Feeding your fish, I mean.

It all depends on water temp. 55-60 degree water temp.

It all depends on what your feeding also. I have some HSB that will feed at 45 to 55 but BG would be a bit warmer as esshup said. And if you have any real cold nights they may back off for a few days. I am fixing to set mine up this weekend for my HSB I may be a week early or so but I'll be there so I have to do it.

RC

Thank you. I have hybrids, bluegill, redear and channel cats, all of which take feed. So do my largemouths. My ice should disappear in the next few days. When it does, I'll have water temps up around 50 degrees before I know it.

I'll be feeding my yellow perch hydrated sinking pellets as soon as the ice goes out as there are no forage fish in the pond, and they will need nutrition ASAP, as they will be sending most of their energy to egg development.

Just remember the hydrated pellets sink when pinched because they are made denser not that any air gets pushed out. Right Bill?

I threw just a few handfuls of sinking in a few inches lf water for a few FHM that were starting to show up around the edges where ice receeded. Mostly as a test. FHM activity just starting.

No serious feeding yet though.

Ice receding? I don't remember what that looks like!

Walked over to the large pond today and threw out some feed. Had about 30 bluegill, one YP and one SMB gradually show up to eat. Pretty sluggish yet. The small pond in front of the house froze out I'm afraid. Bluegill and 1 bullhead were floating dead when the ice left and I see no signs of life at all. Had 25 or so YP in it plus bluegill. Also bullheads that I have no ides where they came from last year. Hate the bullheads and it is about worth the freeze out to be rid of them. That little pond is about 20 years old and gets a lot of leaves from nearby trees. Going to check the depth tomorrow. May be getting pretty shallow and need cleaned out this summer.

No kidding, I still have over 15" of ice on my pond. Feeding seams a long ways away still.

Your ice is out in Illinois? You must be really far south in Illinois.

Just across the Wabash River about 50 miles south of Terre Haute Indiana.

Well, I went out to the small pond today to check the depth. I thought it had froze out but I guess it was only a partial fish kill. I saw some minnows in the shallows so I went and got my Aqua View camera and dropped it beside the dock. Didn't see a lot of fish but once in a while a bluegill the size of those floating dead would swim by. I'm not sure why some survived and some died.

Wow I thought you had more ice down there.

Our HBG pond has been ice free for a few days now, and the other 4 are 1/2 open as of today.

What was the most ice you had in those ponds this winter?

Central PA I'm still solid except at the air station.

Cecil, I have a friend who does some ice fishing. He told me the other day he went to 3 ponds this winter that all had about 6 inches. Then he went to a small lake assuming it likely had the same. He drilled a hole and found he was standing on only 2 inches of ice. He said he eased off that one and went home. From watching the weather, I think you guys got a couple snow storms that missed us and we really haven't had a lot of snow on the ice for a few weeks now. Would the warming sunshine through the ice affect the water temp below? We had some snow cover earlier and I'm wondering if my dead bluegill died then since they were frozen in, rather than under, the ice. It seems they died and then ice froze around them during the extreme cold later.

The thickest I drilled was 8".

I'm in South Central Michigan, Hillsdale County. I run air on one end of my pond and the hole got down to about 6 feet wide at the peak of the cold this year. My ice got to 15" deep at the coldest time.

I am now open at the air for a full third of my 120' long pond and have rainbow trout. Do you all think that rainbows will have the same temperature requirement of 55 to 60 degrees for feeding?

By the way, went ice fishing twice this winter and caught 2 trout each time with a pathetic 2 for 10 on the bite to catch ratio

I think your trout will feed now if you toss some pellets in the open water area. I think Cecil Baird1 feeds his trout in winter by adding food to the open water area of the diffuser. Cecil will probably respond to this thread.

Why thank you and thank you to the OP for a topic that's top of mind right now. My trout would hardly feed at all when the ice was coming on this winter so I simply quit. I'll give it a try tomorrow.

Watch this thread for Cecil's response. Maybe make some noise in the water when you add the pellets so the fish know you are there. If the trout are in the open water area they will likely feed; maybe not aggressively but they should feed some.

Yeah you should be able to get them to feed in the open water, but if you can I would go with hydrated feed for now. Mix the dry feed and water in a gallon zip lock bag and shake it around for a few minutes. Let the bag set for a 3 minutes and then flip it on the other side and let it set some more. Then let it set for a couple of hours until the water has penetrated to the center. You want a doughy consistency not a sticky mess.

I know trout farmers that swear you don't want to feed trout dry feed in under 40 degree water. They claim the food doesn't digest properly in the gut. Then there are others that say it's not an issue. I play it safe and feed them hydrated pellets in really cold water and I don't feed them too often.

Anyway I have been feeding my trout once a month or every 5 weeks hydrated feed in the pond in the open hole created by the diffuser. I've actually gone a whole winter without feeding them and they look just fine. Don't even look like they have lost weight.

Here's something that will really make a difference: Wait until about 40 minutes before before dark to feed them. During high light periods they may stay deeper and not find the feed on the surface. Throw some feed in various places until one or more finds it. Then wait for them to eat it all and throw more in the same place. If you feed in the same place over a period of time they will show up like clockwork.

Now that is absolutely news to me, I'll give that a try pronto.