Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Feed Training Largemouth Bass Plan

I know there is alot of discussion going around the forum about feed training largemouth bass. Here is my plan and I wonder if it would work. I was hoping to catch 2 to 3 in largemouth with minnow traps. I would then transport them to a shad tank where I would start out feeding them freeze dried krill. Then start feed them Aquamax Fingerling Starter 300 in a week or so. Once they grow I would go to a floating pellet. Would the Fingerling starter be a good feed to train them to? Is there another type of Aquamax that would be better for 2 to 3 inch largemouth?

You could call up one of the hatcheries that sells feed trained bass and see if they would tell you their training program. You could duplicate it, but you'd end up with only the 2-3 LMB eating pellets. If you could get a school of LMB, you could mass train.

Best luck will be with a high density of fish in warm water. You'll have to feed several times a day. An automatic feeder would save you some time. You will also have to keep the tank bottom clean and flow in clean water and allow old water to exit unless your Shad tank is an RAS.

Here's a good publication on the culture of largemouth bass. Feed training is covered a few pages in.

https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/CategoryDetails/whichcategory/6/

I've never done it in large numbers but feeding training LMB in an aquarium isn't difficult. Even larger LMB can be trained. LMB relate you as food when you start dumping minnows, shrimp, crayfish etc into the tank. After a while, they'll nail just about anything you put into the tank... So at first I start with tasty items like like minnows or shrimp. Then switch to dead minnows or shrimp. Then freeze dried shrimp. And then eventually pellets... It generally takes a couple months for the progression to happen.

Travis, have you seen them stay feed trained once in a pond?

Dave,
Up here we dont have any problems keeping feed trained bass on feed. We even have native bass feed training themselves with most feeding programs.

Dave,our feed trained LMB have stayed on feed - began feeding next day after stsocking and fed on LM nuggets first day fed.
Probably depends on who and how they were trained.

We have used feed trained LMB from 5 different hatchery sources from 2 inches to 12 inches. While some may still eat a few pellets - none as far as I can tell have stayed on feed. The natural forage is too big of an enticement. I do think a few non-trained LMB have learned to eat pellets but my guess is under 1 %. You would have a better chance of keeping LMB on feed in a pond if you stocked them as young adults that were eating big pellets when you put them in an keep the same routine. A small closed system is different from a pond with lots of forage swimming around.

Eric,

Do you think the size of your pond is a factor on why most of them don't stay on feed? Is it possible since it's so large they disperse more away from your feeder(s)?

The pond these fish are going to be put in is a 1 acre pond. The only other fish that is stocked in the pond is hybrid bluegill.

My experience is like Erics.

Lots of things could make a difference. That would include lake size , fish density , available forage , type of food , and many more.

Something else I learned recently is fish that are feed trained in ponds may not be as voracious pellet feeders as those that are concentrated in tanks due to some natural feed in the ponds. At least this is true with yellow perch.

I figured I may as well weigh in on this topic.

I have pellet trained LMB in my pond. They were stocked in the summer of 2009 at 6"-8". They have been on AM 600 since day one and are the first to show at the dinner table. They have already started feeding pretty aggressively this year. I caught one this year that was 16" and pushing 3 lbs.

My goals are to raise big BG, so pellet trained LMB are not the ideal predator in my pond. I will say that they have grown very quickly and are very healthy fish. I would rather the BG eat the AM 600 and the LMB eat the BG

So, the master plan this year is to allow the LMB to spawn and produce lots of hungry non feed trained LMB babies. Once the spawn is over, I plan to take out the feed trained bass and transfer them to another BOW nearby. The location of their new home will be kept confidential as the owner does not want other PB members to bother him for fishing rights. Plus, I told Scott (esshup) that I would keep it a secret

Sample of what will be evicted this summer:

Beautiful fish. My goal is to grow large BG as well.

I have a good idea what the weights are of the CC that I removed last year, plus the few LMB that I removed this Spring. That'll be a good indicator of how much to put in. Mike, get them going on AquaMax LMB. Less training that I have to do!

Now if you could only catch some of those HSB's that are in your pond....

You give Greg a call about tags yet?

Don't worry Scott, it will be just between us.

BTW, what are your GPS coordinates?

Scott,

Will trade 4lb bass for tags

Okay Dave, now you have me thinking....

Could a make a little extra coin by selling 3-4lb feed trained LMB or the coordinates to a pond where they are stocked?????

Hmmmmmmmmm

Same with LMB.

Very expensive to raise LMB that big and feed trained and sell them at a profit.

If you try the second part I suggest Kevlar and a very good attorney.

If you get into Scotts water hole, you won't need an Attorney and the kevlar won't do much good.

I've only done it with a couple dozen bass and of those only about half were released into an earthen pond. It was only a 1/4 acre and devoid of forage so they stayed on the pellets quite easily. The others were kept in small lined back yard ponds and stayed on pellets as well.

I am pondering feed training my own SMB if I cannot find feed trained SMB locally. They will go into a 0.4 acre pond so we will see how that goes.

Maybe the natural feeding instinct is stronger in trout, both of the hatcheries that I've gotten Rainbow and Tiger trout have raised them in tanks on pellets. After stocking in a few days their intake of pellets is reduced quite a bit and they stay largely on natural forage.
Four years ago which was the first year I stocked trout they stayed mostly on pellets, each year since as my forage base grew they consumed less pellets.

Eric,

Not trying to disagree but could you expound on that? In my small .62 acre pond I had up to 400 bass at one time up to almost 6 lbs. on feed, and at the market rates I could have made a profit for remedial fish or the Asian Market (for the ones in the 2 lb. range).

At a conversion rate of 2:1 and $10.00 per pound I wouldn't think it would be a losing proposition.

I sold them for much more to the taxidermy market but that doesn't count.

Look at the sales options and market.

Taxidermy - out as you have the market cornered

Sale as food - out as many states don't allow the sale of sportfish as food - need to be real careful here.

Sale to State or Feds for stocking - limited to nil

Sale to aquarium mkt - very limited and takes good connections

Sale to pond owners - possible but you are competing with hatcheries and the costs (have to look at all costs not just feed) to get them that size is most times more than the vast majority of pond owners will pay.

In addition you have to be trained/able to run an aquaculture operation and be willing to put in the work - not many will do that and the pay vs. the risk is low.

That doesn’t even address all the other problems like transport , permits , insurance , all those business matters. Plus if all of the sudden you show up as a newbie with 10,000 2-3 lb LMB for sale and no place to sell them (no advanced market) you will either 1. likely be eating a lot of LMB so to say or 2. selling them to someone who can take advantage of your situation for a low ball price .

Bluegill fever, I also have a pond where I'm raising HBG. The LMB are already in place, and outside of 5 grass carp and a handful of RES, the Bass and HBG make up the bulk of the population.
I stocked it two years ago with HBG purchased from a hatchery, and LMB moved over from another one of my ponds. Non feed trained. The Bass will readily consume aquamax when I feed every night. In the beginning there were just a few individuals who would eat it, but their numbers are growing.
When I feed I walk the circumference of the pond and throw out pellets in the areas where I've learned the fish like to eat. I've given up trying to feed in a central location, it works better for me to bring the food to the fish, rather than the other way around. Last night, I threw feed to 4 different groups of Bass cruising the shallows, and they all went for it. It wasn't just a reflexive strike either, as they continued to hit pellets until they had consumed all of them. Keep in mind that natural forage in a pond of this sort is almost non-existent. It appears to me that a HBG x LMB pond could be a good way to feed train Bass. It looks like hunger can be a powerful incentive. the question is, would they stay on feed if they were moved to another body of water?

SP " It looks like hunger can be a powerful incentive."

No question about that. They will eat about anything rather than starve.

I have seen LMB adults trained to feed starting with minnow/fish parts followed by minnow parts stuffed with pellets followed by pellets dipped in minnow parts juice followed by just pellets. That pond had little forage also. It was labor intensive and took time and quite a few minnows.

Actually not anymore. As I'm having trouble meeting demand, and don't raise certain species due to facility limitations there are others taking up the slack. Some are boldly illegally selling or buying public caught fish on the Internet, but they'll get burned eventually. But if you noticed in my post I didn't count the taxidermy market.



From my query letters sent to all 50 states only Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina strictly prohibit the sale of certain sport fish for purposes other than recreational stocking. Texas requires a permit for "Protected Finfish" to be purchased by both the seller and the buyer. There are some states that either refused to respond to my queries (I had one special agent tell me I was going to break the law anyway so why respond), or had no idea what their own laws were, and just kept passing the buck to different departments. Maryland said they would consult with their "attorney's" and never got back to me.

Please note: I did not specifically ask if the fish could be sold as food fish in my query letters but was referring to dead frozen fish sold to taxidermists.

New York that for years was against the sale of largemouth bass for food fish, apparently now allows it as long as they are privately raised with some other restrictions as direct sales only or something like that. Ironically back when they prohibited the sale of bass as a food fish, they allowed the sale of fish from public waters that did not have a bag limit such as bluegills.



It will become more common for states to contract out to private hatcheries as government facilities are closed. It's already happening in some states. My state buys walleyes from a private Wisconsin producer. Last I heard they were also buying rainbow eggs from Trout Lodge as a cost saving measure. Some federal trout hatcheries have already closed. Look to see more as budgets get cut. Lawmakers are finding out the private sector can raise fish more economically than government facilities and it's tempting to shut down the government hatcheries.




I could do it and there is a demand and the price one can get is VERY high. Problem is I don't have the facilities yet. I have no doubt an on the NANFA site would get you business. Perhaps not really high in volume but the price one can command makes up for it. There's also the sale of fish to educational institutions. One of our posters here, made I believe, $20,000 on a a few hundred minnow sized Bowfin he sold to a university for research. He seined them in public waters with a permit and it was perfectly legal.



True but there are no hatcheries in my northern end of the state. NONE! As president of the Indiana Aquaculture Association my goal is to get this going but it appears people are either afraid to start up, lack the knowledge they need to start up, or think the government should fund them.



Yes it's not easy work but it can be learned. Some of the best fish farmers I know are self taught by the school of hard knocks. Some worked for another producer.




Yeah you're preaching to the choir when it comes to government interference, permits etc. But at least up here most of the headache is VHS testing, and only if you ship across state lines. Inside the state most species other than trout don't have to be tested for anything. Our Fish Hauler's and Suppliers Permit is free.

A good fish producer does not produce the fish first and look for a market later. That said, when I had my largemouths I had a Asian broker chumping at the bits when he heard about my feed trained bass, and wanted to buy them immediately.

Sounds like a hard way to make a living especially for someone (not you)who asked the question. An aquaculturist may be able to make a living (many are going out of business) raising LMB to that size but the average pond guy is going to be badly surprised.

Yeah if you just have a pond or something that's really not the way to go if you want to get into aquaculture. And the typical recreational pond is not designed for aquaculture.

That said I found feed trained largemouths really easy to feed and grow. I was surprised how well they do in cages and probably would in an RAS.

Yep but you knew how and were there. Most avg pond guys would have made a mess and paid the price.

Anything under 400 Yds is a chip shot, and the 7mm will blow thru 3/8" mild steel plate at 500 Yds with regular lead/copper bullets. No AP projectiles needed!

Mike, next time I'm by your place I will make sure to punch the GPS to make a waypoint. I'll have the latitude/longitude then.

Dave, Mike doesn't have a rifle, only a shotgun, and it won't reach across his pond. You're safe!

Mikes LMB are staying on the pellets, even with a very large population of 3"-5" Golden Shiners, BG of all size classes & RES. His pond only has BG, RES, GSH, HSB and LMB.

Well, there might be a CC or 2 swimming around, but he doesn't know about them.

I guess I'll resurrect this old thread based on an experiment I started several days ago.

Four days ago I saw a huge cloud of tiny fish begin "herded" by a huge LMB. I discovered they were newly hatched LMB fry. A friend and I got a net and captured several hundred of them with a deep fine-mesh pool cleaning net.

I put them in a 10 gallon aquarium with just an air-stone. I had some in another container with a filter, unfortunately, they were so small that hundreds of them got stuck against the filter intake and died. Here is the aquarium with the airstone and bass.



Based on reading an old paper by our good friend Dr. Dave Willis, I'm weaning them off of plankton. Once or twice a day I'm cleaning the bottom of the aquarium with a siphon, while I remove about half the water. I'm replacing the water with pond water. The pond is currently experiencing a good bloom.

I'm using a coffee grinder to grind Ziggler 42% trout feed into a fine powder. They seem to be loving it. I've been feeding them 5-6 times a day. Last night I left the aquarium light on, and left the little feeding door open on top of the aquarium. This morning there were lots of little bugs on top of the water. So far, these little critters seem to just be eating plankton and the fish food.

From Dr. Dave's old paper, he says they will die in 5-7 days if they aren't getting properly fed. Today is day 4, so we'll see. As of this morning, not a single mortality.

If they make it to at least an inch long, I'll put them in a 40 gallon container. If they make it to at least 2 inches, I'll put them either in a 300 gallon IBC container, or we'll put them in brood ponds. I've currently got an empty brood pond, and we'll replace the RES in a friend's brood pond. (We put 2-3 inch RES in the friend's brood pond last fall. Most are now about five inches. If the feed trained bass live, it will be time to transfer the RES to the main pond, which has bass to about 20 inches.)

I'll keep my experiences with feed training posted here.

Ken

Very cool Ken. I'd love to give this a shot myself, but it requires time. Not something I have a lot of these days. Maybe someday as it's something that really fascinates me.

Having time is key. I'm semi-retired right now and loving it. My brain just has more projects than my body has energy. And, unfortunately, my brain also seems to have more projects than my wallet has cash. Maybe I can find somebody to give me a grant to play! But then, it might not be as much fun.

Looks like a plan. I think you took them out of the pond sooner than literature says so but if they are eating the feed then you're good to go.

Keep us posted!

Note to self:
Don't drink Ken's coffee.

Why not, it's high in protein?

Cecil -- that is why I'm supplementing them with pond water once or twice a day. One of my fisheries biologist friends at WVU suggested taking them as early as possible, and doing something similar to what Dr. Dave suggested -- keeping them somewhat fed with plankton, and then weaning them from it. We'll see.

Ken

Yeah, but you should see the buzz these little fry get from the caffeine in the fish food!

Ken,

Actually you're not far off on that comment.

If you put a little caffeine in water with daphnia they go spastic and swim around 90 miles an hour! You can also see their little hearts beating faster. At least that is what I've been told.

Ken - the feed training appears good so far. The air bubbler may help keep small food particles moving so they look like live zooplankton. One of your big hurdles will be water quality. In a day or two you may have to resort to two water changes per day or move them to a slightly larger container. A filter will help some when they are better free swimmers. Consider some sort of simple flow trough system or a temporaty flow through for several water changes per day. Another option is to move them into a small cage built of 1/8" mesh then into a 1/4" mesh cage, etc. It won't take them long to get to 1.5"-2". Expect 1mm growth per day.

That's cool, Ken! I'll be interested to read about the progression. Here's to hoping they survive!

So far, so good. No mortalities yet. They seem to be doing well, and they seem to be growing each day.

Bill -- we have two circular 10-foot diameter tanks, that are about 3-4 foot deep, with center drains. As the fish grow, we may move half of them into one of these tanks. We may be able to use pond or creek water to replace water and waste we pull from the bottom.

I'll keep posting, even if they all should die.

Ken,

If you have fine enough screen to keep the fish in over your overflow a regular sump pump in a bucket placed in a pond that pumps water into the circular tank and an overflow will work for a simple flow through system. When I get time I will post a pic of one of my tanks I use to hold fish when I'm seining the pond.

You can still use the stand pipe to periodically flush out waste by lifting one of two stand pipes. (A smaller pipe inside a larger one.)

Adding to what CB1 says above, in a couple weeks the survivors should be large enough to not get through 1/8" mesh. For now, a small version flow through similar to what CB1 suggests can be set up now. A smaller version of flow through would use a low wattage, smaller magnetic drive power head, aquarium pump having 0.2-10 gpm. It wouldn't take much flow through for the few fish you are feed training to keep them healthy while they learn to eat ground or softened pellets. Plus the power heads are low cost ($10-30) and dependable. Fiberglass window screen would serve well as a strainer.

So far so good. I had one mortality yesterday when I was cleaning and replacing the aquarium. They still seem to be eating, but I can't really tell if they are growing.

Ken- try chopping up or mashing some cooked shrimp to see if they eat that more aggressively. Or try chopping up into very small pieces some of your homegrown worms. A razor blade works as a good chopper. Don't use a lot of wet food, just enough to see if they will eat it. This wet food will make the water a lot dirtier so be prepared for more water changes if you try this.

To see if they are growing, compare the tank fish with their siblings in the pond.

Well, failure struck overnight! There were quite a few dead ones floating, and quite a few that were on their floating on their sides swimming in fast circles when I went to clean the aquarium this morning. I took most of them out -- dead, alive, or swimming in circles, and dumped them into an empty growout pond. Surprisingly, a lot of the ones that appeared dead, came to life, and a lot of the ones swimming in circles took off too. I'm going to keep feeding them ground fish feed. I've already taken a bunch of chopped up worms to them, but I couldn't tell what happened. Tomorrow I plan to get some dried krill to grind up and feed to them in the growout pond.

Ken - Do you think the problem was a water quality issue or a food - starvation issue? In raising fish it often does not take very long to loose the entire crop when things take a turn for the worse and often it is a water quality issue. Could you tell if food was in the lower gut tract near the anus of dying or stressed fish? With fish that small one can see food in the lower GI tract of the thin bodied fish.

I still have a few in the aquarium. I can check them in the morning. I changed half the water twice yesterday with water from the pond. I did measure any water characteristics. But, is sure was growing algae at a fast rate.

With small fish like that numerous deaths all at once can occur due to starvation but those fish were behaving odd as if it was water quality issues. Fish crowded like that, even small ones in a tank, the water quality can go bad fast. That is why we were suggesting flow through even a small amount to flush and minimize water quality issues.

Sounds like ammonia spiked to me.

Could have been. I wasnt checking water chemistry. Starvation is just as likely. This morning I saw a school of what I expect were their siblings. They were easily twice as long as the ones I threw into the brood pond yesterday.

Ditto - swimming in circles.