I have a one acre bluegill/bass pond stocked with bluegill and minnows last fall and LMB this May. The pond is aerated and I started a feeding program mid-summer. It only took a couple of feedings for the bluegill to figure out what was going on and since then they eat like hogs a couple of time a day, morning and night, hand feeding enough for them to consume in around five minutes. The growth has been amazing. I have been using a Tractor Supply product called Nutri Source Farm Pond Diet...a minimum of 36% crude protein, 5% crude fat. The pellets are about the size of a .177 caliber airgun pellet. It's around 12 bucks for a 20 lb bag. My goal here is supplemental feeding as there is plenty of natural stuff around, including a nice bloom and a variety of insects from the surrounding woods.
But here's the interesting thing. Some of my bass, which are 6" - 8" have started hitting the food along with the bluegill. The bass always get excited when the bluegill start feeding, but since the gills are too big for them to eat they mostly just swim around among the gills. But I noticed the past couple of days (after two months of feeding) that several have now started eating the feed pellets. These are not pellet trained LMB and they were stocked as fingerlings (i.e. 2" - 3" fingerlings). Is it unusual for bass who have already been feeding on fry all summer to begin taking feed pellets? Again, it's not all the bass, but I noticed several today feeding among the gills. I will say this about my little bass. You throw a large grasshopper or grub into the pond (something too big for the gills) and the bass pound it immediately, sometimes flying completely out of the water to suck it down...really fun to see that kind of action!
