Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Bluegill Feeding: Juvenile vs. Mature

After two years of BG and pelleted feed coexisting nice-and-peaceful-like in my pond, a number of BG finally began taking a growing interest in eating Game Fish Chow about five weeks ago (Whewww! Relief).

This originally started with a couple dozen fingerlings, but both the number and size of the BG feeding has steadily increased. Today in a second feeding I was able to observe apx 3 dozen juveniles (up to perhaps 5" - 6") along with fingerlings that were too numerous to count.

All the largest BG I have seen feeding, as well as the limited sample (9) of pellet eating (e.g. stuffed guts and ready evidence of fish feed by-products) BG I have caught have all been what I would judge to be immature juveniles (no evidence of secondary sexual maturity characteristics).

I have numerous BG in the same end of the pond which have NOT been observed feeding (yet) which I judge to be sexually mature (males with full "war paint" coloring - bright yellow bellies, bold coloring on gill flap). Some of these are no bigger than the feed-eating juveniles I have caught.

NOTE: I always hand-feed and stick around for most/all of the time until the feed is consumed, as I enjoy watching.

Question: If I am correctly interpretting their sexual maturity/immaturity, is there any basis for/experience with juveniles being more prone to eat pellets than mature BG? They seem to be dedicated to eating and growing bigger before maturing (like Bruce's 90 lbs weakling at the beach), which I'm all for.

Theo,

This may or may not be relevant to your case. In my experience with feeding BG, especially those that have been caught or attempted to be caught at the feeders, the older, larger, "wiser" BG generally will not come to hand fed pellets....to the automatic feeder, yes, big time, but if they see me or any human, they do not generally come to hand feeding. The little ones, have no such fear or hesitency. They will readily come to hand or feeder thrown feed, with or without human presence.

The mature BG in my pond will not show themselves to me...except on the end of a prince nymph, miss prissy, etc.

p.s. try this...hand feed but back away from the area to where the large BG can not sense your presence.

ML, that is intersting in most of our ponds with auto feeders where they are some times hand fed the big bluegill follow you around the pond like puppy dogs. Every pond is diff that is the one constant in this line of work.

Greg,

I'm getting the impression that your folks (clients) never actually fish...they just feed and observe.

I fish my ponds...fish them a lot...and apparently when I'm not fishing them, poachers take my place. No BG in my ponds will follow me around, no way. I've seen LMB, and in fact often see LMB, follow me around while I BG fish. They often pick off the hooked little ones, or try too. We have a great battle just about every trip to the pond. The LMB usually win, e.g. they get the small BG, but I get the fun so I win too.

The larger BG and cats follow me around the pond. The small BG stay put and I bring feed to them.

Theo, my 1.5 inch BG gnaw on the pellets. All of them chow down.

Dave, there were so many fingerlings nibbling on pellets today, they looked like a Springtime mass of tadpoles swarming FA.

Of the bluegill that have been introduced to my recreational pond as adults, when I recapture them the following year there are approximaely 20-25% that I would say have the appearance of being pellet eaters. These are fish that have been captured around feeding time and have the bloated abdomen and even have pellet fragments in their mouths. Quite a few more of the bluegill that are brought in as adults never seem to "get it", although food is so plentiful in the form of invertebrate life that it really isn't neccesary for them to "get it". My suspicion is that if there were fewer invertebrates available, more fish would convert to feed, but that some never would.

In the pond that I raise fish from fry stage, the percentage of pellet feeders is quite a bit higher. There may be a couple of factors at work. Possibly the younger fish learn this behavior more readily simply because they are young. Another possibility is that the younger fish are in an environment with higher density of fish competing for the food supply. Regardless, the percentage is over 50%, but absolutely not 100%. There are always some bluegill, and even HSB surprisingly, that will not ever learn to eat pelleted food.

Maybe Theo's situation is a combination of his younger fish using their desire to become more sexually competitive to "bulk up", or it could be that these smaller fish were exposed to a need for pelleted food earlier in life. Maybe the bigg'uns are busy guarding a territory. Maybe the bigger fish, because of their size, dominate the prime feeding grounds for invertebrates.

Very interesting observation, but not surprising to me. Pretty much fits my experience.

All ponds REALLY must be different - any time I wander down to the pond I'll always take a handful of pellets from the feeder just to observe the action - they will splash water out on the bank even during the hot summer weather.

We turned off second feeder to avoid summer stress and no gills would come to hand feeding.
Turned 2nd feeder back on last week and they will come to hand feed again.

We are feeding one second twice a day on both feeders during hot weather.

George Glazener
N.E. Texas 1/4 acre and 2 acre ponds

I have always believed that pellet feeding was learned behavior. Original stockers from hatcheries (I figure) are somewhat artificially fed. It is interesting that RES, even from the hatchery, will not accept pellets.

However, when I first stocked, nothing came. I had to go find the fish and get both BG and CC started or restarted. Now they follow me around the pond. When they see, or maybe hear my 4 wheeler coming, they stack up along the shore. Both large and small feed but I have no idea whether some never feed. It does appear that fishing pressure has kept some larger BG from coming to the pellets or having anything to do with me or my offerings. They absolutely know the difference in both natural and real pelleted food versus anything artificial.

I'm starting to pay more attention to learned behavior. I find Cecils post about his larger LMB fleeing from the sight of his fishing pole fascinating.

Guys :

Look closely at the above posts. Then take out the term BG and replace with LMB and what does it sound like. Feeding and catchability. Let me say the reports are very interesting and need further study on my part. I think there are many factors at work here some well noted above.

We know that both BG and LMB are sunfish and are predators. Are there genetic likenesses at work . They both exhibit conditioning {learned behavior}. We know from studies that some bass will never eat a lure {aka pellet or thing they don't know is food in this post} so it is not surprising that some BG will not take pellets. I also note that the differeces in the posters observations could easily result from the fact that these are different populations and , ponds and there are other outside factors {other learned behaviors} in the equation.

Don't go ballistic yet. I am not saying BG act just like bass in the extent of the noted trait or that the traits are identical. My guess is that the % are not close. A wild guess -- 25-50 % of "all" LMB will not eat a lure ; on BG , I have seen no data or reports , my guess 5-10 % . Keep in mind on the BG % that most people fish for BG with live bait.

From my eyes on experience at the pond and the aquarium a large % of both BG and LMB will stop/interrupt eating fish food when recognized live prey is near by and easy to get. A good question is to what extent will the conditioning overrule the genetic impulse to eat live prey. ewest

I also find that interesting and consistent with what I observe. I think what Cecil is describing is what I call stage 2 LMB behavior.

Stage 1 is when they are new, young, and careless and will attack artificials with reckless abandon. Stage 2 is when they fear the fisherman.

Stage 3, where my LMB are at, is where they do not fear the fisherman but see him as a potential food source, i.e. he may catch small BG which the stage 3 LMB can grab. He may also throw out pellets which attract BG which the LMB can pick off. The stage 3 LMB has no fear of lures, because he has learned to never touch them. The stage 3 LMB will follow you around the pond. The stage 3 LMB sets at the feeders waiting for his next meal. I have a preponderance of stage 3 LMB.

p.s. what makes a bass move from stage 1 to 2 to 3 is what is really of interest...fishing pressure is certainly a huge factor, feeding also a factor, genetics certainly....some many questions so little time!

I don't know if this bit of information will help but here goes. Before feeding pellets, our fish would attack dead fathead minnows floating on the water in the typical "feeding frenzy" manner. Now, they attack the pellets that way but barely look at dead minnows. Many of the fish can also tell the difference between a minnow on a hook and one not on the hook. Definitely learned behavior.

Keep in mind that all creatures have a powerful instinct to eat as much as possible while expending as little energy as possible. I guess it depends on how strong the "trigger response" is to grab live prey. That may even vary a little from fish to fish.