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All good points Nate, and I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to respond. I can't speak for RC, but I do tend to practice some of what you suggest in your post. I feed all of my ponds by hand, as I believe it gives me the chance to adjust feed rates based on what the fish want....if they don't want to eat that particular evening, then I cut down on the feed. If they are especially aggressive, then I feed more. That kind of flexibility is just not available in a mechanical feeder.

I also feed from the entire perimeter of the HBG pond, and probably half the perimeter of the other three. Again, this is just to try and make sure I get feed in front of any fish that wants to eat. I've always done it this way, it seems to produce good results. I feed every evening during feeding season. Perhaps I should cut back.


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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All of this info is great! Thanks everyone for taking time to post. I guess what I expected was bigger fish and easier to catch fish??? But like you said Nate maybe my expectations were a bit high in thinking I would just grow large fish and I could chunk a bait out there and catch whatever I wanted when I wanted! I am finding out thats not the case!

Last edited by RC51; 05/16/12 11:27 AM.

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This whole thread has me rethinking the feeding plan entirely. Initially I had hoped to establish a good forage base so that I would not need to feed my smallmouth. I am letting the pond sit for a year without predators so the varied forage (fhm, gs, crayfish, grass shrimp, banded killifish, spotfin shiners, greenfin shiners, bluntnose minnows, johnny darters, RES) can get established before the SMB and YP are stocked. I was going to put a feeder in soon and get some AM600 going to kick start the growth of the forage and eventually predators but if that means the predators will be too feed-oreinted to catch why did I spend so much time and money establishing the forage fish to begin with?

Another part of me is thinking maybe some of the people on this site are noticing the difficulty of catching the feed-trained fish because they are either fishing solely with live bait (worm or minnow under a bobber) or their kids are having a tough time catching fish. Both of these situations could suggest that the fishing tactics are to blame and not the feeding. A minnow or worm under a bobber is not a very natural presentation to a fish, sure you are putting the real thing out there for the fish but there could be millions of the real thing for the predators to choose from! Your minnow swimming 12" under a bobber is totally missed by the bass that are chasing schools of the same minnows! For this reason I will mainly be fishing artificials that trigger reaction strikes from fish or that stand out more and get the attention of the predators. I am sure the big ones will get hook shy if I over fish the pond but I do not foresee myself (or my kids) getting to fish the pond more than 4 days a month anyway.

For those of you finding the fishing to be tough please try throwing a weightless senko, a shakey head finesse worm, a texas rigged craw imitation, a crankbait, or a topwater popper and report back! I would love to know if the fish are not hitting artificials before I decide to spend $600 on a feeder.


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I feed my fish, and use a 14' crappie pole to get out away from the dock.. If the big ones can see you they make an instant u-turn for deep water. But i have no problem catching big fed fish like this.


I believe in catch and release. I catch then release to the grease..

BG. CSBG. LMB. HSB. RES.

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For my part at least, I'm referencing BG, not so much LMB. And I have thrown a variety at them: spoons, spinners, poppers, flies, worms, beemoths....fished with and without a float, and also just a slow sinking presentation with no weight. And I have fished BG for several years, so I don't want to think my fishing abilities are the culprit, but I will admit that anything's possible. And I do catch some, but when compared to the numbers of fish that readily feed on AQ500, there's a huge difference. Especially since some of these are a species (HBG) supposedly known for their willingness to bite, and relatively easy "catchability". There must certainly be a multitude of factors that play a part in whether or not the fish are "biting" on any given day, and on any BOW.

However, since I have fed ponds, and unfed ponds, within yards of each other, all stocked with the same species,(with the exception of the HBG pond), I can compare them quite readily. The unfed pond produces BG much faster, and with less effort on the part of the angler, than the fed ponds do. It would seem to me that the feeding programs are having an effect on angling success or failure.

I went back and found the last thread I remembered that dealt with fish, and their capacity to learn, or not. I'm still not sure I can differentiate between a conditioned response, and a learned one.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=22044&Number=279741#Post279741


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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I also have used small poppers small meps small spinners, small square bill mini minnows, and will catch one every now and then but??? Like spark says! My water is alive with fish when fed by the feeder so I know there are a lot more down there then what I am seeing?? I have fished now for over 35 years and feel I know a thing or 2 about fishing, but that is not it. Anyone should be able to go out and catch a 5 or 6 nice size BG without much effort even if they are using a worm and bobber, but now that seems to be harder then it was before! Like Spark says he has both fed and unfed ponds and the unfed pond is easier to catch a fish from! Which I find funny cause all you think about is how easy it is going to be to catch these feed trained fish and now you cant hardly catch them at all!! smile That is to funny! And fustrating at the same time!

Last edited by RC51; 05/16/12 12:48 PM.

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I'm with Nate!

I'll go a step farther and say feeding has a lot less to do with fish "catchability" than does fish conditioning.

Fish learn a lot more than many give them credit for. "Green" fish will bite almost any thing at any time. "Experienced" fish, those that have been caught or witnesses others getting caught, are wary. The best solution for that is to fish less, but that's pretty drastic.

Last time we fished, the wife said "The fish don't like our bait". I said "They like our bait just fine. It's our hooks they don't like"



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If you are having trouble catching bluegill in a "fed" lake, hold off feeding for a couple of days before you fish for bluegill next time. I feel it may be more of a fish with a full belly than a conditioned fish. Works for me.


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Originally Posted By: Bing
If you are having trouble catching bluegill in a "fed" lake, hold off feeding for a couple of days before you fish for bluegill next time. I feel it may be more of a fish with a full belly than a conditioned fish. Works for me.



I'll buy that. We talk on the forum of feeding to satiation, which to me equates to "full". In a small BOW, it's bound to be a lot easier, and a whole lot cheaper to feed that heavy vs. a large lake or pond. Could it be that the fish in a larger BOW are more willing to bite simply because they're still hungry? Whereas those in a smaller pond, being fed to satiation every day simply show less interest in anything that doesn't resemble what they are used to eating, because they're full more often, and don't need to experiment with other potential food sources?


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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Originally Posted By: sprkplug
Originally Posted By: Bing
If you are having trouble catching bluegill in a "fed" lake, hold off feeding for a couple of days before you fish for bluegill next time. I feel it may be more of a fish with a full belly than a conditioned fish. Works for me.



I'll buy that. We talk on the forum of feeding to satiation, which to me equates to "full". In a small BOW, it's bound to be a lot easier, and a whole lot cheaper to feed that heavy vs. a large lake or pond. Could it be that the fish in a larger BOW are more willing to bite simply because they're still hungry? Whereas those in a smaller pond, being fed to satiation every day simply show less interest in anything that doesn't resemble what they are used to eating, because they're full more often, and don't need to experiment with other potential food sources?



Spark I think your right to some degree. I didn't seem to have this problem until I went to 2 feedings a day at 2 seconds. When I was doing 1 second I seemed to have better catch rates. It would make since that if a fish was full why bother trying to eat more and chase it down. Although I have seen bass with fish coming out of their gullut and still hit your bait too. I like the idea of turning your feeder off but if your not present on your land all the time that is not really possible, but I can back it off and feed less at certain times when I know we may be going fishing the following weekend.

Last edited by RC51; 05/16/12 02:39 PM.

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we use a buglite, which operates only at nite,the bugs that are attracted by the lite are chopped by the rotating splines. when they hit the water they are still alive and moving, the bg really go after them. Natural food and it does the job for you.

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Originally Posted By: n8ly
Make sure to focus on feeding your smallest of fish. longterm this is very important for many reasons


What do people think of this point Nate made? How would you go about doing this? Smaller pellets? Feeding in shallow water?


No pond yet, not even land. But working on it.

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I think this is a very interesting topic and I recall a term paper that was turned in for wildlife biology class that may explain a little. Granted this was a long time ago but it had to do with the conditioning of all animals from birds, squirrels, deer and turkey at feeders, humans on foodstamps and welfare, fish being fed at regular intervals etc...... the point to his paper was that with all animals studied that were being fed at very regular intervals they all became "lazy" and slowly became reliant on the free hand outs and became less adapt at foraging for themselves. In a lot of situations some became so dependant on the handouts that if they abruptley discontinued then the animals would stress out in varying degrees depending on how long they had been fed. Some would actually starve to death depending on the time of year. I think some examples were discussed recently in another thread on deer feeding. Based on his findings animals in a different control group that were fed but not at regular intervals did not stop foraging on their own between feedings and did not show the same dependicies or the same stress symptons when feeding was discontinued. His sugggestions for feeding wildlife was to never fill the feeders and to let them remain empty for short periods of time to keep the animals being fed from getting 'lazy". He supported feeding but just not at regular intervals. It would be interesting to have two ponds and experiment with different feeding tactics to see if catchability or wr were effected by the different feeding tactics implemented. Use regular feeding times on one pond and scattered random feedings on the other. On the pond with scattered irregular feeding times perhaps net off a small shallow section of the pond so that only the small forage fish could gain access and feed them on a regular schedule so that the larger fish consuming them could benefit from the forage feeding without actually becoming dependant on pellets.

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i do some supplemental feeding by hand. here's my experience (at least as it relates to bass). i have about 7 bass in the pond that are on the supplemental program. one of these, "spot" (named for a little pigment spot on her side) is an absolute cinder block of a bass - 7 lbs. 5 oz. at 21" long last time i caught her. i'll leave the relative weight calculations to the experts, and just say that she is very fat and well fed. she is the both the easiest and hardest to catch fish in the pond. i'll explain. when you begin to feed fish, they change their perception of human presence. drive up a noisy truck and tromp carelessly around a pond full of wild fish and you will see them dart away from the bank like their tails are on fire. do the same in a pond full of "pet" fish that are artificially fed by hand and the fish will beat a path to you and park right at your feet waiting on you to start slinging food. spot is no different. she is wating on me at the side of the pond along with her buddies before i even get my truck in park. she knows it's time to eat.

since spot and her buddies have changed their approach to me, if i want to catch them, i have to change my approach to them. i can cast spinnerbaits, crankbaits, plastics, you name it, past any one of them and run the lure seductively within an inch of their nose and they will simply turn to avoid the lure as if to say, "c'mon quit messing around and feed us already." however, i can take the same lures and pitch the baits right at their noses and the baits are devoured before they even have a chance to get wet. why? because in the first scenario, i was trying to make them bite the bait. in the second, i was feeding it to them.

i don't know a lot about fish feeders, but i'll try to draw a parallel. i'm sure that feeders make some type of noise and vibration when they are activated, even without food in them. i'd be willing to bet that fish get conditioned to these noises and vibrations as a positive stimuli associated with food and respond to them the same way they respond to someone in a truck pulling up to hand feed. i'd almost be willing to bet that if you turn on the feeders for a few seconds without food in them (if this won't damage anything) you can catch fish around them.

to me, there is no sport in catching pet fish. that's why i try to keep most of the fish in the pond on live forage like bluegill or shiners. fish that are stuffed on live forage are hard to catch, but there's a lot of satisfaction in it when you do catch one.

i guess that's one of the tough decisions all pond owners have to make. if you want impressive fish, stock lots of forage or feed supplementally in large quantity. downside? the fish will be harder to catch. if you want easy-to-catch fish, understock forage or underfeed with supplemtal sources. downside? you won't get very many impressive pictures.

of course there are certain things you can do when fishing a pond that will dramatically increase your chances of catching ANY bass, regardless of how well fed they are.





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To go along with that scenario of "spot" waiting on you for food, a few ponds that I walk around (mine included) have LMB that follow me around the pond. Whether they are expecting a handout (my pond) or catching grasshoppers that fly into the pond because of walking around the perimeter, they still play follow the leader.

I agree with your assesment of running a lure past their nose vs. "feeding" a lure to them.

A couple of years ago I watched a LMB try and grab a BG when it was feeding. I started by fin clipping one (BG) and putting a #10 hook in it's tail stub, then putting it into the pond for the LMB to eat. (I watched the LMB try to move around the un-clipped BG to grab it head on.) I found that if I were to pull the BG backwards a bit, then the LMB would grab it. I'd quickly yank the small hook out so I didn't hook the LMB. After a while, it'd jump out of the water to get the BG as I lowered it to the water. You could swim a BG past it and it wouldn't give it a 2nd look, but dangle one? I was amazed at how far above the water it could see the BG and get it.

I don't feed until the fish stop eating, the fish clean up the food in <10 seconds (the RBT are the biggest eaters in the pond).


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Originally Posted By: dlyle
Originally Posted By: n8ly
Make sure to focus on feeding your smallest of fish. longterm this is very important for many reasons


What do people think of this point Nate made? How would you go about doing this? Smaller pellets? Feeding in shallow water?


I don't have to fence off an area like ozark suggested, I just simply use a scatter feeder to toss 1/8" pellets and even smaller in areas about 2-4' deep. Some big fish come in and eat, but predominately smaller bluegills feeding off those feeders.

Feeder placement is very important!! Feed where your target species would prefer to be.


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Originally Posted By: RockvilleMDAngler
This whole thread has me rethinking the feeding plan entirely. Initially I had hoped to establish a good forage base so that I would not need to feed my smallmouth. I am letting the pond sit for a year without predators so the varied forage (fhm, gs, crayfish, grass shrimp, banded killifish, spotfin shiners, greenfin shiners, bluntnose minnows, johnny darters, RES) can get established before the SMB and YP are stocked. I was going to put a feeder in soon and get some AM600 going to kick start the growth of the forage and eventually predators but if that means the predators will be too feed-oreinted to catch why did I spend so much time and money establishing the forage fish to begin with?

Another part of me is thinking maybe some of the people on this site are noticing the difficulty of catching the feed-trained fish because they are either fishing solely with live bait (worm or minnow under a bobber) or their kids are having a tough time catching fish. Both of these situations could suggest that the fishing tactics are to blame and not the feeding. A minnow or worm under a bobber is not a very natural presentation to a fish, sure you are putting the real thing out there for the fish but there could be millions of the real thing for the predators to choose from! Your minnow swimming 12" under a bobber is totally missed by the bass that are chasing schools of the same minnows! For this reason I will mainly be fishing artificials that trigger reaction strikes from fish or that stand out more and get the attention of the predators. I am sure the big ones will get hook shy if I over fish the pond but I do not foresee myself (or my kids) getting to fish the pond more than 4 days a month anyway.

For those of you finding the fishing to be tough please try throwing a weightless senko, a shakey head finesse worm, a texas rigged craw imitation, a crankbait, or a topwater popper and report back! I would love to know if the fish are not hitting artificials before I decide to spend $600 on a feeder.


Rockville,
The good feeders are about $800 these days.....but nonetheless I would definitely do everything possible to build your forage base as large as possible!! Being patient for a whole year will pay off big time! With your target species being smallmouth, it will take them a few years to really dent the forage and believe it or not, your smallies will more than likely not even look at a pellet until the pellet is easier protein than the forage. Sounds crazy, but in a situation your creating, the smallies can easily catch forage all day long!

These examples of feeding programs are just a few peoples experiences of what can happen in their situations. Yours is completely different. In my opinion Smallies are the perfect fish to supplementally feed because I have never seen them become dependant on just feed in any situation. Even at my lake with a bazillion feeders, the smallies only show up sporadically. Same with yellow perch.

feed the forage and it will last you way longer than if you wouldnt feed the forage.


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Originally Posted By: ozarkstriperscom
I think this is a very interesting topic and I recall a term paper that was turned in for wildlife biology class that may explain a little. Granted this was a long time ago but it had to do with the conditioning of all animals from birds, squirrels, deer and turkey at feeders, humans on foodstamps and welfare, fish being fed at regular intervals etc...... the point to his paper was that with all animals studied that were being fed at very regular intervals they all became "lazy" and slowly became reliant on the free hand outs and became less adapt at foraging for themselves. In a lot of situations some became so dependant on the handouts that if they abruptley discontinued then the animals would stress out in varying degrees depending on how long they had been fed. Some would actually starve to death depending on the time of year. I think some examples were discussed recently in another thread on deer feeding. Based on his findings animals in a different control group that were fed but not at regular intervals did not stop foraging on their own between feedings and did not show the same dependicies or the same stress symptons when feeding was discontinued. His sugggestions for feeding wildlife was to never fill the feeders and to let them remain empty for short periods of time to keep the animals being fed from getting 'lazy". He supported feeding but just not at regular intervals. It would be interesting to have two ponds and experiment with different feeding tactics to see if catchability or wr were effected by the different feeding tactics implemented. Use regular feeding times on one pond and scattered random feedings on the other. On the pond with scattered irregular feeding times perhaps net off a small shallow section of the pond so that only the small forage fish could gain access and feed them on a regular schedule so that the larger fish consuming them could benefit from the forage feeding without actually becoming dependant on pellets.


Sounds like Texas Hunter needs to develop a timer that you can set the days you want to feed like Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday! Hmmm that could be interesting for those situations where its just a nice supplement.

I really hope folks reading this stuff don't get confused and associate all of this with every situation. Feeding is a huge tool for many situations, it just needs to be done correctly to accomplish its intended purpose.


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I feed my BG the AM500 feed twice a day from two feeders on a 1 acre pond.

Before I built my pond I envisioned being able to easily catch BG anywhere near structure or the feeder. I wanted to us a bobber because it is easy for other "non-fisherpeoples" visitors to use.

I found that the BG immediately scatter to deeper water when I walk up (not like the LMB that follow you around as ESSHUP noted). You could catch a few by casting into the deeper areas where the feeder reached using a bobber about 2 feet above the hook baited with cricket/worm but they would become skiddish after that.

I decided to go with ultralight equipment; 4 lb. flouro with a very small hook (I think they're labeled as "cricket hooks"), a BB sinker about 1 foot up the line, crickets/worms and fished very slowly (or even still) on the bottom in the deeper water around the feeders. I find this works very well and the fish do not seem to figure it out until I've caught 18-20 when the bite slows but does not totally stop.

Turns out this is a very fun way to fish for 9" BG (or hopefully 10" by now as I haven't fished BG for a while as I continue try to cull <13" LMB).

Hope this helps.


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I'm not about to stop feeding my fish, as I've seen the positive results that come from doing so. And certainly, every pond and situation is different, and requires a different approach.

However, I do believe that this thread has brought up an issue that seldom gets mentioned. That being the increased difficulty in catching fish that may arise due to an aggressive feeding program.

The key word being "may". "Fed fish are big fish". Yes, but it appears that "Fed fish can be hard to catch fish", MAY also apply.


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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I agree. The feeding of the fish is great for them for sure! It's up to us as managers to manage the feedings to our content for not only catching fish but for larger healthier fish too! Trying to find that perfect balance!


The only difference between a rut and a Grave is the depth. So get up get out of that rut and get moving!! Time to work!!
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Angling technique will also come into play. I know of a lake where a white 1" twister tail will hammer the fish - just as long as it has a pink or red jig head. Use a green head and you'd think the lake didn't have any fish in it at all. But, use a chartruse body instead of white on any color head except green, and they're back to bending the rod again.


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Been thinking about an experiment made possible by mother natures refusal to give me any rain. Some may recall from previous threads that I had to build a temp damn in the middle of my pond while construction was going on to pump water out of side we were working on to finished side. Then the skys opened up and never got a chance to remove the barrier. Now that we have gone over two months with no rain whatsoever the pond is now divided in half once again. I have continued feeding on one side and have seased to feed on the other. This has was started on the 16th of may. As long as the drought continues I will remain to do so and see if there is a difference in catch rates from one side or the other. Both sides have about the same amount of structure and have the same types of fish. In the past we have caught fish fairly consistent from anywhere in the pond. Obviously there is flaws in the controls by not knowing exact distributions and numbers of fish on each side but I still think it will give an indication of catchability from one side verses the other. Also something of interest will be effect on the fhm and other forage species from one side to the other as well as any other adverse byproducts of feeding that may occur ie; higher p rates, visibility etc....If nothing else it will take my mind off the falling waters and lack of rain.

Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 329
O
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O
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 329
And I agree with you'all I would never consider not feeding fish in my bow. Way to many benefits to loose just for easier fish to catch.

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That will be an interesting experiment!


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