Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations wild fish/commercial fish food?

Hello all and Happy Easter!

By and large most of the fish in our pond have been wild caught out of local mill ponds and restocked into our pond. The blue gills have spawned twice (last summer and fall) and they are on the beds now. We did buy some farm raised BG that have grown big enough to spawn this year. We pulled a haul seine net in the pond the last time I was home to take stock of what we had and to correct a few stocking mistake(learned here)and found many small blue gills(1 to 2 inches)and a healthy bass population. I was surprised at the amount of red lip minnows that had made it through the winter and survived the bass. We removed all the green sun fish that we could catch and also removed the 6(only had 6 in the pond) large white crappy. By and large its appears that our food chain is well established but I would like to supplement the food chain with commercial fish food. I bought a bag of floating food from southern states and tried on 3 consecutive evenings while the BG were feeding to get them to eat the fish food! Nope! They will not touch the stuff! Is it possible to get a wild fish like BG to eat commercial feed in a small controlled environment? The bass that we have in the pond for the most part are adults between 12 and 20 inches with the vast majority being twins of about 2lb.We do have some bass fingerlings(bought 30) but I have the feeling they are being gulped by the bigger bass. Our count over all was 336 adult BG and 2 coffee cans full of fry, approximately 5 pounds of red lip minnows and gizzard shad,22 yellow perch(all adults)5 channel cat fish(6 to 10 inches) and 28 LMB,the biggest bass(Betty around 4 to 5 lbs)we removed 60 green sunfish(stocked around a 100 last fall).Our goal is to raise big bass, the bass are my PETS,I often feed them by hand and want to grow a few large bass .I supplement the LMB with wild caught BULL MINNOWS and they lovem! I feel I have to supplement the LMB diet because I did not wait long enough to get a food chain, before stocking .Given the amount of fry (more than I thought but perhaps not enough?)I have been feeding my bass often. They eat a 3 gallon bucket of BULL MINNIOWS every 2 days. I apologize for the rambling, my questions is again can I supplement wild BG on commercial feed and if so how would I start them on it? The pond is small just over ¾ ac pics are below under pond-holic.

Throw in a couple handsful of 1/8 inch floating fishfood in the morning and late afternoon at the same area for two or three weeks. They'll finally begin munching. Then increase the amount fed until you reach the amount that is eaten in about fifteen minutes.

Kind of wierd for you to have bass as pets - that'll make you a valued member of this forum.

Last year after stocking about half my large bass we got hit with a drought. The pond level dropped quickly and I did not have enough forage in the pond. So I started feeding my bass frogs, minnows, bugs what ever I could find. With in a short time my big bass AKA Betty would follow me around the pond. She will still take large baits from my hand. On a different note. Before I had the bass in our pond we had just BG and Bait fish and the pond banks were covered in leopard frogs. If you walked near the pond the frogs would jump in the water. Within 7 days of the first tank full of adult bass going in the pond the dam frogs would jump up the bank and into the field! For that many frogs to figure it out’ the little SOB’s have to reason to some degree! The down side of bass for pets is my teenagers get pissed off as I do not allow live bait fishing!

My experience feeding BG makes me a little less optimistic than Dudley, but only in the short term. I fed for 2 1/2 years, an average of 6 days a week (in season), at the same spot, before my BG started feeding (I eventually had to change spots) - but they did start. I think 1) there have to be enough BG in the pond for them to be hungry, 2) juveniles will feed train better than adults, and 3) there are some spots in a pond where they do not like to eat. My feed ring is now located over a deep bowl with shallow water on three sides (shore, right, and left) that seems equally acceptable to BG, CC, Gshiners, and Grass Carp).

Here is a trick in addition to Dudley's and both will work. Go to the hatchery and buy about 10 adult feed trained BG and find out what they have been eating. Buy a little of that feed (hatchery will often sell a little). Put the BG in a safe area where other BG hang out. Throw out some food when they start eating the others over time will catch on as will the small/yoy BG.

Those two methods represent 2 of the principles Bob often reminds us of - conditioning and competition.

Well the fish wagon comes May 1st and I am buying 200 more BG and 30 more bass,and 10 lb of fat lips maybe I can get the new gills on the feed and they can teach the wild fish.Thanks for the advice.

salth2, I neglected to mention that the funds keeping this web site available to us are generated, in part, from fees paid for subscriptions to Pond Boss Magazine. If you have not yet subscribed, please consider doing so. You'll find the magazine and reference books offered for sale to be valuable pond management tools that will help you avoid costly mistakes as well as those requiring much labor to attempt to correct (such as seining to remove green sunfish).

Thanks Mr. Dudley

I will be purchasing a subscription to pond bass as well as looking for an aerator (wind powered hopefully) as I have learned volumes here. I have spent hours lurking and taking notes and I only wish I would have found this great web page sooner. In the foreseeable future my wife and I are considering putting our land on the market as the land values where we live (8 miles from the beach) have reached incredible highs and the quality of life has dropped due to the influx of people to a once rural community. All of the land we are looking at(NNY and WVA) have multiple ponds and small lakes, in fact one property of interest has a small hobby fish hatchery. I think I will be a regular here on your site and will support it when ever and where ever possible.

A person who happened to purchase a "small hobby fish hatchery". and had access to the Pond Boss forum might be a dangerous dude, indeed!

I have spent a life time as a Commercial fisherman and now as a US MERCHANT MARINE.I love the water and fish in particular! I can not explain why I have found my little pond so additive and rewarding but I do not think I have to tell you guys I think you understand!

Well I passed on the words of advice from the board to my wife as I am at sea. I spoke to her this morning when we got to NYNY and she says its workingggggggg! It started out slow with just a fish here and there poping the floating feed.Now she feeds them a coffe can a day and she says the go nuts! Thanks for the help.