The majority of BG in my pond did NOT come from a hatchery, so they didn't learn to eat pellets at a young age. I still have very few BG eating pellets, even using a feeder. The majority of them are eating natural forage in the pond, and look it.
So, it might depend on where the fish came from too. The LMB in the pond are feed trained, and eat pellets, but they are really hammering the natural forage. I purposely overstocked the pond with BG last Fall, putting in somewhere around 2,000 3" stunted BG that were seined/trapped from another pond. (I gave up counting them once I passed 1,500 fish) Very few survived the winter, and I still think my pond is BG light. I even fed the trout all winter long. The fishing rule is every LMB, no matter what the size is to be removed if it doesn't have a tag in it. There are 40 tagged LMB in the pond.
