Just wanted to show this example of the bluegill that a year of Aquamax 500 and 600 has helped us. In fact, since we removed the normal catfish food from the second feeder and just decided to use the two sizes of Aquamax to cover all the fish in our pond, all the fish, including the CC and GP have grown at kinda an alarming rate.
However, it seems to come with a downside, in that our fish have ( BG can still be caught in the summer months with floating grasshoppers live or fake ) have all become so picky and difficult to catch it has become an "observation pond".
I guess that is not a bad thing, we have almost no one to fish it, I have a broken back and it is very painful for me to spend any length of time fishing, but when we have company I have always enjoyed that fact we have a pond stuffed with a lot of very big fish that are not bothered or even feel a human presence for weeks on end.
Yet, they ( ALL of them, regardless of species, especially the CC ) are much more difficult to catch the last few years after we installed a couple of Moultrie feeders ( very good products for this purpose by the way, for us anyway ) and they just continue to get bigger and more plentiful as everything except the GC are reproducing in numbers that keep me from ever stocking anything.
Just an observation from me folks, I know this topic is debated back and forth, I can only tell you that it is happening to us clearly, we have had 7 years to observe them.
On another note, when I do have guests and I know about it a week or so in advance, I shut off the feeders thinking they will eat up anything offered, but it is only marginally successful. The fish that are caught have layers of fat on them according to those that do manage to catch some.
When the feeders go off in the late afternoon, it is a very fun filled 8 minutes ( at the most, usually lasts only 3 minutes or so and all the chow is gone, so I am pretty confident I am not overfeeding ) as the water just boils with all the fish in the pond with the exception of the LMB getting in on the action, very fast and violent.
One of the oddest behaviors we have witnessed during this time is the very large GC, ( 5 of them ) which are much larger than anything in the pond, including some 15 pound CC, are apparently unwilling to "mix it up" in the main attack, evidently not wanting to get in that boil of large CC and a lot of tail slapping and probably sharp fins everywhere. Instead, they stay off just out of the rukus and simply circle slowly and wait it out, after the CC and BG, etc all get to the point that they have scattered the pellets to the other part of the pond with their wave action, the GC very deliberately and slowly manage to grab each and every remaining pellet that the other fish and turtles have left for them, all in a very graceful and slow surfacing with just enough movement to see them, so long and oddly graceful, and while the CC will not bother with single pellets and the BG and other fish are busy with the stuff close in, they are very content to pick off singles one at a time.
I know I should remove some or all of them ( I have NO vegetation and never did, please don't ask me why I got them in the first place, I already feel stupid enough for all the mistakes I have made ) and I have NO idea how they got so incredibly huge in such a short time considering I put them in years before I ever began feeding. They were 10-12 inches when planted, one of our Amish neighbors caught one on a worm ( no idea how that happened, never repeated in 7 years ) just about 18 months later and it was already 34 inches long and NOT skinny by a long shot. By the way, according to the Missouri information, they claim it is one of the best freshwater fish one can eat, so when asked if they could eat it I said sure. The next day they told me it was indeed the best fish they had ever eaten. Then again, they were usually very hungry
However, since they present no problems for me other than use up some of the nutrients and seem to perform a great service to me eating any food that would otherwise spoil, I suspect they are safe.
Well, that and I cannot catch them, cannot hit one with the crossbow, cannot find anything big enough to eat them, etc ..:)
