Bill D I cant answer your question but the main advantage for smaller fish when there are larger fish around is that with the pellets small enough to fit in their mouth they actually get some before the larger fish clean it up.
After originally stocking my fish all the feed I knew about or was availavle locally was catfish pellets. Way too big for my fish but they would work at the pellets till they softened up and eventually get them eaten. Now with the large fish that have grown up competing with any small fish, the small ones don't stand a chance. I can see them hit the hard pellet then watch a larger fish gobble it up. Which goes along with what Dave says. Once the pellets are hydrated the small fish can get away with a mouth full before the pellet disappears into a big fish mouth.
With feed that has multiple pellet sizes, the larger fish will target the larger pellets as long as there are any. Then turn their attention to any remaining small pellets.
The AM 400 I have fed I would throw very close to the bank where the small BG hang out, as I threw the regular feed out in deep water. I normally feed moving along the bank. If I would stop in one spot to feed and observe for a while, the CC would go after the big pellets but if I fed enough of the tiny 400 they eventually would be right up there in shallow water cleaning up what the 3" BG had not got to. Funny seeing 2# CC hoovering up all the BB size pellets they could try to capture in their mouths at once. The CC loved that AM400.
I would think fusiform feed pellets should have the same effect as fusiform forage fish ie the targeted fish could eat a larger pellet. But that is just in my minds eye, no research at all.
Last edited by snrub; 01/07/17 07:56 AM.
