NEDOC - to what do you attribute your better results at hand feeding the muskie this year? Experience? Anything that you are doing slightly different at the beginning of the feed training?
Bill I think there are a few things that may be impacting the situation....
1) Bruce kept them in his basement both winters. The first batch he simply threw fatheads in and let them eat enough to survive. This second batch he began feeding them worms on alligator clips much like I did in the cages last summer. So they had a head start on feeding as they were engaged in our system of feeding 3-4 months sooner.
2) This season we have nearly double the number of fish in the same number of cages. So they are twice as crowded as last year. I believe they have learned from each other, or from observing more repetitions of other fish feeding. Or maybe it just creates more competition and increases aggressiveness.
3) I've kept more water flowing through my grow out pond this season. I believe my water temps stay in the upper 60s or lower 70s, whereas last year it reached lower 80s several times. I think they became a bit lethargic at those temps.
4) I only feed them every 2-3 days as that seems like the amount of time it takes for them to digest a chunk of tilapia that is usually 5-15% of their body weight. Last year I was feeding them every day. At times it just seemed like I couldn't force them to eat, in reality they probably just weren't hungry. So I think it gives me the perception they are trained better. In reality they are just hungrier and more aggressive.
I'll try to get video of their aggressive feeding. The other night I dropped a tilapia strip on the wire mesh lid of the cage. One of the TM jumped 6" out of the water and hit the lid trying to get to the tilapia. Yikes!! The next step in my journey is attempting to release them into my grow out pond and see if I can keep them on tilapia. One of them escaped and I haven't been able to get him to take fillet strips. I'm going to add slip bobbers above the alligator clips and possibly add an auditory signal (ringing a bell?) during feeding time to create stronger association that may help correlation to feeding so that I can release them into a bigger body of water and keep them on tilapia. Any ideas and suggestions how to do that are appreciated!
