I shut my TH feeder down for the winter this past mid-November due to slow activity bordering on inactivity. I filled it with Cargill 4512 (Triton) and cranked it back up yesterday afternoon, set to go off at 5:00. The fish picked it up within a minute of it going off. What really surprised me was this morning before the 7:00 a.m. feeding, that the fish were popping the water 10-15 mins. before the feeder went off. It was quite a noticeable pellet intake increase from the day before. Leads me to believe they have some sort of sensory thing going on. Anybody else feeding yet? I've never pellet fed as early as mid-February before, but if the warm weather persists, we should be ready for a good spawn soon.

Charlie
Glad you got your feeder going. I have to go see Todd and get some 4512 in 1/8" and 1/4" to mix. This next front will slow things down for a few days I would think, but then it's on! Can't wait for your LEGS to spawn!

yep, i have mine fired up 2 times a day. i would feed more but i am low on food. i have a couple of bags of optimal ordered.

I never stopped feeding all winter. Coldest my water ever got was 50.5 and that was on a day that was 27 degrees.My fish fed every day.Just today the wife and I caught over 50 cnbg and many of them were over 1/2 pound.They were stocked at 1 inch almost exactly 1 year ago. Many are over 8 inch long.Average relative weight today was about 115-118 percent. We are very pleased. These are OTS cnbg from Overton's. This is on a 2 acre pond.

I rarely cut the feeders off this winter myself. There was just a week or two that my water temp dropped below 50, and it has been in the 60's for several weeks now. I did hand feed the HSB daily though.

Currently, I'm running 2 late afternoon 3 second throws, and my CNBG are eating very well.

This past two winters, I tried to feed everyday with the TH feeders. I did shut it down for one week this winter because a lack of interest by the fish, but decided to start it back up and within a week or so the cnbg were back feeding again. Water temp never reached below 51 this winter. I am now feeding with a total of 16 seconds from 3 feeders right now.

Tracy

Wow you guys are so lucky. Looking at 6"s of ice still.

DonoBBD, That is beautiful!!

25"s of fresh snow that morning. IF you look really close I took it from my office window and you can see my white phone in the refection of the window.

Thanks Flame, its been the most full filling project for the family.

Don,
Wow, you could make a post card out of that pic. Gorgeous shot. We have a lot of issues in SE Texas, but ponds freezing over is not one of them...

Al,
Was curious as to why you hand fed your HSB? Were they in a different BOW than your CNBG? Different pellets or what?

I had ice on the water up in the shade on Friday. Only saw minnows around. Saturday was very warm for us, 60s. Saw some BG and they came up for a few pellets in the evening. On Sunday, I saw the first LMB of the year. They were out hunting. I threw a few pellets out and they just hung under the pellets to ambush. They're only 1 yr old, so still slim and eating small stuff. Nowhere near warm enough water to fire up the feeder, but great to see them come up after a the winter.

Charlie, I'm feeding 3/8" Skretting to the HSB, and since I only have 25 or so, I hate to dedicate a feeder to them. My larger CNBG are liking the Skretting too, so I might supplement our normal feedings and keep hand throwing larger fish food this year, and target those bigger CNBG as well.

IIRC, the larger Skretting is about 20 cents a pound more than the Cargill 1/4" pellets that I normally feed, but if I can target the larger fish, then maybe the overall poundage of food I feed may stay the same or drop a bit. I normally feed about 1,200-1,500 pounds of Cargill a year, but I think I can reduce those numbers with more selective feedings.

Mainly, I'm just trying to shake things up a little.

FireisHot, How large is your pond. I use Cargill on my 2 acre pond and just wanted to compare how much we are feeding.Think I fed 700 pounds total in my first year they were stocked as 1 inch babies.

Flame, my pond is 11 acres, and I have 2 TH feeders on it. I could probably feed more because the CNBG would sure eat it, but my self imposed fun budget, and desire to supplement but not totally replace natural CNBG forage comes into play.

Thank you FireisHot,I am using one TH feeder. My pond is new and I felt like there was and still not a lot of natural food for my cnbg. That is why I poured the feed to them this past year. I will introduce cblmb fingerlings this summer. Right now all I have is cnbg and res.

I'm ready for feeders to be turned on soon!!! I have 3 TH lake pro feeders to install soon and lots of Optimal has been ordered...

How far south in Indiana are you? I'm in Illinois just about 10 miles straight west of Vincennes Indiana and my fish are eating like it's summertime. This is the earliest I've ever seen them eat like that.

I'm near Bedford, S of Lake Monroe, but the pond is in a pretty wooded ravine in an area of rolling wooded hills. Stays fairly cool. Bottom water never got over 52F last summer even with top water in 70s. Will be different this year with aeration.
Fish are only 1 yr old, so don't know if they might behave differently than a mature ecosystem. Just glad they wintered ok, and starting to eat a bit. Not going to push them, the water is very green and still tons of minnows and late year spawn BG, so everyone has something to eat. Glad your fish are active tho!