Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Food sources

Why dont the bass and the hybrids feed on these more often? Could I be hurting my fish by feeding them pellets. It seems that they congregate around the feeders and leave the bait fish alone. These shad and other bait fish are in the pond by the millions you would think that the fish would be getting really fat.

They are eating more than pellets. Pellets are easier and as a result add more energy for the effort.

And the fact that you see them eat the pellets, but most bass feed in the morning and at night so you never see them feed.

Is there a down side to having so much forage?

Makes it harder to catch the fish you're trying to catch cause they aren't hungry...

Watch your carrying capacity.

I have a question? We very rarely catch small bass that were not stocked which makes me think that the recruitment for bass is low. Would you think that it could be due to the high numbers of shad and shiners eating the eggs out of the nests? We also very rarely catch bass that are not around the feeders. Eric I am concerned about the carrying capacity also we are on a mission to remove catfish. This weekend we removed over 120lbs with rod and reel. I would like to set trotlines but the feed trained bass will eat the catfish bait and tend to die on a trotline. My goal is to remove at least two hundred pounds of catfish per month.

Each of the circles in the picture is a school of shad and it looks like this all the way around the pond.

Ths your problem!120lbs of catfish in just 2 days is alot. Take out all/most the catfish and see how the bass are after that.

just bought a catfish trap that can hold 200 catfish at a time. I am starting to really get it but removing this many is not so easy

James man you are worrier aren't you. That is what you want to see my man. I think Bob has said this or maybe it was DD1 but bass shodul be abel to open moutnh and have a fish siwm in, you are getting close to that.

Yes the shiners could be limting bass recuirtment. Also if you have some monster size cats they can limit recuirtment as well. What is current Wr?

Also CJ this has been discussed but not sure a fat healthy bass is less likely to bite than a skinny hungry one, arguements on each side.

keep pulling cats.

I have a client doing the same- what are you baiting the traps with?

Greg, it is actually "A bass should be able to go to sleep with its mouth open and wake up with a full belly".

James, I seriously doubt any harm would come of the WR if you turned off your feeders and forced a reduction in your Biomass. I have nothing to back that up with other than you have a tremendous amount of forage available.

One concern would be fish you want ON feed going off of it.

A shock boat can work wonders on both selective harvest and biomass reduction.

I just ordered the catfish net from the internet. It is some kind of commercial hoop net that is supposed to be able to hold 200 three pound catfish at a time. The seller had all kinds of suggestions for baiting it such as cattle cubes, weenies, corn, etc. if it does fill up with that many fish I will have to use the front end loader to lift it. I baited a rod and reel with some of the shad just to see if anything was eating them and I caught some catfish and some bass. So I guess they are eating some of the shad but they are probably not as easy as the pellets.