Cecil: TyW33 found this site.
www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Hiodon&speciesname=alosoides and it gives an excellent summary of this species. The Canadians call it the tarpon of the north and Winnepig smoked goldeye is considered one of the best eating fish ever.
Most people consider a game fish one that is easy to clean and cook. Fish that must be smoked, baked, pickled etc. to get rid of bones are considered rough fish. Goldeyes are boney.
I'm 99% sure the SMB were raised in a sand pit by a minnow dealer that fed them minnows, sticklebacks etc. They are very inquisitive and would readily take dead minnows on top of the water. They just took the pellets like they took dead minnows.
Most of the LMB were also raised by the same dealer in a sand pit. The rest came from Arkansas and I don't know how they were raised. This was in 2001. They didn't appear to be pellet raised but appeared to be copying the SMB.
It seems like the readiness to take dead minnows floating on the water was the key to how fast they converted to pellets. When I get a feeding frenzy going with dead minnows, I mix in some pellets. Fish accidently get a pellet and then seem to convert to them slowly.
The one species I thought would convert to pellets easily are rock bass. I'm going to put some in a cage with feed trained bluegills and see if I can get them started.
