Brett- I'm not sure what Ryan did, but I purchased normal LMB, not the pellet trained. Not sure if this is helpful, but this is what has transpired on our pond. LMB were stocked in the fall of 2006. The next summer we started buying cheap dog food and throwing out hand fulls for fun. I think the the cats were the only ones eating the stuff, but can't be 100% certain. This spring we bought two AquaPro75 feeders and started feeding them AquaMax600. Additionally, the person building our cabin has been throwing in two buckets (two in the AM, two in the PM) of food. The cabin has both sides surrounded by 20' strips of gravel, so lots of LMB and BG hang out in this area. What I've noticed is in the beginning an occasional bass would come up and hit the stuff, but still it was mostly cats. Then after a month or so, the bass would be the first to hit the food (they pretty much hit it in less than 10 seconds after hitting the surface). After about 30 seconds, the cats would come in and push the bass out.

Of the two buckets we throw out, one bucket consists of the cheaper Purina Catfish food. This bucket we throw as far out as we can to get the cats started feeding first. Next, we throw in the AquaMax600 close to the cabin in smaller amounts (maybe split into thirds). This way it doesn't sit on the surface that long and the LMB can gobble it up quickly.

We've done this all spring and summer. Last week I noticed that now if you throw in two full buckets of AquaMax, the bass and cats are hitting the stuff and the bass no longer let let the cats push them out. In fact, it's mostly bass now that are feeding off the cabin.

We tried to have a catfish fry last weekend and caught 10+ bass before we caught a single cat! We were using the AquaMax pellets for bait. Probably need to switch to liver......

The reason we got the feeders was that I purchased 225 HSB this spring and wanted to get them feeding off the fish feeders. I had no idea the LMB would take to it. Ironically, I've yet to see a single HSB.

Scott

Last edited by Scott Krehbiel; 09/16/08 09:50 AM.