Gollon's SMB are raised on pellets but "weaned off?" to FHM about a month before stocking.
Gollons supplies fish including walleye for stocking in public bodies of water. My Indiana DNR purchased walleye from them. It's preferred they are not on pellets so they adapt better to a wild diet. At least that's the thinking.
I just hydrated some pellets and dropped them into the cage a few at a time. They're fairly visible and at least some of them seem to disappear about about a foot or two down as if they were inhaled. The water is so dark from the Aquashade it's possible they may not even see the floating pellets if they are in the bottom of the cage about four feet down.
I also have a theory that they are keyed in on sinking feed. The supplier sold me a bag of feed that was slightly larger than what he had been feeding them previously. (Silver Cup) He said it should not be too big. My guess is the previous smaller size was probably sinking. Since he has them in shallow tanks now they don't have to come up far for pellets either.
