i do some supplemental feeding by hand. here's my experience (at least as it relates to bass). i have about 7 bass in the pond that are on the supplemental program. one of these, "spot" (named for a little pigment spot on her side) is an absolute cinder block of a bass - 7 lbs. 5 oz. at 21" long last time i caught her. i'll leave the relative weight calculations to the experts, and just say that she is very fat and well fed. she is the both the easiest and hardest to catch fish in the pond. i'll explain. when you begin to feed fish, they change their perception of human presence. drive up a noisy truck and tromp carelessly around a pond full of wild fish and you will see them dart away from the bank like their tails are on fire. do the same in a pond full of "pet" fish that are artificially fed by hand and the fish will beat a path to you and park right at your feet waiting on you to start slinging food. spot is no different. she is wating on me at the side of the pond along with her buddies before i even get my truck in park. she knows it's time to eat.
since spot and her buddies have changed their approach to me, if i want to catch them, i have to change my approach to them. i can cast spinnerbaits, crankbaits, plastics, you name it, past any one of them and run the lure seductively within an inch of their nose and they will simply turn to avoid the lure as if to say, "c'mon quit messing around and feed us already." however, i can take the same lures and pitch the baits right at their noses and the baits are devoured before they even have a chance to get wet. why? because in the first scenario, i was trying to make them bite the bait. in the second, i was feeding it to them.
i don't know a lot about fish feeders, but i'll try to draw a parallel. i'm sure that feeders make some type of noise and vibration when they are activated, even without food in them. i'd be willing to bet that fish get conditioned to these noises and vibrations as a positive stimuli associated with food and respond to them the same way they respond to someone in a truck pulling up to hand feed. i'd almost be willing to bet that if you turn on the feeders for a few seconds without food in them (if this won't damage anything) you can catch fish around them.
to me, there is no sport in catching pet fish. that's why i try to keep most of the fish in the pond on live forage like bluegill or shiners. fish that are stuffed on live forage are hard to catch, but there's a lot of satisfaction in it when you do catch one.
i guess that's one of the tough decisions all pond owners have to make. if you want impressive fish, stock lots of forage or feed supplementally in large quantity. downside? the fish will be harder to catch. if you want easy-to-catch fish, understock forage or underfeed with supplemtal sources. downside? you won't get very many impressive pictures.
of course there are certain things you can do when fishing a pond that will dramatically increase your chances of catching ANY bass, regardless of how well fed they are.
Last edited by jignpig; 05/16/12 10:28 PM.
