Ewest,
Several years ago I fed the fish at the main feeder dock at my other lake. No automatic feeders were active. The only source of food was my hand feeding.
About thirty minutes, maybe a little longer, I got in the boat and went fishing. I went to an island about 100 yards away and the first thing I caught a nice 12-16 ounce Coppernose with fish feed in her mouth. She had gorged on fish feed so much that some was actually falling out of her mouth as I was getting her in.
This taught me an interesting and valuable lesson on how fish become trained to eat, the distances they will eagerly travel for feed, and that they can leave one place, go eat, and then return to same spot from which they left. That fish could not see the spot she left 100 yards away, so something else guided, and all the others, too.
It taught me that you don't have to have feeders scattered all around the lake in order to feed most of the lake population (relating to my 10 acre lake). It also taught me that all the fish that are in the feeding frenzy at the dock are not living right there all the time either.
One other thing to mention, sort of as a sidelight, to illustrate the value of feed and how readily bluegill will adapt to it...once bluegill have gotten used to fish feed, it becomes obvious that they soon prefer it over aquatic bugs and even crickets.
One of the joys of my life is feeding fish (and wildlife) and watching them eat. So, when I hand feed, I usually throw out a lot. When the fish are eating as aggressively as the ones shown in the video you can then start throwing out pieces of loaf bread. In a few days they will eat the bread eagerly too. Then you can start holding a slice of bread in the water and the fish can't resist investigating, and then they will get close enough to start pecking at it. Before long you will literally have them eating out of your hand. That is a great little trick for kids; they just love it.
Don AKA "Bill"
