Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Coppernose Bluegill eating commercial fish feed

Hi everyone,

I just added several more videos to my "home" thread here,

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=303166#Post303166

The latest video is one showing Coppernose bluegull eating. I hope this will encourage and motivate those who are considering building a lake, or stocking Coopernose, and would like to know how well they will eat fish food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQDdkvK6Bb8&feature=youtube_gdata

Check out my "home" thread (listed above) for more fish and lake management videos.

Don

Cool video, thanks for sharing, how big is the average gill? How big is the pond? Actually might be going down to reelfoot next June for some bg fishing, but like you said some of the biggest I've caught are from ponds or private water.

Don nice vid. That is a lot of hungry mouths to feed. Looked like they came from a good distance to get there. I noticed you had a few white/very light fish in the bunch. I see that here as well. Even some of our RES join in the feeding.

I'm jealous of Video 9.

That footage was taken at the lake that has had a probelm seeping down every year (from the leaky lake threads). I hope we got that fixed this year, but I can't tell for sure in hot weather because all lakes are dropping a little due to evaporation.

The size is around five acres. It was stocked with Coppernose bluegill, shellcrackers, and black crappie in February of 2009. I know that almost all agencies advise against stocking crappie in anything less that about 300 acres. But I've done it several times and have never had a problem. In fact, I stocked my other lake with black crappie 20 years ago and today we don't catch many crappie there. I have a good population of bass and that has worked well for me to keep the crappie population down. The crappie we do catch are nice ones, so that lets me know that the black crappioe strain from the early 1990s is still alive, well, and reproducing.

I had so much trouble building that crappie population up, that when I re-stocked the lake in this feeding video I did not add bass. I decided to wait three years so the crappie could get at least one good spawn before I added bass. So, in the video you see a lot of 1-2-3 year old bluegill that have never seen a bass. Their population has never been thinned. At my other lake the bluegill don't gang up like this to feed, moving in huge schools. At the older lake we see big bass literally knocking bluegill out of the water while the bluegill are in their feeding frenzy.

I did some "single line sampling" a couple of times this spring to see how my crappie are doing in the "new" lake shown in this video. Everything looks good. I caught handsize and somewhat larger crappie and also fingerlings, so I know they spawned. I plan to add bass this coming Spring. I barely missed it on camera, but a nice crappie swirled as I made the video, but he wasn't in the camera field of view. That would have shown the largest and oldest crappie class in the lake. It also makes me suspect that a select few crappie might actually eat some of the feed. OR...the feed might be drawing baitfish that I can't see, such as the small fatheads. If they are drawn in to eat the small feed crumbs then the crappie might be moving in to snap them up.

I loved doing that video, and had the right lighting to show the huge schools of Coppernose that come to feed.

Don AKA "Bill"

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"

Don how much do you feed in 10 acre lake per week.I am amazed that your water is so clear. I am afraid to feed over 20 lbs. per week. My back pond is a gravel pit with no water shed and fed only by underground springs. The water is usually green and you can only see in water a few inches at best.This year is better because it flooded last year. Do you have tfs in lake. i would feed more if i was'nt afraid of fish kill. the pond is down 39 inches this summer but this is pretty normal.I would love to have CNBG like you do.I will see how they do in the next couple of years. you have an awesome setup.

I do not know if CNBG would survive in VA....

Can you explain what you mean to a rookie?
How would feeding cause a "fish kill"?

This pond has had TFS in it since i bought it in 2003 they are not supposed to live this far north either. I suspect they live around the underground streams in pond. That water is 58 degrees. I stocked 700 CNBG in front gravelpit last fall and they lived thru a mild winter. This pond had TFS in it until fish kill 2 years ago. I put 40 TFS in it from back pond and they did great. This is why i think CNBG may live this far north. Otherwise i will be out 250 bucks. the reason i don't feed more is that i am afraid of nutrients building up so much i will have a fish kill. I am a rookie my self. heck i can't figure out the opposite sex much let a hole of water. I may get smarter about both as i am only 62 but i wouldn't bet the farm on it.

While CNBG may well live they may not reach their potential in mid states locations. Some regular BG to hedge your bet might be wise.

I already have large bg in the back pond. I would like the CNBG to get 5 inches before stocking in back pond. I don't know if they will thrive but will keep you'll posted the next couple of years. It may not work out. My next project will be YP as the bass have eaten nearly all of the ones that came in spring flood of 2004. Travis thought my son caught a white catfish 2 weeks ago. If true that would be 19 species in this pond. You never know what you are going to catch if you use live bait.

I'd like a few albino cats in my pond.
How big was the one your son caught?

The water in the video is clear because I quit fertilizing during the heat wave. I ran the well alot, which also accounts for the clear water. It was also cooler and oxygenated. This was more important than having fertilizer and more plant and small aquatic life starting. I'm sure fertilizer does what they say it does (start the food chain) but I never thought it helped fish more than by feeding them. I like it best because it puts a green tint to the water, which is good for fishing. I've experienced how fertilizing can really help a lake, and also how it can sometimes hurt.

I have two feeders that you can see in the video. Each is set to feed twice around 8 am, about 15 minutes apart. They are both set to feed again one time late in the afternoon. Each feeding time is for 20 seconds, so each feeder runs for one full minute every day. I'd guess that puts out 50 pounds per feeder, per week.

I'm not sure if the feeder running for 7 continuous minutes would empty out a full sack of feed or not, but it seems like it would (amount of time the feeder runs in a week). I think it is safe to say that I feed at least 50 pounds per feeder, 100 pounds per lake, per week. When I hand feed, it's probably double that. I do go through a lot of feed, but I've never seen it hurt as long as you don't feed more than they will eat in about ten minutes. Mine eat so fast that after the 20 second feed-slinging cycle is over the feed is gone in just a few seconds.

Sometimes I come home and check them and the motor has been running correctly, but the feed chute has clogged and basically nothing has been fed out for a few days. I can usually tell if this happens before I check the feeder, just by observing the fish that come flocking in and how they behave when I get to the dock.

When I hand feed, which is about half the time, I feed one full five gallon bucket at the feeder dock in the video, about 3/4 of a five gallon bucket at the other feeder dock, and the remaining 1/4 bucket at the concrete boat ramp in the back, to the right, shown in some of the videos, where a lot of small fish and fingerling hang out.

For some reason the feeder dock in this video has just always held more and bigger fish than the other one, so I feed them more there. I think that may also have started a "chicken and egg" cycle....the more fish that are there, the more feed I put out, and the more feed I put out....etc.....

If you want to really do it right, feed them all they will eat, every day.

Don AKA "Bill"

Zep it was 3 to 4 lbs. According to travis it is only catfish native to this area. When i first saw it i knew it was different as it had a flathead mouth and forked tail of a channel. when i looked up flathead on google the first source said flatheads and channels could cross breed. I thought big flathead had his way with one of my cnannel maidens. I thought i had escaped this behavior when my bride and i left mountains under cover of darkness. albino cats are channel cats i think. The fish wagon had some pretty ones this spring. I wait for the Mattaponi river to stock mine. I do take out between 125 -150 lbs. per acre of catfish each year. They are biting like crazy right now. I will try to get Travis to post picture of it.I know about all i will about computer and it does not include posting pictures. If i still had my prostate i still would not know how to turn computer on.