Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Winter fish feeding

What time of the year should I stop feeding the catfish and bluegill in our East Texas pond?

What time of year do your water temps drop below 55 degrees?

I'd feed as long as they're eating. Here in Illinois they generally quit feeding on pellets in my pond at some point in the fall/early winter.

My pond is down to 57 F.. They are down to 1/3 of the food they take in warm weather

Interesting. How far south in Indiana are you? Mine are still eating nearly the same amount but they aren't attacking it like they did. They seem to drift up slowly and take the pellets but I do see less of the larger ones.

Here in Ontario we have stopped feeding all ready.

Cheers Don.

jimmyc, observation will let you know what amount of food, if any, to throw. I love my feeders, but I'll change the frequency and duration of throw constantly throughout the year.

I've even seen changes to feeding when the CNBG are spawning.

Water temp in my part of south central Illinois for me has dropped from around 63 to 57 in the last week. Saturday I stopped using my fish feeders because I have been observing very little surface activity. I ran a small amount of food into the lake Saturday to get all of the feed out of the feeder. A couple of friends were fishing for bluegill in a boat on the pond at the time and had been having very little luck. After I emptied the feeder they eventually got around to fishing the area where I had just spread food. They had great luck catching about 20 bluegill between them in about 15 minutes. They did not observe any surface activity before going to that area. Seems like the fish might still be going in to feed but not making much of a commotion. The feed was a combination of Aquamax 500 & 600.

I am just south of Lake Monroe (Bloomington area). So into southern third. I mostly see smaller ones feeding. Few big attacks on floating feed. The feed can get blown well across the pond before being eaten. Like others, been changing times and amounts during this transitions time. Used to feed at 6:30am.. but this weekend I ended up at 8:30- let the sun get up.

I'm a lot further south so our temp has not dropped as much here yet, but have noticed the larger BG are not near as aggressive as they were. Also noticed the small fish tend to be hungry about any time, where the larger fish are slowing down on the feed.

I guess the little guys have to pack on all the weight they can before winter to have any hope for survival.

55 F is a good temp to stop feeding BG. They may feed a little lower and there is some local adaptation.

I stop at 50.