Well done.
Question on the LED light. How many watts? is it green only?
I found when I ran the LED lights the bugs were attracted then the perch would nip them off the top of the water. The light makes great sense for training.
This is the DockPro 6200 from Fishing Lights Etc. It is 65w, and green only. It plugs into 120v and comes with a 36v outdoor transformer. They do have other 12v light options available in green, white, and both, but solar for charging the battery was pretty high compared to running a leg of 120v to the pond.
I do have to pull the light out and clean it twice a week to keep the aufwuchs and calcium scaling off.
Yellow Perch are what you call positively phototaxic...meaning they are attracted to light at night time. This is probably a feeding characteristic for using the moon to highlight bugs and small fish on the surface and being able to sneak up under them and capture the prey.
This technique certainly has low success rates for the overall number of fish on pellets, but it's a lot less involved than traditional pond/tank/pond feed training. There is also a lot of waste feed on the bottom for several weeks, likely causing some nutrient, water quality, and DO issues (and probably smothering out that section of the soil-water interface)....so use caution and understand what this means to your particular pond if you go this route.
