Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations possible cage raised res solution?

there has been discussion here before about cage raised res not doing well since they don't take to feed well. i was in tractor supply the other day and saw an 11 lb bag of dried meal worms. the volume would have been about the size of a 30-40lb bag of regular fish feed. reckon the res would take to the meal worms? i doubt the dried worms will sink, but does that matter? will res est from the surface?

my friend has the 30 plus acre quarry that he is kinda bucket stocking at this point. he thinks he has a small area he can net off and would like to add raise res until they are old enough to release and survive predation.

i would also like to try a few in my cage to see what happens.

I use meal worms frequently for conditioning fish, including Redear Sunfish indoors, and chickens. The freeze dried meal worms vary greatly and are not reliable enough as a feed. Live are good but too expensive.

What I have been doing with Redear caged in ponds is put a shade over the cage. Try that for a couple of weeks to see if feed intake improves. Shade can be some floating on water surface.

i had an old timer tell me about a pond he fished that had a barrel of corn hanging over the pond. it had holes cut in it so the corn could get wet. he said once it soured the maggots would be plentiful and constantly falling in the water. sounds nasty, but might work.
my friend with the quarry is thinking about a deer carcass hanging up over his proposed res area.