Update time.

I'm going to say that mixing pureed bluegill with the Jr. pellets was a success in getting the RES that were trained on Starter #3 last summer transitioned to eating the larger sized Jr. pellets.

I did that for a couple weeks and then spent another two weeks cutting back on the BG paste until I was feeding straight up dry Jr. pellets.

I've fed out the first bag of Jr. and have started on the 2nd bag.

Many of the RES in my pond will readily take pellets from the surface now, even at high noon on a bluebird day, but based purely on observation most of them still prefer to take a pellet that sinks.

I dropped in a little dart head jig with a black rubber thing on it this evening to see if I could pull one out for measurements, and found one that was willing to cooperate.

8.5", 6.70oz Nice, healthy-looking, stocky fish, and not even close to the biggest that I've seen.

Probably could have pulled a few of the better ones with a piece of nightcrawler, but I'm not wanting to make them hook-shy.

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I have another 50 or so that I've trapped caged up and in training now. The first of them to go in the cage earlier in the summer are pushing 4" now, and are shining examples for the yoy that I've been trapping for the last 30 days or so. It doesn't take the little ones long to figure it out when there are a few in there to show them how it's done. I feed the Jr. pellets until the bigger ones start to lose interest, then toss in a pinch or two of the Starter #3 for the little guys.