Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Evaluating New Pond and New Fish

I am not quite sure how to model the winter. One approach I have thought of is to take excess consumption and model it as a proportion of maintenance. For example, in modeling the consumption required of 9" growing to 13" I found LMB must have been consuming (IIRC) almost 4 times maintenance. On the coldest days this was in the neighborhood of 2% of body weight daily. At the edges of the 6 month period the water was warmer and they were estimated to consume 6% of body daily. Perhaps a good way to model winter should be based the excess consumption as a proportion of maintenance which is length dependent. Big Big fish do not consume large excesses over maintenance even in summer. A good rule of thumb? Consuming twice the maintenance ration for a year will double its weight. So imagine a 12 lbs bass doing that and growing to 24 lbs. Can't and won't happen because they will not eat that much. They get food drunk like after a thanksgiving dinner (you know where all the relatives are leaning back on the couch with mouths open and snoring). Or something like it. Big fish won't double in weight but a 2 lb LMB can and will if it consumes enough.


I have mentioned this before. I only have 1 winter anecdote. I did use that to make a maximum consumption estimate assuming your fish were 9" on September 30. So I do think the potential is there to have fish >2 lbs on May 31 next year. As long as there is plenty of forage in their optimum forage window ... I see that as a done deal. Your fish's performance over the 6 months beginning 9.30 will be another reference point for us. Just keep in mind that you have a greater number of them and they will be heavier than they were in my anecdote. It will take more forage for sure. If they feed to repletion we should gain knowledge of maximum rates of growth at your location. One way to be sure of that is to supplement a fair proportion of what I earlier estimated was necessary just to be sure that enough of the right sized forage is there.