In the bass pond I'm still finding an occasional bluegill and smallmouth either fugus covered, floating bloated, or laying on the bottom. Bluegills seemed to have taken it the worst. I'm finding a few largemouths like this too but very few.
In that same pond I'm feeding a few hundred largemouths every day now that are eating ravinously. Some have a little fungus on them -- primarily a small area of the fins, but not bad enough that they won't recover from it.
My theory is the fish that are not pellet fed are overcrowded and have overeaten their food supply, which allowed them to go into winter with low energy reserves. Additionally I believe they were stressed by super chill conditions caused by low temps and high winds that would not allow ice cover to form which actually insulates water temps a little. Extensive chara as reduced maximum depths so that may be a factor also.
Trout in the trout pond are doing great feeding twice a day. I will be starting up the well pump as soon as today, as even though water temps are not that high yet, I want to keep ammonia flushed out of the pond. And since the trout pond is overflowing into the perch pond I don't want to get the perch pond water temps high enough where when I do start the pump there is a sudden drop in water temp of the perch pond.
Bluegill in bluegill pond are feeding well on pellets just before dark. I lost a few of them this winter too but that seems to have stopped.
The 55 Perch in new pond that I just transferred a couple of weeks ago are feeding more and more on pellets. About 10 have dropped their egg strands. I started them out on rehydrated pellets ala Bill Cody's recipe.
