JW. I have a similar situation as yours in terms of pond size and types of fish. My fish were born in the spring of 2003 and 1000 BG stocked in the fall of 2003. So they are 3 years old and I fed about 150# of equamax last year. The majority of my fish are well over 8 inches long with most over 9 inches and some at 10 inches. At this size they are over 3/4 pound. I think the growth in your pond is going to be highly dependent on the availability of natural foods as well as pellets. Let's face it, we call pellet feed supplemental feeding because that's just what it is in a pond. Unlike growing a fish in a tank there is no way even in a 1/2 acre pond that you can make sure that the majority of fish are being fed. The availability of natural food is going to depend a lot on the fertility of the pond but I also believe for larger fish which eat larger forage it is also important to have a lot of cover in your pond to grow forage. My pond is very odd shaped and thus has a lot of shoreline for its size. I also make a point never to trim vegetation growth from the edge of the pond. Either water plants, shore grasses, or woody plants such as willow and dogwood. These all grow out into the water to some degree and provide habitat for forage. I've noticed that my fish eat much more pellet food from ice out thru June. I am currently feeding about 2# per day. Then starting in July they eat much less but they continue to grow fat and healthy. I think they are getting much more natural food later in the summer as forage begins to mature. One clue that they are getting a lot of natural food is the simple feed conversion forumula. I have always read that it takes only 2 pounds of feed to produce a 1 pound fish. If this is true I currently have about 750# of fish in my pond for which I have only contributed about 300# of feed. Somehow they've managed to find another 1200# of forage that I didn't provide. JW, I'll send you an email and we can compare notes off forum. Oh, and Russ, you are absolutely correct about engineers so I'm not ever going to try.
