My experience pretty well coincides with ML. I live 70 miles away, don't get there as often as I would like, don't use a feeder, and sometimes don't even get a chance to fish. Three ponds; 1.5 acre, 1 acre and 1/4 acre.
If I catch one catfish, the other ones quit coming to pellets for the day. It is fairly unusual, maybe even rare, to catch 2. If they see a red and white bobber, they will avoid it and usually quit feeding on pellets. Even live or cut bait and prepared dough baits like Catfish Charlie are avoided. Conditioned? Yep!
If I fish for BG, I can catch 7 or 8 before they get hook shy. However, they do keep coming to pellets.
At this time, I am bass heavy in the larger ponds due to drought. The BG were just too concentrated and were easy picking. The water was too turbid, due to exposed banks and the resulting suspended sand, to allow for a good BG spawn. I caught 7 bass yesterday, from one downed cedar tree, under 12 inches, and tossed them on the bank. I caught fve "tossers" from another pond. They were skinny. However, I got only one hit (I missed it) from a larger bass. Conditioned? Yep, I would say so. BTW, next weekend I will be trapping from a CNBG/Res heavy forage pond to somewhat replenish it.
Do pond fish become conditioned? In my experience, yes. They can quickly learn that there is a string attached to an easy meal.
