Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - LMB Are Remarkable Converters of Fish

I came across this little gem of a 55 year old paper some time ago but only recently have had the time to do a thorough review.

Thanks for doing the work, jpsdad! We so often overlook past research because it happened years ago, a sort of chronological snobbery that fallaciously assumes recency equals quality. Well done.

It will take several more readings for me to "assimilate" all the data, but one immediate conclusion is that artificial fish food, even with good levels of fish meal, is not a perfect substitute for the real thing, at least for LMB. Valuable supplement, but not a replacement if growth is to be maximized. The fishy food chain must be maintained! I do wonder if similar conclusions would be true of BG, HSB, and RBT.

But what about the calories expended to catch the prey, such as GAMs? Floating pellets don't require much effort to consume, which I always thought was a big advantage.

One thing that jumps out at me is the age of the study (55 years) and the light years that the fish food industry has changed.

What was the length of those LMB? Weight was from 0.716g to 19.24g.

How does the caloric content of a gam compare to a BG? Since Gams are a very small fish (common length average is 3.9 cm) they would only fit in a narrow window of a LMB lifespan as optimal feed. (4.5" - 8.25" in length)

Since they dried the fish to weigh them, we'd need to add water back to the fish to see how they compare to artificial feed since the LMB aren't eating dried fish.

You read my mind!

One of my experiments this year was to try over-wintering some fish to determine how much I would have to upgrade equipment to be successful.

Gams kept in an unaerated little beta fish tank and fed fish flakes - SURVIVED!

Gams kept in a 40-gallon aerated tank with two pellet-fed yellow bullheads - DECEASED! (And mysteriously disappeared.)

I still plan to try and build a few new ponds at my place when we can get ahead on the family budget. I think I will try a gams experiment instead of FHM as the starting forage on one of the ponds.

Unfortunately, based on the rains of the last three years at my place, then a dune buggy race track may be the only feasible recreational project.

Yes, we have 100 acres of dry land wheat planted in most years. The modern cultivars are damned impressive! Our average rainfall is about 30" per year, but we have been in a persistent drought and our creek quit running this fall. Yet we still planted winter wheat in October.

It is still so dry at our place that I have poison ivy along our barbed wire fence lines in full sun that has not yet leafed out. However, the wheat managed to access every bit of soil moisture and looks decent!

We also have 115 acres of native tall grass prairie that a neighbor cuts and bales for his cattle. It is greening up, but is very short for this date. I think the survival trait of those grasses is to barely grow during a drought and to retain energy in the deep roots and just wait for when the rains finally come.

We did get 0.45 inches last night, so that should help all of our various plants!

Glad to hear you got some rain! That your cultivars survive severe drought is remarkable, and encouraging. I always get a chuckle about how some folks rant & rave about GMO crops, not realizing how much we depend on that, whether by crossbreeding or genetic engineering. Heck, we pondmeisters do the same when we buy HSB, HBG, Tiger Muskie, or Tiger Bass!

Also, your crop probably benefits from rising atmospheric CO2 levels. It's well established that most plants need to open their stoma less in CO2 enriched environments, thus losing less water to evaporation. One reason why the deserts are greening.

If I get a good rain in September, I’ll plant wheat for deer. It helps get them through winter and gives me a couple places to hunt.

Providing the hogs don't eat it all before the deer get a taste of it.

FishingRod,

I think that a combination of minnows would be better than either alone. In particular, the FHM begin reproducing earlier and the GAM reproduce in the hot weather when FHM stop spawning. So my sense is that the combination is better.

You're most welcome, Frank.

One possibly relevant observation from HSB and LMB pellet feeding: When dealing with small pellets they greatly prefer to swallow multiples. BG, even the largest, are okay slurping down a single 1/4 inch pellet, but not the big boys. Pellet groups of 3 or more floating together are much more attractive for large predators!

This behavior may carry over toward GAM and FHM, thus making the energy costs of consumption less onerous than usually assumed.