FishingRod,

I believe ML10's observation about the stomach contents provides useful information. Less than 6% of those caught and cleaned had prey in their stomachs.

To be sure, his LMB in the 8" to 12" sizes are not consuming daily. If they were, the observation rate of prey in the stomach contents would be higher. But these LMB were being maintained and probably growing slowly. What is happening in conditions like this is that the LMB are feeding every second, third, or possibly even 4th day (on average). Most of the LMB had already evacuated their infrequently consumed meals. How often they feed depends on how large the prey is and how difficult it is to consume that size prey. But obviously, the prey is predominately larger than can be consumed daily at the current density. Also in part it depends on their needs to grow at potential. They will consume more to a limit (max individual growth) if prey is abundant and easy to consume.

So two things are going to go into the realized number of prey consumed for a given density of LMB ... First, the density of prey. Second, difficulty of the prey to be captured. So the first determines how many opportunities an LMB will have daily to capture prey ... the second determines the success rate of those opportunities. When the product of those two falls below 1 ... it takes more than one day to consume 1 prey.

So consider the energy needs of one average cull ... a 10" LMB. This need can be looked at two ways. One is maintenance ... the other is the satiation ration (what it takes to support that LMB's individual potential for growth). That 10" LMB needs to consume 2.5% of its body weight daily to maintain it's weight today in nearby Tylertown, MS. The same 10" LMB needs to consume 6.1% of its body weight daily to grow at average potential (NLMB). If that 10" LMB were consuming the maintenance ration daily in 1 prey item ... The length of the BG Consumed would be right at 2.68" ... Or ... just a little over 1/4 the Length of the LMB. If those sizes of BG were abundant enough to maintain the 10" LMB ... at least 30% or perhaps a little over 50% of the LMB would have prey evident in the stomachs. If they were consuming 1/4 length prey and growing at average potential ... it would be very uncommon to remove an LMB without prey evident in the stomach contents.

Clearly, the poor conditioned LMB that are being culled are consuming prey that are larger than 1/4 the length of the LMB.

Back to Bill's question. The 1.5" to 2.5" BG must be in very short supply. I think ML could confirm this. I mentioned it last Fall and I know it was unwelcome then ... but I assure everyone ... my heart is in the right place and my intention is to help ... even if I don't currently have a pond.