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Thanks for that additional info. (Which I kind of knew at a non-expert level.)

I will try to simplify my initial long-winded question a little bit.

We know that LMB feed less in winter as the water temps cool and there metabolism slows down.

I used to believe that they caught less forage at that time because they were sluggish due to the cold water and had poorer forage "capture" success, rather than the LMB just weren't hungry.

However, I think my speculation above has to be wrong, because the people that feed pellets note their fish going off the feed as winter deepens. Trophy-size LMB may be lazy, but surely they are not so lazy that they couldn't rouse themselves to eat a large pellet.

However, that train of thought lead to my poorly expressed reasoning of my initial question.

Would there be a significant impact in raising trophy bass if their rate of weight gain could be extended outside of their normal calendar range of maximum weight gain?


As you stated above, threadfin shad are not a significant food source for large LMB. We would expect gizzard shad to be far more likely to be sized correctly to be eaten by trophy LMB.

However, there are many places in the south that are excellent trophy LMB fisheries that have threadfins, but not gizzards.

Since TFS are more temperature sensitive than LMB, is there a time period in the fall where the TFS become so sluggish that a trophy LMB would make a meal out of the "wrong-sized" forage, because there is a window when the bass does not have to expend nearly as much energy to catch shad?

If that theory does not work because the TFS are just too small for the trophy LMB, would it work for tilapia? Would gorging on "right-sized" tilapia as the water cools be a way to convert a good LMB pond into a trophy LMB pond by having the bass put on "extra" weight in October(?), that they wouldn't get in a pond where they primarily fed on large BG?

P.S. Has anybody with tilapia that die off in the fall observed a top predator "gorging" event in their pond as the tilapia became sluggish?

My original post also contemplated supplemental forage as a way to enhance a trophy LMB pond. Adding crayfish to a pond where the LMB eat their fill of forage regardless, would not help raise trophy bass. However, I was considering the question of crayfish being consumed over some time period where the LMB were not eating their fill of their main forage. Supplementing those time periods could have a big effect on growth rates.

I realize most of the alternative forage is not at the proper size to be consumed by trophy LMB. I was instead considering the earliest periods of their lives. If a pond owner could turn 8" Florida strain LMB into 4# bass in one fewer season, then they would have a much greater chance of becoming hogs before old age begins to effect their growth rates.

I was just thinking out loud in this thread since you people hand feed me so much "food for thought" on Pond Boss!