I've continued to hand-feed as the weather has cooled this fall, and have a couple questions based on my observations.

The fish in my cow pond have shown little interest in pellets since the water temps dropped below 45°F.
Not surprising considering the rich forage base that is present in that pond.

The fish in my bait pond, on the other hand, are very willing to take pellets from the surface at 42°.
This pond is less than a year old, so it doesn't have much of a forage base at all. It was iced over
for three days this week. It melted off today and the fish fed with gusto this evening.

I *think* that I may have seen a post or two counseling against feeding pellets after the water temps drop below 50°,
but I wouldn't swear to my old porous brain being right about that.

It seems obvious to me that there's no reason to toss pellets into the cow pond if the fish don't want to eat them.

So my question... do I continue to feed the BG in my bait pond until they ignore the offering, or should I cut off the feeding
until the water begins to warm in the spring? Is there a physiological risk to the fish from eating pellets when their metabolism
is reduced due to cold water?

Augie, my water is obviously warmer than yours, but I've noticed something similar as water temps dropped below mid50s. Feed on main BOW will get eaten eventually, mostly by HSB, not much BG. However, the BG (CNBG variety) in the forage pond continue to take pellets, though not quite as vigorously as they did when it was warmer.

Don't know if feeding in cold temps will harm sunfish. I do recall reading that trout should not be fed in extreme cold, it can kill them.

I have two different ponds. While feeding this Fall as water temperatures dropped, the pond with the fish that were hungrier all Summer had better feeding response in cold temps than the pond where the fish were never quite that hungry. (And the "hungry fish" pond is shallower, so it's water temps are at least as cold as the other pond, if not a little lower.) I'm talking BG (hungry pond) and BGxRES (no so hungry pond) here.

My analysis of this is simple: a hungry fish will take pellets in colder water than a fish that isn't hungry. Hardly Earth-shattering.

This is a good observation. Sometimes, I tell my kids, "Alright, get up, shut down your xbox and youtube we are going fishing." They say. "OK. Where are we going?" If I say "I don't know, where do you want to go?" they most often say "The catch a bunch of fish pond".

So this pond has inadequate predators and BG, LES, and GSF are abundant with poor RW. They have decent lengths however (up to around 6 to 7"). Since its got colder. They still bite good there but other ponds which support much healthier BG with good RW ... the fishing is arduously slow this time of year.

My personal experience over the last 7-8 years, is that BG in shallow water, which has less variance in surface to bottom water temps, feed more in colder water than BG that are able to retreat to deeper water. Those BG that do feed in deeper water, rise directly to the surface, grab a pellet, then retreat straight down to warmer water, and will not move laterally to shallower water to eat pellets.

The surface temp of my hatchery pond is currently 50 degrees, and there are 2 schools of resident BG. At these temps, the fish at the deep end (10-12'), eat far less than the BG that are in the shallow end (2-4'). I've observed the same thing in BG housed in shallow cages.

Local adaptation can be strong. So can the hunger response. I have seen low water temp feeding differences in similar ponds (next to each other) between CNBG sourced from N. Ark and S Ala. BG sourced and adapted from far northern states will eat under the ice - not so in the south (if ice even gets close). Most of the data reported on BG metabolism is on a general basis and not by region. What we do know is BG are cold blooded and low temps reduce metabolism/feeding.

Also the response in many fish species to cold temps is 2 fold - 1 is actual temp and 2 is the rate of temp drop.

I agree 100%.

I filled my feeders yesterday because the bg were still feeding there. I did a 1 second test throw and had bg come up and feed. It was in the middle of the day where they usually eat in the evening. I did see some bg feeding. They will eat for the most part 365 days a year. I do reduce the amount of food when the water temps are where they are now, in the low 50's. But there are always bg in that area that eat fish food. They are not as roudy but they still eat.