Right now, I have a ton of forage fish and feed once at dusk both pellets and fry food. Lots of activity on the water during that time. My question is should I cut back on the feed or stop it and let nature do it's thing? Or continue what I am doing?
I have to ask.. are you building forage in a new pond? Whats the purpose of this forage?
It is a new pond and maybe I used the wrong term with forage. The small fish are all recent spawns of bass and bluegill and maybe some tilapia.
Answer to you question depends a lot on your goals for the pond fishery. Explain your goals and we can better advise you to achieve your goals. Mostly large predators? or primarily large panfish for a general fishing pond with a "regular" balance of all sizes.
What size of pond?
What species of all fish present?
When was pond stocked with how many of each??? .
New ponds with recent stocking often or usually have a "ton" of forage fish because the larger fish are not very big and not very many of them compared to a pond that has a mature fishery with a full standing crop and at carrying capacity. Lack of reproducing predators usually results in an abundance of small fish. This noticeably changes when predators start reproducing. Balanced Ponds after a few years rarely ever have too many or a 'ton' of forage fish..
My pond is a little under a 1/3 of an acre. It was stocked last spring - 25 LMB, 50 BG, 25 HBG, 25 RES, 25 YP along with FHM to get things started. I did put in 5 lbs of Tilapia in early June to help with algae. My goals are to harvest fish (general fishing) as needed. Your information on new ponds and getting to a balance was helpful.
I would say keep feeding as you want those small forage fish to get larger along with the predator fish. 25 BG in your situation may not be enough over time so keep an eye on BG recruitment.