Had a very calm evening tonight-something I haven't seen in months-and I got to hide behind feeder and watch.
I was a bit surprised to see some very large RES coming up to pellets, maybe in the 12" range.. sure haven't caught any like that.
It amazes me to see the large male BG as well, no big thump, just a very slight suck removing the pellet from the surface with hardly any disturbance, in fact this might be the first time I've been able to observe this.
I seen several YP, a couple of SMB and 1 wiper.
It was very interesting to see the huge RES though.. quite pleased to know they are there.
Beautiful evening.
I should also add that several 6-10" GSH were present as well, brood stock I guess, but that size sure makes me nervous.

I didn't realize you had giant RES that would come to the surface for pellets! I've never seen my RES do that, though almost every other fish at my place (and a pair of thieving geese) will show up.

So were your RES feed trained, or did they just train themselves? Any tips on how you managaed?

Very occasionally, I will catch an RES or RES-BG hybrid on a popping bug. It is always in low light, either cloudy or near sundown. They are the biggest lepomis in the ponds I find them.

Back when I had my forage pond for the most part only stocked with RES and FHM, if I wanted to catch fingerling (and sometimes larger) RES with my cast net I would throw the net right after feeding. I could see the FHM's aggressively pushing the pellets around the surface. Don't know if the RES were getting some pellets as they sank or just were attracted to the area because of the feeding activity of the other fish, but it seemed to me the RES were attracted to the feeding. Just my observation and idea, may not be correct.

I didn't feed train any of the RES. I think it may be just one of those things we may never understand for sure. I did note they were all large size, didn't see any 4-6" size taking pellets. BG was all sizes.