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#548054 05/17/22 08:30 AM
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Ervin Offline OP
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I have an older pond that fish havent been fed in over 10 years, Can I start to feed them now or will they eat the feed, I was wanting to do a fish kil to start over but having a hard time getting someone to do it, thought would just keep them if they would eat the feed

Ervin #548055 05/17/22 08:40 AM
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Buy a small number, maybe 5 pounds, of 3 inch bluegills. They will be feed trained and the existing ones SHOULD get the idea and start feeding.


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Ervin #548058 05/17/22 09:18 AM
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Native or naturally occurring bluegill will come to start feeding fairly quickly. You just should be consistent with the time and location of feeding to get the quickest results.

A friend has recently told me that 60-70% of bluegill will feed, while the other 30-40% will just observe, however, he felt you could convert those outliers by hydrating the feed and using some sinking feed.

Dave's suggestion would also work, but I would wonder what other larger fish are in the pond. If you have bass over 14" or so, they can eat a lot of 3" bluegill.


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Ervin #548061 05/17/22 09:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Ervin
I was wanting to do a fish kil to start over but having a hard time getting someone to do it, thought would just keep them if they would eat the feed

How big is your pond?

What fish do you have in it now? How confident are you in your estimate?

Does water flow from another pond or a creek transfer fish to your pond during significant rain events?

I am no expert, but there are a lot of advantages to starting fresh on your pond. You should be able to perform the fish kill yourself unless your pond is closely tied to some other body of water.

I am always amazed at the reports on Pond Boss at how quickly newly stocked fish actually grow when the conditions are correct. I also think it is actually cheaper in many circumstances to start over, since it is possible to dump in lots of money fighting problems for years attempting to correct problems in an existing fish population.

If you post some more information about your pond, AND your future goals for the pond, you should be able to get some excellent expert advice on the best way to move forward on your pond.

Ervin #548088 05/17/22 08:06 PM
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My guess is if you start putting some daily feed out, within a couple weeks you will have fish feeding. If nothing else, you will have a bunch of feed trained turtles.

I can promise you I did not stock any feed trained turtles, but I have a bunch that have feed trained themselves. I think you will find at least some fish will get the idea pretty quickly.

Mine come to the "thump, thump" of my Polaris General side by side. When I was hand feeding off my dock regularly, my footsteps on the dock became the "food is on the table" call for my fish. If you do something consistently that they can associate with feed availability, they will come. Any time I ride around the pond in the Polaris I see fish wakes coming toward the sound around the shore line. I know everyone says feed the same time each day. That is probably best, but my hand feeding schedule is very erratic, but boy do they know the sound of the dinner bell when I drive out there, early morning till dusk. So my fish have become accustomed to a different kind of consistency.


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