Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding LMB Are Remarkable Converters of Fish

I came across this little gem of a 55 year old paper some time ago but only recently have had the time to do a thorough review.

Thanks for doing the work, jpsdad! We so often overlook past research because it happened years ago, a sort of chronological snobbery that fallaciously assumes recency equals quality. Well done.

It will take several more readings for me to "assimilate" all the data, but one immediate conclusion is that artificial fish food, even with good levels of fish meal, is not a perfect substitute for the real thing, at least for LMB. Valuable supplement, but not a replacement if growth is to be maximized. The fishy food chain must be maintained! I do wonder if similar conclusions would be true of BG, HSB, and RBT.

But what about the calories expended to catch the prey, such as GAMs? Floating pellets don't require much effort to consume, which I always thought was a big advantage.

You're most welcome, Frank.

One thing that jumps out at me is the age of the study (55 years) and the light years that the fish food industry has changed.

What was the length of those LMB? Weight was from 0.716g to 19.24g.

How does the caloric content of a gam compare to a BG? Since Gams are a very small fish (common length average is 3.9 cm) they would only fit in a narrow window of a LMB lifespan as optimal feed. (4.5" - 8.25" in length)

Since they dried the fish to weigh them, we'd need to add water back to the fish to see how they compare to artificial feed since the LMB aren't eating dried fish.

Good points. While I'd be willing to bet that larger LMB still benefit more from a natural diet of Shad, Bluegill, and rainbow trout than any amount of feed, there's no denying that the fish food of today is far superior to yesteryear.

whatever eshhup

Probably the most scholarly document I’ve read here. And, I’m still rereading it.

Now we just have to find a pond that is loaded with Gams and no other fish to test it out.

You read my mind!

One of my experiments this year was to try over-wintering some fish to determine how much I would have to upgrade equipment to be successful.

Gams kept in an unaerated little beta fish tank and fed fish flakes - SURVIVED!

Gams kept in a 40-gallon aerated tank with two pellet-fed yellow bullheads - DECEASED! (And mysteriously disappeared.)

I still plan to try and build a few new ponds at my place when we can get ahead on the family budget. I think I will try a gams experiment instead of FHM as the starting forage on one of the ponds.

Unfortunately, based on the rains of the last three years at my place, then a dune buggy race track may be the only feasible recreational project.

Hopefully the recent switch from La Nina to El Nino Pacific conditions will bring you more rain, Rod. You might be able to drill a well, but that's expensive and the water isn't always best for ponds.

Thanks for the hopeful wishes! (I probably should have left out the drought complaint in my post above, I was really just reporting how easy it is to keep gams! I was a little peeved that the state had good rains yesterday, and there is a big dry area centered around my farm.)

Many areas of Kansas are "oversubscribed" for water rights. Basically, we can direct surface flow of water into a pond, but are not allowed to pump groundwater to fill a pond - unless you have a senior water right.

Who knows, the drought may turn out to be a net benefit. The subsoil water that sits on our clay horizon was always going to complicate construction efforts. Maybe if I could get started this fall, then the dry ground could make life easier!

Wow, Rod, I didn't know Kansas had such stringent rationing on groundwater. I guess that makes sense, as you want to preserve the aquifer, but it stinks during a drought.

Are you actively farming and/or ranching on your land, or is it more of a place for recreation?

Rod, does Kansas allow irrigation for farmers?

Yes, we have 100 acres of dry land wheat planted in most years. The modern cultivars are damned impressive! Our average rainfall is about 30" per year, but we have been in a persistent drought and our creek quit running this fall. Yet we still planted winter wheat in October.

It is still so dry at our place that I have poison ivy along our barbed wire fence lines in full sun that has not yet leafed out. However, the wheat managed to access every bit of soil moisture and looks decent!

We also have 115 acres of native tall grass prairie that a neighbor cuts and bales for his cattle. It is greening up, but is very short for this date. I think the survival trait of those grasses is to barely grow during a drought and to retain energy in the deep roots and just wait for when the rains finally come.

We did get 0.45 inches last night, so that should help all of our various plants!

Yes on the irrigation.

I am not an expert on our complex water rules - so I am sure I will mis-state some facts in my explanation. (Snipe knows the rules since he had to jump through many hoops but managed to get some extra water for his operations.)

I believe most of the water rights were developed on a variation of "first come, first served" basis. If you had a great aquifer under your farm, you could physically pull as much water as your crops could use. This amount was reported to the state for several years, and then you eventually "perfected" a water right for roughly that amount.

However, in the 1970s (?) we realized that the water levels in the aquifers were going down and the recharge rate was much less than the water usage rates.

I inquired about a water well on our farm for supplementing our ponds. The answer was a firm no! Our area is oversubscribed for water appropriations. I believe if the conditions get bad enough, the state can shut down some of the more recently granted water appropriations to allow the most "senior" rights to draw their full allocations.

We do have good exceptions though. I can drill a well at my farm for "household" use. The allocation is enough for a family, plus watering some trees and/or lawn and raising some stock animals. However, NOT enough for a commercial hog operation, or filling ponds, etc.

I am sure it is not the optimal system, but the law on matters like that always grows organically.

I think most of the western 2/3rds of the state is in a similar circumstance where the aquifer is drawing down. However, the Ogallala Aquifer is a geologic marvel. It extends from South Dakota to west Texas. There are places in Kansas where it is 500' thick. There are places in Nebraska where it is over 1,000' thick. The largest available well pumps could not even draw down the water levels an inch (in the short term) in places like that. I suspect the farmers thought that they had a limitless supply!

The eastern third of Kansas gets significantly more rain, and has many areas with rock outcrops rather than deep prairie soils. (snrub farmed in eastern Kansas and has pictures of his place in some of his posts. However, I suspect it is not far to bedrock beneath his fields.) There are even places with some moderate sandstone outcrops that look very similar to Anthropic's property - except the forest is Post Oaks instead of pines! We do have a few areas of pine forest that look like parts of East Texas, but the subsoils have to be exactly right.

Glad to hear you got some rain! That your cultivars survive severe drought is remarkable, and encouraging. I always get a chuckle about how some folks rant & rave about GMO crops, not realizing how much we depend on that, whether by crossbreeding or genetic engineering. Heck, we pondmeisters do the same when we buy HSB, HBG, Tiger Muskie, or Tiger Bass!

Also, your crop probably benefits from rising atmospheric CO2 levels. It's well established that most plants need to open their stoma less in CO2 enriched environments, thus losing less water to evaporation. One reason why the deserts are greening.

If I get a good rain in September, I’ll plant wheat for deer. It helps get them through winter and gives me a couple places to hunt.

Providing the hogs don't eat it all before the deer get a taste of it.

Scott, the dang hogs have apparently left. No tracks, no sightings and last week I loaded my Judge with .410 shells. Then eased back into,the area where they always slept during daytime. Gone. The boys put up cams at feeders and no hogs.

Ours moved out for a while but are back now. Bout the only good thing about them is they will put a hurt on the copperhead population…. Those are nasty lil fellers

Pat, I had a lot of snakes that the hogs pretty well cleaned out.

FishingRod, interesting thought. It may be that FHM stocked in March before BG and LMB might produce more but I am sure that GAM would perform well, particularly considering that you mentioned this year's first cohort a couple of weeks ago(earlier than I thought for KS). If you have weeds or brush I think the Gams would over-winter and produce limited forage year after year with a classic LMB-BG combination. I base this on the fact that many of the ponds near me have populations that sustain year after year in the presence of LMB and/or BG. The degree of the GAM population depends on cover, at least this has been my experience. FHM will go away and GAM might go away but GAM stand a pretty good chance of hanging around.

Wow Jpsdad, thanks for taking the time to write up that much info!

The gams in our creek seem to face some pretty tough conditions, yet whenever a stressful condition subsides, they rebound very quickly. Definitely going to add them to the initial forage stocking for any new pond.

Since the preferred diets of FHM and Gams do NOT perfectly overlap, I wonder if an initial pond stocking with both species would provide a higher standing weight of available forage?

Does anybody know what is the most common limiting factor that controls the pre-predator standing weight of a new pond's initial small forage?

1.) Reproductive rate? e.g. the FHM have not had time for enough spawning cycles to "fill" the pond before the BG and LMB are introduced?

2.) Oxygen limited? e.g. the pond can fill with enough FHM numbers in the absence of predators to cause an oxygen crash and subsequent fish kill?

3.) Food limited? e.g. most new ponds have lower fertility, the zooplankton and available consumable plant material can't be that high when the pond is initially filling?

I would guess #3, but any expert commentary would be appreciated.

I have read old guidance about fertilizing ponds with cow manure, or throwing in a few bales of barley straw. However, I don't see that advice given out on Pond Boss to all of the new pond owners that are just starting their adventure. Is that type of fertilization not worth the effort? I would think that some new ponds have very low initial fertility. A little bit of help might have a significant benefit, especially for landowners that already have those types of materials on their properties?

FishingRod,

I think that a combination of minnows would be better than either alone. In particular, the FHM begin reproducing earlier and the GAM reproduce in the hot weather when FHM stop spawning. So my sense is that the combination is better.

One possibly relevant observation from HSB and LMB pellet feeding: When dealing with small pellets they greatly prefer to swallow multiples. BG, even the largest, are okay slurping down a single 1/4 inch pellet, but not the big boys. Pellet groups of 3 or more floating together are much more attractive for large predators!

This behavior may carry over toward GAM and FHM, thus making the energy costs of consumption less onerous than usually assumed.