Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How to get gills on pellets

So I dug a fresh pond, after all my worries it flourished with adding 125 gills, 50 perch, and 25lbs of fat heads. The fat head spawned multiple times throughout the year and when the feeder would go off only the fhm would eat it. The gills and perch would just slam easy groups and only eat the fat heads.

I had the feeder going off 4 times a day for probably a combined total of 20 seconds of feed. They always ate it and I wasn’t worried about the 10 min rule just cause it took probably 5 mins just for the pellets to soak water and finally be peckable for the fhm. Well I finally got my order of pumpkin seeds and 25 more gills and it’s been a week and they have decimated!!! the fhm population.

I don’t really care that they ate them but I had to cut the feeder back to only 3 seconds now so I don’t have extra food floating. Once they fhm are truly gone, will they just naturally start eating the pellets and I can slowly start turning the seconds/ times a day up again?

Also with winter coming up, how do y’all feed? I’ll have my shallow aerator going to try and keep it oxygenated/ open for hunting. But if they’re not pellet trained yet, will I have to release a bunch more fhm?

While your pond may have been chocked full of fathead minnows that the BG and YP were feeding on, the BG and YP may have still been hitting some feed that you couldn't see. I had a similar situation in my neighbor's pond.

The BG and YP will eventually come to the feed visibly as the fathead minnows diminish.

If you can spend the money, continually adding fatheads does not hurt anything, but some view it as an expensive snack for the fish.

Regarding feeding pellets in the winter, once the water temps get under 50 degrees, I don't see much fish hitting feed in PA, so I don't feed after late October, and I restart in late March.

When the BG get hungry, they'll fihure out your feeding schedule and eat the pellets.

We call those some "not millionaires."