Jason just a thought. IIRC , one of the Pro's recommended that multiple feeders all time together, otherwise you may be feeding the most aggressive little pigs twice an hour apart, and others that others which could feed train , can't get to the second feeder . I've seen several videos of fish vomiting feed, huge swollen belly's, wonder if in fish world you could have gorging and purging to simply keep the feed for themselves, seen it with my dogs, 1 pup in a litter eating all the feed , all the time growling at other pups , it's tummy swollen horribly and then unable to move and if it tried to engage in any activity, vomit. Myself, I would have feeders all throw same time.But will listen to those with fish experience, rather than a couple of liters of pups. Dachshunds. Just rambling thoughts.
I have talked with Lusk about this and I believe he covered it in one of his podcasts. My feeders are set to go off in 15 minute intervals, (i.e. 7:30 and 7:45) Thought is the aggressive fish come get their food and leave then the others come in later and clean up. I know this is the case with the CC, I don't see them until the second feeding. If the weak don't make it then I'm okay with that. Then again, I have very few Predator fish at this time, The HSB and SMB (probably) will not reproduce, I will have to control the LMB population when the time comes. Also a few CC with a very diverse forage set-up to boot. I'm doing this more for the hobby of growing fish than I am actually fishing. I have goals in mind and whether I get there or not is yet to me determined. 6lb SMB (knowing they may not even make it, bonus fish) 8lb LMB and 12lb HSB. Figured I better get them ahead of the curve early if I was going to achieve my end goal. (reason why I even started this post)
On your huge swollen belly comment, I have had 2 LMB and a couple CC that I swore were full of eggs but we don't think that is possible yet at their age
My favorite part in this whole feeding deal is both my pond management guy and Bob Lusk have told us, Your minnow population will be deplete within 2 years. Well these fish better get to work because we are 9 months in and there are more now than ever before.
Because this topic is current, caught 2 of these tonight, both the same length. 1 was .92 other was .94, looks like 138% My daughter ask if they could become obese and unhealthy You see all these long and lean fish well 😳 and it’s still a baby That board is 4.5” wide, I know this stuff is every day for you experts but for Me it’s above anything I could dream
Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:" "She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."
Thoughts may be changing about how much other fish HSB eat. Of course, we've all caught them on live minnow/shiners, and we've seen them balling up bait, but we also know that their mouths do not get as big as LMB and SMB.
I think Augie has said that when he cleans his HSB for eating, he only sees feed and crayfish in them, but not other small fish.
So, your HSB may be more keyed up on feed and less on live fish than the LMB/SMB.
Got this info tonight, SMB and LMB are couch potato Ambush predators, HSB are always on the move and can’t sit still, they metabolize food differently, this is the main reason for the RW difference
My favorite part in this whole feeding deal is both my pond management guy and Bob Lusk have told us, Your minnow population will be deplete within 2 years. Well these fish better get to work because we are 9 months in and there are more now than ever before. I won't disagree on the FHM being roughly eradicated but that probably isn't going to happen with your GSH. You have enough vegetation to keep some GSH going indefinitely.
Going to bring this back up, Every 2-3 weeks I throw a line in and catch a few fish only to sample growth Even though all of my fish seem to be growing at an alarming rate the RW of different species has me confused All SMB and LMB have been 120 - 130 % RW since I started catching them 3 months ago I have not caught a HSB over 105% The sampling is 6 fish per species . Do HSB not balloon up like the large and smallmouth or am I missing something here The fish are supplementary fed and it seems like the HSB sit at the feeder and boil the water (jump out of the water) when the feeder goes off
Going to bring this back up. I have seen some interesting trends on my fish growth. We are now 14 months post initial stocking. I now have a much larger sample size over a longer period of time. Maybe the FHM and GSH population along with BG spawn has had something to do with the growth ?
LMB and SMB are anywhere from 94% (only 1 under 100%) up to 151% ( 14" - 2.22# photo below). On average the RW on these bass have dropped to the 110-120% RW I have noticed that the shorter fish have a much high RW than the longer ones. Big change in HSB RW. Most are in the 17-18" range and are topping 3.5#. a substantial RW Increase over the barely 100% I was seeing early on. These HSB have more of the White Bass body shape. They are very thick. photo attached 17" - 3.36#
Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:" "She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."
