beastman says "I know getting a forage base going is the correct thing to do I don't think I will have the patience for it. If I reduced the numbers and fed pellets as the main forage could I get away with stocking in the Spring? My thought is if everything I stock is pellet trained shouldn't that work? If I was to stock some FHM and make some habitat would they have a fighting chance to spawn and multiply if I can keep most of the predators fed heavily with pellets? If I stocked YP first wouldn't their yoy help with forage as well?"

Initial stocking all pellet trained fish does take a lot of predation pressure off the FHM and any other small fish. Not all the stocker fish will stay on pellets, but many will continue to eat pellets. Percentage that ramain on pellets is variable and depends primarily on the species, size of stockers, how long they have been trained to eat pellets and how long or how many generations the brood stock has been domesticated to pellet feeding. Usually the major loss of the FHM occurs when the offspring of the stocker fish are not pellet eaters and are big enough to eat breeder size FHM.

Beastman then asks "If I end up stocking the FHM just before or at the same time as the other fish how many lbs assuming 1 acre pond?" The answer depends on several things and one of them is how many fish will be eating FHM. My general rule at a minimum, is to plan on each predator fish to eat one FHM minnow every day the water temp is above 50F. Note this amount of food may only produce a minimal growth rate. A fast growing smaller bass 5"-8" can eat 3 or more minnows per day depending on minnow size. It is up to you to do the math.

On average - FHM 1" long has 700-800/lb; FHM 1.5" has around 500-600/lb; FHM 2" has 300-350/lb.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/21/16 09:57 AM.
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