Also , chicken liver no weight, cast into the feeding and hold on....Both are pretty much guarantees for me.
I'll try the chicken liver as I was thwarted this weekend. I did get one to the dock using a 2-3" HBG, but it spit the barbless hook out at the dock. It looked fat healthy, at least.
If you use barbless or crimped-barb hooks you can use as small a hook as you want and easily retrieve it with a hook remover with minimal damage to the fish. I highly recommend having one in your pond tackle box. It has saved quite a few of my nicer BG.
A hook remover is now on my shopping list.
Noel, what's your water temp?...Just curious.
The water in the morning is about 75 degrees F top to bottom. By the time evening hits, it's 75 on the bottom and 76 18" down, with 82 at the surface.
How much fishing pressure did you put on the hsb when they were smaller?
How clear is your water, can they see you when your fishing?
Have you tried fluorocarbon lines and have you downsized your fishing line and hook size?
What about slowing down your feeding the hsb? Maybe bite might improve if they are hungry?
I only caught about 8 last year and only two this year. I have fished alot, but most usually land the fish if it chooses to bite.
The water has been 18 to 24 inches clear for a few weeks now and that's why i think the HSB have started feeding on pellets now. I suspect they can feel my heartbeat through the dock (and see me too). I have tried fishing from the shore a few times, but no change.
I have not tried fluorocarbon line or smaller hooks. My reels are rigged with cheap 6 or 8 pound test and I use hooks that are not likely to get swallowed.
I tend to feed my fish as much as they will eat when weather and water conditions allow. They don;t eat much and are rarely overly excited at meal time. I don't know why entirely. Pond tends to be muddy and that causes some DO issues, but it's improving. I was thinking about stopping the feed for a few days, but I just started an Optimal food trial and I do not want to mess with the results.
I wonder if a bit of moistened chewing gum would securely attach the pellet without triggering the negative response glue does?
I may have to start chewing gum. Friday night was a bust. My fist attempt at the glued pellets on a hook taught me that the glue needs to dry longer than a hour or two before wetting in the pond. The glue turned ghost white after about a minute in the water. I glued 3 pellets on a hook and it floated, but I think the white glue spooked them...IDK. I did get a hit on a small HBG under a bobber, but it got away.
Saturday night I had the pellet glue cured for hours and added several more pellets, BUT the fish turned off. The HBG were feeding OK, but the HSB were nowhere to be found. The added pellets helped it float longer and hid the hook better. The dried glue never turned white, maybe a bit yellow, but not screaming..."Don't Eat ME". I switched feed type this night according to a feed trial that I am conducting for Optimal, but surely a slightly different feed would not have such a dramatic affect on the HSB feeding enthusiasm. Tomorrow is back to the Optimal Blue Gill that I have been using all year (part of the trial - BG feed for three days then one of seven new types for tow days). Hopefully they come back tomorrow and tease me some more.
Tonight was a repeat of Saturday and I didn't even throw out a Pellet -on-a-Hook. No HSB to speak of, but I did catch several HBG, a few over a half pound.
Thanks for everyone's participation in the thread...
I'll keep trying.
Friday night's try...
The improved version...
