My thinking indicates that when one's focus is trying to raise YP or any fish specie on natural foods one has to keep the predator density low enough so lots of forage fish are available so the target fish can always be getting enough food for optimum growth. As overcrowding occurs overall growth rates tend to be reduced.
This is where starting with all pellet feeding perch becomes important. Thus when natural foods are lacking the YP can still be fed pellets to produce optimum growth. When too many predators are present they limit the amount or recruitment of YP. There will always be some recruitment YP that do not learn to eat pellets and this is when it is important to have goodly amounts of natural forage to keep this version of YP actively growing. Even with this method the YP numbers have to be kept at a relatively moderate density or poundage (harvest) so the pond does not develop too high of a carrying capacity that in itself probably reduces the best growth rates.
Snipe - Initially I think in your case it would be wise to focus on removing SMB rather than too many perch. I think the SMB as a group are consuming a larger percentage of the natural forage items compared to the food percentage consumed by perch as a group. I think the smallie is a more aggressive and more successful predator in limited forage habitats compared to YP.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/20/19 07:15 PM.
