Anecdotal information follows...
I've been trapping and caging a few baby RES this summer. The weather in May was cold and nasty, which delayed startup this time.
Weather in June was absolutely stupid. Went from hot and dry to monsoon. 17.5" measured rainfall here over 11 days. Anyway...
The RES I've been trapping are running 2.5"-3.5" size on average, so assumption is they are from last summer's hatch. Knowing how
difficult it is getting them started on pellets I decided to try something new with the first batch this summer. I learned last summer that new
additions would get the hang of eating pellets quicker if there were already a few pellet eaters in the cage.
So... when I caged the first half a dozen RES this time I threw one 3" BG in the cage with them. I mixed up a batch of shredded
BG/nightcrawler/Optimal #3 and started them on that. I also have been making a point of tossing the small round Jr. pellets into the cage
when I feed the pond. I do that before I feed the shred fish mixture. This batch of RES has acclimated to pellets quicker than any I've
trained previously. Three weeks in there is a good number of them that will take dry Jr. pellets at any time of the day. Cloudy or sunny
doesn't much matter. When I toss pellets into the cage they attack them with vigor. Are all of the RES in the cage eating dry Jr. pellets?
Definitely not. They haven't all been in there for the same length of time, so I continue to feed a portion of shred mix at least every 2nd day.
I think I've got two factors working that help to explain this behavior. One, once caged with that aggressive little BG, the RES observed the
BG feeding on pellets and the old monkey see, monkey do game was on. Two, these RES have been swimming in a pond that now holds
several generations of pellet trained fish, and gets pellets at least twice a day. I believe that half, if not more, of the RES in the cage had
learned to eat pellets in the pond prior to being trapped and caged. I make a mental note of the condition of each fish that goes into the cage.
Roughly half of the RES that I trap look like a typical young sunfish - not fat, not skinny, just young. The other half have fat little bellies and
are noticeably thicker across their backs than your garden variety YoY sunfish.
In another week or two I'll pull the cage and bucket the fish for inspection. The fish that have buddha bellies will be released into the pond.
The rest of them will go back into the cage for further training. This cycle will repeat several times before cool weather arrives and they all
are released into the pond for the winter.
