In my experience and opinion I think you should reconsider spending a lot of time and effort raising FHM to grow better BG and Bass. Why?
1. For best production you are going to need to feed the FHM which means buying food.
2. And most importantly feeding fish to other fish that eat minnows is a VERY inefficient way to grow your BG and LMB.
Bill, the way I see these kinds of projects, which I very much like by the way, isn't from the perspective of #1 or #2. While it may be true to maximize production would require feeding ... why must one maximize it? What about the case of minnows like FHM and BNM that feed low on the feed chain consuming algae and detritus and thus utilize niches under utilized by BG? They don't need to be fed to do that. In fact, they will probably do a better job of it if not fed. Why not feed a BG a reasonable amount of feed as part of a nutrient budget and let the minnow help to clean up the 77% of the nutrients that are in the manure. Fish are consuming all the time ... mostly on nutrients that are just part of the ponds food web fueled by native nutrients. Minnow fry introductions can utilize this resource, compete with and reduce recruitment of the fry of sport fish, and significantly add to forage with a dry weight nutrient profile that is ~70% protein and packed with all the appropriate amino acids where nothing ... absolutely nothing ... in the minnows is bad for BG and LMB to eat. Minnows will favor the big BG scenario and should probably be replaced with TP for the big LMB scenario.
The feed required to maintain 4 lbs of breeding FHM is minimal while they produce between 1000 and 4000 eggs/pound every day. Of those that hatch ... the fry that infuse the pond ... these fry will add to the food chain by converting nutrient sources that are outside the niche of BG. If a person fed 4% of the weight of the brooder FHM over 100 days we are only talking 4 lbs of feed total with the potential of seeding >400,000 fry.
When a person feeds it converts well and affordably but in a pond that will produce 200 lbs of fish annually and maintain 400 lbs of fish ... all that is free without cost ... without accumulating nutrients ... and so I would say that no feeding is the most efficient way to grow fish and supplementing forage organisms is a way of increasing the production(and maintenance) that is possible when feeding or not. If a pond produces 300 lbs of fish naturally in a season and you feed 60 lbs of feed at direct conversion of 1.5 is the FCR really .176? Or is it just 1.5 where now there are additional nutrients accumulated? To remove the nitrogen in 60 lbs of 42% feed one must harvest 184.61 lbs of BG and/or LMB.
