I am starting a new thread for this question, since I seem to keep playing "20 Questions" in other people's threads! However, my question is tangentially related to anthropic's Trophy Bass thread.

Trophy bass Catch-22?

There are frequent and detailed discussions on Pond Boss about the best way to provide the optimum forage to the main predator that is "goal" of a pond's specific management. The main predator is frequently LMB, but there are many other fish species that sit on the throne in the ponds of the forum contributors.

My question (using LMB as an example):

Is there a strong seasonal component to the forage species that a LMB consumes over the course of a year?

Further, if there is a strong seasonal component, instead of focusing our management on the forage species that provide the LMB with the bulk of their calories, would the LMB gain more weight over the course of the year, if management was focused on providing calories when the LMB are hungry but are not able to eat their daily fill?

[I will state some observations below based on my fishing experience, feel free to correct any items that are counterfactual.]

While fishing in the spring we would catch the most LMB and spotted bass in relatively shallow water. We would also sometimes catch panfish on lures much too large for them, but it indicated to me that the small forage fish were existing in the same location as the black bass - including the very large LMB.

At this same time, we would also observe crayfish feelers protruding out of the gullets of almost every single small bass.

Eventually, the black bass would move out to deeper water and we would still have some days with good success, but at that point we would catch (or feel strikes from) essentially zero small panfish while bass fishing.

As spring turned into summer, we would observe much more shad activity out in the open waters. Either jumping to get away from bass feeding our just clearing the bow of the boat.

In the fall, the black bass would move back into shallower water, but not as shallow as during the spring fishing.

Were the black bass preferentially eating panfish and crayfish in the spring because that was the optimum time to catch that prey, or because the bass were co-existing in the same water due to the bass spawning cycle?

After the bass gorge themselves on easy forage in the spring, do they have to work much harder to catch panfish and crayfish later in the year as the habits of those forage species have changed?

If those forage species are now harder to catch, do the bass then move on to shad in the summer? I am envisioning a scenario by easiest effort expended per calorie to most difficult effort as: spring BG < summer shad < summer BG.

My larger question is then, would adding a "seasonal" forage species into the gap where the bass are not gorging have a significant impact on raising trophy top predators?

For instance, adding shad (threadfin or gizzard) in a lake without them. Would that be a valuable "summer" food source?

Or how about adding tilapia in a lake without them to make a supplemental food source during the summer and a massive food source in the late fall when they begin to die off due to the temperature change?

I would appreciate any comments in this thread (no such thing as off topic), and discussions about top predators other than LMB would also be relevant.

Thanks,
FishinRod