I stocked 60 2" fish, 1/2 ac. Have had a few morts show up over the few yrs but not more than 1-2 per winter. I have not culled any originals, only reproduction from those.
My point of adding/listing the forage was yes it's there but that's only a piece we understand. I have put a SMB in a tank and it will eat everything I throw in the tank, put 50 shiners in the tank and it won't eat but a very minimum. Why? some other part controls growth. I can only assume so much and then I'm going to ask.. not bragging by any means because it's more important to me to understand what may have happened to cause what I'm seeing. Might only be speculation but my neck of the woods is not known to be "Fish growing country".. Central and SE KS is where things seem to be best.
Maybe I over simplified the question but I don't think the reason is..
There are a lot of factors that contribute to consumption. If region or climate plays a role they probably are important for comparison when population structure are similar. Probably your fish are performing near maximum for your location. It stands to reason that they could easily outperform SMB in other more favorable locale but that are not achieving potential. I think that is key. Specifically, that your fish individually had more to eat than the fish in the more favorable locations that you Referenced.
Between culling recruits and your unique forage base in combination with feeding you have set up very favorable conditions for growth thus far. I think your forage base is very special as well. I have mentioned that many times.
