With any species/fish there is an energetic point of no return. If the energy required to maintain basic body functions can't be sustained above what energy is expended to obtain food, then that fish is history before long.
I would not want to be a LMB trying to survive on nothing but gams and/or FH.
Thanks ewest for the important caveat.
This thread has gotten a little long, but I was referring to options to load the pond with forage in the pre-predator, early-predator stages.
LOL, the thread did take a few twists and turns. Mostly I just wanted to share the paper which demonstrated how LMB use energy. They just happened to use GAM for the source of energy but I have found if you adjust for BG energy content ... the results are consistent with generally accepted numbers for maintenance and conversion. I wasn't aware that LMB could assimilate 73%-80% of what they eat for metabolism and growth when what they eat is fish. Opened my eyes....
That said, it is pretty remarkable that one can grow 2" LMB to ~2 lbs in a year on GAM. For grow outs with young fish I see a lot of promise with them. For example, I used to think about how to grow LMB fingerling maximally in a 1 year grow out by changing up the mix of prey being careful of timing. But why make it complicated? 1 lb/acre of GAM, fertilizer, and 100 LMB/acre is all that is needed. That said, I think a nice 2 year grow out could be accomplished adding adult BG to the mix possibly in the fall (say maybe 40-60 pairs/acre in the fall).
Heck we never went here ... but what if you used dehydrated (or mostly dehydrated) fish as feed? Estimates of growth at 2% body weight is just so insane that I don't trust an adult LMB's metabolism could handle it. What percent of an adult LMB's body weight could it eat of a feed made almost entirely of dried fish? I have to wonder if growing too fast would be very harmful or possible kill it. At 1% dry weight consumption of dried fish it would be like consuming 5% of wet BG. Nothing for 4" LMB but 12"? Maybe too much?
