I will be stocking my 3/4 acre pond in Nebraska with forage fish, FHM, GSH, BG, and RES this coming spring '10. Following that I will be stocking advanced LMB fingerlings, in the 9-12" range. I will be feeding and my question pertains the LMB eating pellets. These LMB will likely not have been raised on pellets so I'm curious if they will eventually learn to eat pellets, if I can train them to eat pellets, or if it's even important at all that they eat pellets.

My primary focus for this little pond will be diversity (CC,HSB,HCP are other potential species) geared mostly towards bigger LMB. I will be using differently sized pellets to encourage all species to feed.

LMB can be purchased feed-trained from some hatcheries. If they're not feed-trained from the hatchery, you might have better luck just spraying small aquamax pellets to feed the bass through the GSH and BG, this is reported to help LMB growth rates and increase pond carrying capacity. Stocking tilapia might be an option to increase bass growth, if you can get some of the more cold-tolerant Blue Tilapia.

In my inexperienced opinion, if you're going to be feeding regularly anyway, why not grow Hybrid Striped Bass? They're supposed to do great on artificial feed and won't overpopulate your small pond. They probably won't control a BG population, but you could still have other fish present.

I don't believe the LMB that I will be obtaining will be specifically trained to eat pellets so I was thinking just feeding the BG to in turn feed them would suffice, but I was curious. I believe I am way too far north for tilapia to survive even the spring or fall, let alone the winter. They would be very cool to have though.



I will have some HSB in the pond, about 20 or so as an additional species, but was preferring LMB as my primary species since they do so well and are so low maintenance.

Anyone with LMB experience give us a nudge here? I'm curious if LMB naturally train to pellets? If not, how does one go about training them? Are pellet trained LMB really necessary as their gape allows them eat anything that swims anyhow? - Meaning - should one simply focus on pellets for BG/HSB/Minnows and not worry about the LMB so much because EVERYTHING serves as forage for them? I don't manage for LMB but this topic has me really interested.

Cecil - Eric - Travis - Burgermeister - D Davidson?

I have no idea how to feed train LMB. I do know that the couple of feed trained LMB that are in the pond are doing much better than the LMB that aren't eating pellets, and these fish are still eating AquaMax 600 pellets (well, they were until the water cooled down!)

If bass are not feed trained on pellets very few if any will take interest in the pellets. There are folks that claim they've had the bass take interest in pellets that were not feed trained but I suspect either/or the bass were starving or they were feed trained at the orginal source and the pond owner didn't know it.

Feed training of largemouth at hatcheries usually takes place when they are about 2 inches if I remember right, and involves crowding them and starting them on a natural feed and weaning them to pellets.



I don't think they are necessary. I agree 100 percent in what you're saying.

Ok cool, I won't focus on trying to obtain feed-trained LMB then, and just concentrate on feeding the other species.

Sounds like a plan to me. I'm going to catch hell for this but even though feed trained bass may grow a little faster and are many times plumper, I don't believe they are as healthy as their counterparts that are well fed with natural feed. My bass always had lots of fatty tissue inside and seemed to stress easier than their counterparts. I also don't believe pellet fed bass live as long either. At least that was my experience when I had up to 400 green carp I fed daily in a .62 acre pond up to 6 lbs.

I have never stocked feed trained bass. I have seen 3 LMB at the feeder eating pellets along with the bluegill and catfish.

I don't know about training them. Sometimes LMB show up to eat pellets. The next time they don't. And, I have no way to know if it's the same ones.

Some times LMB show up at feeding time to chow down on the BG.

That'd be cool to see.

Here, sometimes the BG show up to feed with the LMB.