To help pond managers get started on a feeding program, Purina offers these tips taken from Purina’s A Complete Guide to Pond Management. In the end, the result is an increase in the capacity of your pond to grow and maintain a greater number of trophy fish.ġ0 tips for a successful fish feeding program By feeding the forage fish, you’ve not only provided yourself with a better catch when you hook a bluegill, you’ve also provided a better meal for your bass.Īs an added bonus, supplemental feeding also makes the forage fish population more plentiful, because the larger size brought on by feeding encourages earlier breeding - sometimes as early as the first year. They eat the bluegills, minnows, small catfish and other forage fish that have been supplied with supplemental feed. When they thrive, other life flourishes.Īt the other end of the food chain are the predators, such as bass, walleye and larger catfish. Since phytoplankton are at the very bottom of the food chain, they affect all the animals above them. And, while it’s true these fish flourish - converting feed at a 2:1 ratio to produce a full pound of weight gain for each two pounds of feed - they are not the only beneficiaries.įeeding fish also supplies nutrients to the water, which enable phytoplankton to grow. At first glance, supplemental feeding seems to benefit only those fish, such as bluegills, sunfish, hybrid striped bass, catfish, minnows and other species, that directly consume the feed.

This is the food chain in action, and it illustrates one of the hidden benefits of supplemental feeding. Picture one of the old cartoons that showed a small fish being swallowed by a bigger fish who smiled all the way down the throat of an even bigger fish. This remarkable difference is due in part to the fact that supplemental feeding affects a pond’s entire food chain. Ponds that naturally sustain a stocking population of 500 bluegills and 50 bass per acre can easily sustain 1,000 bluegills and 100 bass per acre with supplemental feeding. Research has shown that ponds stay healthy, fish grow big and fast, and sustainable per-acre populations are larger with supplemental feeding. We’ll show you how to grow big fish with good pond management and supplemental feeding of your fish. It may sound like a fish tale, but it is achievable. The size of the thrill, however, is directly related to the strength of the tug - the bigger the bend, the better. So wouldn’t it be great if the fish in your pond were as big as possible? Wouldn’t it be nice if your pond not only had big fish, but more of them?

Anyone who has ever spent a Saturday morning on their pond with a fishing rod knows what a thrill it is to feel a tug on the end of the line.

Feed and grow fish all fish