Growth and Survival of Largemouth Bass following Supplemental Feeding of Bluegills in Small Impoundments

Abstract

We investigated whether providing supplemental pellet feed to Bluegills Lepomis macrochirus in small impoundments increased their growth and reproductive rates after stocking and whether the supplemental feeding of Bluegills had positive indirect effects on Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides during the initial stocking year. In 2010, we stocked adult Bluegills and Largemouth Bass into nine 0.1-ha ponds; three replicate ponds were each provided with no pelleted food (control), a low ration (1.52 kg·ha⁻¹·d⁻¹), or a high ration (2.68 kg·ha⁻¹·d⁻¹). Supplemental feeding yielded increases in the growth of newly stocked Bluegills, the gonadosomatic index of female Bluegills, and the density of larval Bluegills within 4 months of stocking. In contrast, the sizes of adult and age-0 Largemouth Bass and the density and biomass of age-0 Bluegills during fall were not affected by feeding within the time frame of our study. The results demonstrate that supplemental pellet feeding is useful when the management goal is to increase Bluegill size and reproductive output and that these effects develop soon after stocking. We conclude that supplemental feeding is a beneficial enhancement technique for application to Bluegills in recently stocked impoundments.

Received May 13, 2012; accepted November 20, 2012

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are extremely grateful to the many graduate students and technicians who helped with this project in the field and laboratory: Tommy Purcell, Craig Roberts, Brandon Simcox, Madeline Wedge, Emily DeVries, Kirk Mears, Zachary DeVries, and Kristina Woodard. We also thank Tammy DeVries for the bomb calorimetry and zooplankton counts and David Glover for help with statistical analyses. Alan Wilson provided excellent and insightful comments on previous versions of this work as well as supplying insight on the importance of lower trophic levels. Lindsay Huebner provided useful editorial advice on drafts of this manuscript. We thank three anonymous reviewers for comments that helped to improve this manuscript. Generous donations from William Ireland and feeders from Moultrie Feeders, LLC, supported this research.