I've long been dedicated to providing good diet to my critters and live food is good as it gets. Even more so when caring for the more picky species.
As a regular icefisherman, I have access to all kinds of live food options most people wouldn't consider. These pics are from one such collecting trip. This is NOT a gratuitous angling post. On this visit, only food collecting was the goal.
Tools of the trade. The rod & reel in this case is only for snagging pond weeds. And no, I didn't make that beautiful hole with my chisle. Some ambitious young angler lugged a ten inch power auger the LONG way down the hill, bless his heart. Don't envy him the walk back up.
My visit is timed to dusk when the copepods rise up. I count on fishermen leaving early so I can use their holes. The chisle is cause it's about 12 F and the holes seal up fast.
First step is to use the jig to harvest some pond weeds from the bottom. The weeds come up crawling with various and sundry critters, different in every pond or even the same pond at different depths. In this deep clear kettle pond, chrinomids are the main live food coming with the weeds. I drop the weeds in as is, after a day of coming to room temp. The fish go nuts reaping the harvest, some critters escape to hopefully reproduce [or emerge and fly around the house looking like mosquitoes
" ]. The snails mostly devour the soft weeds but some get established.
As dusk comes on, the main show gets rollin. This was a cool shot until I let the Photobucket software resize it.
To give you an idea of the cold, I killed this net full taking the pic. They froze before the auto-focus and shutter could work.
That's more like it.
A good haul. Less weed than usual but time was limited. It's easy to over collect with such abundance but unless you have a prepared tank for them, it's a waste. They die in the bucket if over crowded and turn to empty shells and mush when frozen.
These have been posted before. I took these back when I ran the wastewater lab and had a killer microscope. They all came from the same pond, collected the same way as above.
Look familiar? Ever see this shmeg on the bottom of a bucket that had pond plants? Those are the slime cases of chrinomid larvae. Those are live blood worms, maybe the yummiest fish candy going. I believe BBS must specialize on them based on their reaction to them.
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This what I got after gently scraping the bucket and swirling a little water. Pic sucks, there are alot of worms you can't make out.
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Of course when you drop a jig down into the cloud of copepods, you can meet the tip of the food chain.
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The rich diet grows fat trout with yummy pink flesh. This pic was supposed to illustrate the size but it backfired because the ten inch blade on the fillet knife looks 5 inches long. I use those fillets as well as the livers and any roe as more food for my fish. I freeze 'em and shave with a knife to get tiny bits of high quality feed.
For my next installment; collecting scuds with 2 feet of snow. How to tell a natural spring from a leaky septic tank.
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