Who says sunfish, bass and turtles can't be tamed?!

I have a pond in back that I've stocked with various fish species for over 10 years. Spawns have happened since the first year with panfish abundant mostly from many spawns. Daily, I throw bits of bread that sunfish swarm all over at the surface, but this year bass started coming near lying on the bottom to see what all the surface commotion is all about. Soon enough, 8 turtles come out of nowhere to join the fun.

The thing about the 2 lb bass is that they have no use for bread and spit out large chunks of it but will consume yellow perch I bring from a local water. So in affect, they are trained to stop by daily to see what I have for them. Who knew bass could be trained to trust the human that caught them, which is why I'll never fish for any fish in my wild aquarium. Strange that the bass don't attack the sunfish all lined up. I guess eating a cousin species is not to their liking.

sunfish and bass from 6 years ago, now all grown up:
https://i.imgur.com/AGRWA4E.jpg

The fish whisperer!

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Originally Posted by BuckeyeCrappie

The fish whisperer!

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:highfive

Very cool Spoon. Trained fish. I knew a guy that his dad lived on one of the lakes in the butler chain. He kept a big dock box on the end of the dock and a bag of fish pellets inside. In the evenings he would walk down the dock and lift the lid and grab the soup can from the bag and tap it on the corner post of the dock. Here they would come, bluegill, catfish and bass. The biggest coppernose bluegill I’ve ever caught but I had to come back by boat to fish for them. The cats were 10lb plus easy and the bass were looking for the right sized bluegill that wasn’t paying attention. That whole chain of lakes is spring fed and perfectly clear with no tannic stain. It was like watching a show. I know the excitement you feel when they all gather cuz I felt it every time I went there. I only went back by boat once or twice but those fish were genuine bruisers. Aquarium fish is a good name for yours.

At the town pond I sometimes fish.
The town has a duck and fish food machine that for a quarter , you get a handful of some kind of pellets .
The geese and turtles love it when the kids ( and sometimes adults) scatter pellets off the little bridge that crosses a little cove off the pond .
The bluegills love the pellets too .
I’ve thrown my tackle bag parallel to that bridge only to think the gills have left .
That’s until someone tosses a handful of pellets in the water .
I need to come up with a brown pellet jig . :)

Can you imagine not only how easy it would be to catch any of these fish with my eyes closed? Their inevitable shock at being caught by someone that spoils them daily leads me to the realiztion that I, in good conscience, can't hook these pets without feeling bad - simple as that. (Of course those poor yellow perch are on their own.)

Awesome

it took my baby sunfish in my aquarium exactly 24 hours to realize who was me .....:Rofl
swimming around somewhat bewildered day one to dancing like trained monkeys at the glass when i walked up day 2 .....:Rofl
anything that walks ,crawls or swims can be "trained" pretty easily if the teaching technique is done properly.
even bass will eat fish food although the people that sold the fingerlings to us they won't eat pellet food . watched them eat it like carp on the surface many times when we raised them ....
heck my wife's pet box turtle even comes to her when she goes into the garden and calls it ....just saying
the hardest animals to train though are humans without a doubt :Rofl

Your pets look fat and healthy and trained. That's one big aquarium. If one of those gills ever got hooked or injured the bass would be on them or a smaller bass for that matter. Years ago I fished a small pond and the dominant fish were Black crappie all 1# or bigger. Hooked several that would spit up fingerling bass on the way in. Crappie behaved just like bass at that pond and would even jump once or twice trying to throw my small spinner bait.

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the hardest animals to train though are humans without a doubt

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...without a doubt! I trust fish more than I do many humans. :bash

they appear well trained:biggrin :ThumbsUp:ThumbsUp