An assorted diet, the common feeders you may get from the LFS are about the worst thing you can feed them. I wont lie from during the winter months i resort to feeding rosie reds. Surprisingly in the wild Redfin Pickerel are not primarily piscivorous. I have actually had luck feeding crickets and earthworms. Not nearly as fun to watch however much more beneficial to their over all health and growth. I wonder if the influx of pickerel questionnaires are directly related to RainbowRunner doing the massive sell off from him pond. Any other questions ill be glad to assist you with. Esox are by far my favorite species of fish.
Well, I can assure you that I am reading all of these redfin pickerel posts for the exact reason that you mentioned. Hopefully I can do better with the ten I just got than my previous attempt. I have had great success with the closely related Grass Pickerel and Chain Pickerel with small pieces of cut Tilapia (Actually an Oreochromis genus to be precise).
The only thing other than extremely very well quarantined and gut stuffed Rosies (I have 1,000's in stock ponds) that I have gotten any on my new 10 redfin pickerel to eat so far were live grass shrimp from a bait store.
Are bait store grass shrimp the same thing that LFS's sell as "ghost shrimp". They look extremely similar other than the grass shrimp as over twice the size of the ghost shrimps from the LFS. That and the price.
LFS small ghost shrimp are running 6 for $1.
The much larger live grass shrimp come in the containers similar to the carryout fried rice boxes in Chinese restaurants. I get a box full for $5 (Close to 100)?