NE Mason,

That is a lot of trout for a pond that size if they are all adults. But as you say you did catch 40 and you have some predation. As I said in an article coming up in Pond Boss I try and stay within the guideline of 12 pounds of final trout weight per gpm flow. I typically harvest about 500 lbs of trout in a pond identical in size to yours. Raceways can produce up to 50 lbs of trout per gpm flow but we are not talking raceways here.

Having trout for some time now on and off I can pretty much predict what size they get to and be pretty close on what the final weight will be by the actual count. And I figure in about a 5 percent mortality. But I don't have any real problems with predators.

Does you seine have a mudline? If not it will not work as well. Addtionally look for some of the trout to jump over the net when they get crowded.

I will be doing the same shortly although I am going for complete removal and transfer to another pond. I have to move about 100 brooks and about 70 browns from my pond to another that will have a blocking net installed to separate the species. I will catch as many as I can by angling first and them use the net. When I hook them I quickly net them with a soft mesh landing net attached to 12 foot extendable pole and walk them quickly to the other pond which is only a few feet away.

If experience tells me anything I will miss about 20 percent when I seine (my net does not have a mudline), and will have to dip them out of puddles when the pond gets drained down.

The reason I bring up the mudline thing is I had two experienced seiners seine my holding pond for big yellow perch last spring. They came to pick them up for Bass Pro Shops. The first thing one of them said was without the mudline it was going to be tough. Sure enough we had a hard time seining the fish. I ended up draining the pond to get the remaining fish out. There were largemouths in the pond and they jumped over the net when crowded.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 04/05/08 08:17 AM.
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