Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Rainbow trout stocking

You'll never catch all the LMB and BG out of the pond. I'd take it slow to start, and only stock the RBT.

Here's the deal.

If RBT can live in your pond (just because they live in the lakes all year long doesn't mean that they'll do the same in the pond - ponds warm up faster than lakes) all year long, then the water will be too cold for the LMB/BG to spawn. Say you put LMB/BG in the pond, if the BG won't spawn, then the LMB will eat them all. Then what? You have a stunted LMB pond.

As it was said before, once the LMB/BG are in there, you're stuck with them unless you kill the whole pond. Nothing will produce enough forage fish for the LMB besides BG, and nothing can keep all the baby BG in check except LMB (you could try SMB/HSB in high stocking densities to do that tho, TJ has had some success going that route).

I'd not be in too big of a hurry to stock anything other than the forage fish right now, and put the RBT in the pond this coming Spring. Do more research, and get a thermometer that will allow you to take water temps.

If you get too ansy, and jump the gun without doing enough research, you might end up having to kill the pond and starting over in a few years.

If it was my pond, I'd wait on stocking predators until you read all the pros and cons of each one. Unless you really know the temp profile of your pond all year long (will the water stay cool enough for the trout, and if it does, will that be too cool for the other fish to spawn?) you might want to look at just stocking Hybrids where you don't have to rely on spawning.

I'd give some thought to stocking YP and SMB, or YP and HSB along with the trout. Why RBT? Look into Tiger Trout, Golden RBT, Brown Trout or Brook Trout too.