Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Some big trout pics down memory lane

A friend just sent me these pics of trout that he and another friend caught out of my trout pond a few years back.

The first is of him with a couple of browns in the 8 to 9 pound range out of the pond.



The next photo is of myself tabulating weights and lengths of 10 brown trout to 9 lbs. before freezing. I had to tell them to stop fishing as I was running out of freezer space!



Funny story about that evening's fishing:

I had a husband and wife over that afternoon to catch them with Orvis rods, vests, fancy flies, the whole nice yards. I tried to tell them my big browns weren't interested in itty bitty fies but they would have none of it. I offered them some of my pantyhose pellets and that was met with disdain.

While I went out to check on them a big approximately 8 pound brown came straight out of the water like an upright porpoise as if to take a gander at them. Or perhaps he was laughing. Take your pick. Of course they did what every angler would do, they cast to the fish but to no avail. Anyway, after over 2 hours of flailing the water they gave up in a huff.

Not long after they left a couple of my friends showed up and eagerly took the pantyhose pellet flies. I remember one of them saying, "Hey whatever works is fine with me." The rest was some really fast fishing for some nice big hook jawed male browns as you can see!

These browns were definitely locked into "match the hatch." Believe it or not they had no interest in live bait either. They wanted the pellets!

Funny story about fancy, idealistic fishermen.
Your work is a very good example of fantastic fish that can be raised in a dinky pond. For all the old and new members, please post a picture of the little pond where you raised those dandy brown trout. Maybe try geting a picture of the pond from the back upper deck.

Also, can you tell how many pounds of trout were in the pond? I know water quality means a lot to raising fish, what do you do to keep the water quality conditions optimal?

I stock to harvest 500 lbs. of fish. I weigh every trout removed and do a total weight each harvest. It's more about the inflow of fresh well water and the water exchange rate as in the removal of suspended solids, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates then it is the pond itself. A rule of thumb is 12 lbs, of fish per gallon per minute of flow. So in my case around 45 gpm X 12 equals approximately 500 lbs. max of trout.

The sides of the pond ( 88 X 59 feet ) are steep sided to keep warming down and the 51.6 F. well water keeps the pond water temps maximum on the surface in the mid to upper 60's in a normal summer. The pond is 8 or 9 feet deep maximum and I run a diffuser in the center on the bottom 24/7 except in the summer when I run it only at night.

Ironically the larger fish don't need as good of water quality as smaller trout. Hence why you will see the smaller trout in raceways kept closest to the inflows.

I'd love to post a picture but photobucket is acting up again. I think it's time to try a new photo host site as this is getting to be a regular thing.

O.K. here's one from the side looking east.



Here's an aerial view with the trout pond just behind the house and the garage/apartment.



The trout pond is the one closest to the house in the following photo. I have raised trout in the one on the left in the back but that pond gets a little warmer then the one closest to the house.

WOW cecil that's a bueatiful peice of property you got i love the log cabin home, and i have to say that im definatly jelous of the location of the ponds to the house i have to walk down a realy steep long path to get to my pond. you're ponds in my book anyway are the perfect size not so big that you have to spend thousands of dollars to stock yet you have plenty of room to fish. were the ponds there when you bought the house? and how did you take the one pic it doesn't look like a google earth pic to me did you do it with an rc airplane or heli?

How old are these trout. They are incredible!!

Thanks for the kind words SP. I have to remind myself from time to time how blessed I am.

To stock the pond with 125 mostly male 7 to 8 inch brook trout last fall was about $300.00. It costs me more because I ask my supplier to sort only males for me. This fall they should be about 15 to 16 inches. The following fall they should be 20 to 22 inches and 4 1/2 to 6 lbs. plus.

Hopefully all it will cost me next time is the cost of a few female browns to produce some tiger trout and I will hatch my own trout from then on.

The pic is taken from a plane. There is no shortage of people taking aerial photos and trying to sell them to you here.

I had all the ponds dug by two different contractors.

4 to 5 year olds.

Cecil -- with all that, why ain't you wealthy?

Do you think you could get RT to that size in the same setting?

Blair, I stocked 2# RBT in October, and at the end of June they were 7#.

That's hard to beat Scott wow.

Wealth comes in many forms. Just be glad you don't have my house payment. LOL

Rainbows are the fastest growers followed by browns and then brooks. I don't raise bows to sell to taxidermists because they are much more common than brooks and browns and I prefer to raise harder to acquire species.

Cecil, every time you post a picture it puts a smile on my face, beautiful fish!

Always happy to put a smile on someone's face.

1What happens under the ice with these big fellas as far as water quality?
2 You shutdown the well in the fall I presume?
3 Do you feed at all during winter?
4How many turnovers per night with aeration in the summer?
5How much do you aerate in winter?

Sorry for the questions but this is exciting my brain.

No problems under the ice.

Didn't feed before this winter with no problems. However this winter I fed them in the open water created by a shallow diffusser every 4 to 5 days.

I shut down the well during the winter.

The pond turns over about 65 percent per 24 hours. 45 gpm X 24 hrs. = 64,800 gal divided by volume of pond @ 100,000 gal = 64.8 %.

Aeration in winter is 24/7 with one air stone in shallow water.

Thanks for the info Cecil. This gets me fired up to finish my little pond.

One pointer: Don't shut down the well too soon in the fall or wait too long in the spring to crank it up if your fish are large. Water temp may be fine along with D.O. but you could have some ammonia, nitrites, and nitrate issues as nitrification is not up to par due to lower temps, but your fish continue to produce ammonia and their waste products do the same.

An easy way to determine this is with a simple API aquarium test kit.

Unlike other species trout are not only more sensitive to ammonia and nitrites but also more sensitive to nitrates that can build up due to no water exchange.

Should I think about trying to run it all winter maybe half as much gpm. It should be easy enough to design the pump/pipe to do so. The pond is in sand and in the water table so pumping won't flow out of pond or change the water levels.....or maybe slowly pumping out of the pond and let ground water replace pond water and that might get ammonia out better. The difference would be 2 feet in water level though I would think. It will change kind of like Dwight's levels change in comparison to the creek that flows by his pond.

Will pumping water in to the small pond get rid of ammonia and nitrates through sand????

Lets see what Cecil says, but I think pumping in would work better than pumping out. Too great of a risk of the water not coming into the pond quick enough if pumping out. Plus pumping out will have low DO water coming into the pond. Just the opposite of what you want in the winter.

Thanks Scott I was aware about the do2 issue with ground water but probably the same as the stuff I'm pumping. The pond will have aeration in shallow end.

I would way rather pump in due to the extra water level. As another note my lawn sprinklers will pump out of this pond from the deepest point to try and take nutrients out and put them on the grass.
Looks like I should start my own thread.

If you pump in as Cecil does, running the water thru a stacked column, it adds O2 and removes any harmful gasses at the same time. I think if it was pumping continually, it wouldn't freeze up in the winter, no matter how cold it got out.