so the plan is to have a larger pond lets say... 7 acres and up. the pond was gonna mostly be a gravel bottom...with rock piles...and boulders and plenty of other structures and i might even be able to fit in a small island to give more of a funner fishing expeirence. i want to stock mostly RBT a with a prey fish of shiners. the plan was to have a long term survival of the trout...i really dont want to constattly harvest and restock ...and the main problem is having the trout survive the harsh summer... how can i do this with a pond this size?
i understand that there will summer kills and that those should be restocked again in the fall...but i want the summer kills to a minnimum. is this possible?

some other questions i have is
can i stock atlantic salmon with the RBT and shiners? to give more variety in the fishing fun.

and will the shiners be a good forage/prey supply for the trout?

If I was you, I'd buy a good Oxygen meter and take temperatures/O2 levels starting asap before you stock the trout. That way you will know if it will work without extra work on your part, or a lot of work on your part.

I thought I had it figured out, but I found out that I needed more aeration.

I think n8ly had a doctor client install an O2 generating device with air stones in the bottom of his pond, and oxygenated the cold water at the lower depths of his pond that way.

Nate also has trout over summer in a larger deeper pond.

How deep is the water in your pond, and what do the "dog days of summer" do to the pond water temp?

Is this pond built already?

no it is not constructed yet...this is just to plan the pond out before we even get started...will the summer effet the pond temparture.... i really have no clue...

what about the atlantic salmon?

and the shiners as forage will it be enough?

and thanks for letting me know on the oxegon pumps

Not familiar with your location so I can only speak of my region (Nebraska), but trout can only tolerate water temps of ~65 degrees as a high. We easily hit 80+ here for weeks, sometimes longer, at a time.

soo what to do.... how can i keep water temps that low during the summer?

and whats your expert opinnion on the salmon and shiners?

I don't know enough about salmon or trout and if golden shiners would be enough, or too much, to feed them. But also keep in mind that trout and salmon need moving water to spawn. They will not, or most likely not, spawn in this body of water meaning whatever you remove for the table will have to be replaced.

yes i know they dont respawn....do you know any other members/posters that can help me

Yes. More members will see this and will address the questions I cannot answer.

That would be a heck of a pond to raise Atlantic Salmon. Need a decent river for reproduction. Plenty of open water feeder fish. They will eat most anything tho. Net pen on feed would probably work, but you have to get the water thing worked out.

There is a 9900 acre lake in MI that they were stocked in several times, and they are gone! MI DNR has the hatchery stuff fairly figured out now, and were supposed to do a release this year into one of the rivers.

I'd say you have your homework cut out for you on Atlantic Salmon in a pond.

Coho (Pacific Salmon) would probably work better in a smaller pond, but then, ya still got a bunch of homework to do, and it won't happen by next Friday

coho salmon...sounds good too

but i need more information on keeping the water temp low

Keeping your water temp cold enough is impossible for anyone to answer. There are many variables in this.

Take it from someone that raises trout to trophy size year around in a pond -- a bigger pond is rarely better when it comes to holding over trout in a pond year around. 3 acres won't work unless you have special conditions and lots of ground water flowing through as in hundreds of gallons per minute. If that's what you want I hope you have deep, deep, pockets and lots of ground water.

Here are four options for holding over trout in an earthen pond.

1.) Deep water in a sterile pond as in a gravel pit whose hypolimnion layer does not get oxygen starved in late summer under stratified conditions. That is, the bottom is primarily sand, gravel and stone with little or no sediments that rob the ponds hypolimnion layer of oxygen during decomposition. And the water is not fertile raining down dead and dying phytoplankton and zooplankton that use up oxygen. Also there should be a lack of significant macrophytes that die and decompose using oxygen.

Just because this layer stays cold until the fall turnover doesn't mean squat if oxygen levels are too low and the trout have to move up in the water column to lethal water temps to get oxygen. One exception is sterile marl bottom lakes, which I have in my area, that hold trout year around. Even some of them are marginal trout habitat some years.

2.) The above with an infusion of pure oxygen on the bottom most likely via LOX tank(s). Doubtful even then it would be effective on a 3 acre pond. Much smaller yes.

3.) Hypolimnetic aeration. The addition of air via diffusers with enough flow to add oxygen but not enough to break up stratification, which would totally negate the purpose. This can be tricky as Esshup commented on.

4.) A small pond with moderate well water flow that is easy to keep cool in the summer.

With the price you would pay to excavate a 3 acre pond you could probably have a well and a 1/10th acre pond. My 1/10th acre pond easily handles up to 500 lbs. of trout with the 45 gpm I flow through 24/7 eight months of the year.

Perhaps you think 1/10th acre isn't big enough and it's like fishing in a bathtub? Not so. My 88 by 59 feet pond (9 feet max depth) is just the right size for pleasant fishing with a flyrod, live bait, or pellets. If you want a more challenging trout plant brown trout. Easy to manage as it takes only a few days with a sump pump in bucket to pump it down to remove fish that can't be caught to start over etc.

Summer surface temps rarely exceed 64 F. and my brook trout do very well in the pond even with annoying iron levels in the well water. The water is exchanged about every 1.5 - 2 days in this 100,000 gallon pond.

Banks are steep to keep warming down.

Here's is a temp profile at 3 P.M. recently when air temps were in the 90's. Water temps drops eventually during the night to about 60 from top to bottom. I also only run a diffuser in the center bottom during night hours to keep warming down in the summer.

Surface 66.5

1 foot 62.5

2 feet 61.5

3 feet 60.9

4 feet 60.7

5 feet 60.6

6 feet 60.5

7 feet 60.4

A picture of the trout pond after ice out. Btw trout do fine under the ice with no pellet feed.



No issues with oxygen levels all the way to the bottom in the summer due to a combination of gravity aeration of the well water before it hits the pond and some Chara on the bottom adding oxygen.

Here are some of the fish from the pond in previous years.


Over fed 12 lb. plus brown trout. (I know better now.)



6 lb. plus brook trout:



Nine pound plus rainbow trout.



Another overfed trout:



Brook trout of about 4 lbs. with color enhanced with astaxanthin (5D09).



My twin with a nice hook jawed male brown of about 7 lbs.




These fish were harvested before they died of natural mortality so they may have grown larger although how much more I don't know.

So do you still need a 3 acre pond?

well with the information that u are providing me and those amazing photos does get me thinking maybe a large pond isnt needed to give quality fish.

but with that said and i do thank u for all the information provided...i do wish to have larger pond

soo i guess if i do want to want a larger pond i guess stocking trout isnt a option ...perhaps a typical bass-bluegil combination would be my best bet.

?

If you want a large pond trout are not an option unless you have hundreds of gallons per minute and super deep water. for trout smaller is better but just because a pond is small doesn't mean the fish have to be. My pond is 20 by 45 and I'm able to raise huge trout.



BTW I dug my pond with a pick and shovel over the summer of 2012.

There are many more options, especially with a clean slate. What do you want out of this pond? Everything you'd want.

If you're pond will be fed by a year round spring or a well you could probably build another small pond above the main one you don't need much water if you have lots of shade and relatively cool weather. The water coming into my pond is curently runing at 1 gpm and the temperature is 63 degerees but My pond doesn't hold very many fish.

Right on Lee!

Good point Lee. The overflow from the smaller trout pond can keep the larger pond topped off and may even keep the temps down during heat waves. If it's not terribly hot my big pond stays about 10 degrees below what it normally would without the trout pond overflow. The effect is especially pronounced once the sun goes down.

Cecil:

Did that 6#+ Brookie get hit by a GBH when it was smaller? It's dorsal fin looks like it was injured and healed back up.

No, I'm pretty sure it was one of the Red Cliff Indian tribe raceway fish that had lousy fins. 99 percent of the brooks I get from Crystal Springs have excellent fins due to coming out of lined ponds.

what i really want is a good nice clean large pond with decent to great fishing with favorable species of fish for me and the fam to enjoy

soo what can some stocking options

be?

Just about any species you can acquire really. The hard part is making the right combination choice and managing the pond accordingly. This website can help you with that if you tell us your goals and specie preferences.

well a bass bluegil/redear combo dont sound bad

what about predators like pike or tiger musky as the main predator

RES are not an option in NY, too far north...

I wouldn't recommend a larger Esox species in a pond under 10 acres but for very specific purposes.

Ditto. The Esox will want to eat the same size fish you do! And they will maim some.

Largemouth bass are your best predator bar none. If you want panfish I would go with bluegill, yellow perch, and largemouth bass. Your perch will be cropped down heavy by your bass but you would probably catch a bonus large yellow perch every now and then.

There are a lot of options. Please be more specific about what you want exactly. Sport. Food. Unique. In my area, every lake and pond has largemouth and bluegill. So I'm going with smallmouth, wiper and walleye. Maybe do some research, find a single fish species you want to start with and we can help you build the rest off of that.

This is all good information. I have a trout pond in its first year with trout in it. I have been working on the setup for two years before adding trout. My pond is fed 30 plus gallons per minute by an artisian well. What I have is small area dug 10 feet deep (less than 1/4 acre) where the well water is piped to the bottom. The well water gets exposed to the air to get well oxygenated before entering the pond. The temperature stays below 60 about 4 feet down all year. The overflow spills out into a cattail marsh and then to a 2 1/2 acre pond on the other side of 5 acres of marsh. The tout pond has some open water all year even here in Wisconsin, because of the spring. I'm not sure if the trout will stay in the small pond over winter on not. Being that the cattails only have about 2 feet of water in them, I hope they stay in the deeper water year around. So far my Brooks and Rainbows are doing well. You may consider two ponds like I did. I do think you will not be able to keep your trout alive without a spring or well due to the water getting too warm.

PS Thanks to all the members here who made my pond project a success! I would have made many mistakes without your advise.

some one has mentioned wipers...that is interesting what kind forage is the best for wipers and what kind of pond habitat is the best for wipers?

and the same for walleye what kind of information can u guys provide me with for these two species of fish?

can you stock large mouth bass and wipers together?

Wipers are an excellent pond fish. They readily take to pellets and fight harder than any freshwater fish I know. They are a hybrid between a white bass and a striped bass and do not (uncommon anyway) reproduce in the wild. Any harvested would have to be replaced. Check the legalities in your state before stocking.

They can be stocked with other species and take up another niche (open water) than largemouth (cover). Open water forage options like golden shiners are a good choice.

Walleye also will not reproduce in a small pond. They might, but the recruitment will not be there for you. Like prefer deeper cooler water. Yellow perch are a good forage item for them, but if stocking these with largemouth, you really need plenty of vegetative cover for them to seek refuge. Largemouth will easily wipe out a yellow perch population without cover.

If leaning in the direction of wipers, walleye, yellow perch, you might consider shying away from bluegill and largemouth. Most fisheries having bluegill and largemouth have those species eventually dominate it. Not to say you won't catch the occasional walleye or wiper, but it will be less common than the bluegill or bass.

i did some research and thinking what about wipers with hybrid crappie and some sort of forage fish?

i just recently put up another post on this site on the same topic...check it out please...

Omaha, are wipers like "Purch" in Texas? Aren't they Hybrid Striped Bass? Or are they "Sunshine Bass" or are they "Cherokee Bass"?

Is there a different name if the cross is Male Striped Bass x Female White Bass or if the cross is Male White Bass x Female Striped Bass?

The same exact thing as hybrid striped bass. Just a cool, hype Midwestern name for them.

well is the stocking combo any good?

Answered the question in your other thread. I do like the direction you're going. Could be very fun.

Have you investigated Walleye as a top predator? I am trying that in my 1/2 acre pond... Black Crappie, Yellow Perch, and Walleye. The advantage is the WE don't breed in a pond (normally) so it makes it easier to manage the balance than say a pond that is not fished properly.

edit---posted in the wrong spot

From what I've heard, a certain major college football coach from a university near here, used to have a pond that he kept trout in year round. The secret was he also had a rather large well which he could afford to run enough to keep cool fresh water in the pond.

With enough money you can make most anything happen.