I am going to build a trout pond and I can't decide which species of trout to stock rianbow or brown. Brook trout are definetly going in to.

Hello troutmanager and welcome to Pond Boss. Several folks here stock trout, hang on for some expert feedback. Cecil Baird is one of our resident experts on trout, hopefully he'll chime in.

Welcome to Pond Boss. It would help to know what geographic location you are in, and what is the summary disposition of the waters you plan to stock these fish in. (geeesh, I sound like a lawyer) Just even the basics would be fine.(now I sound like a judge) Brook Trout will be your fussiest. (Ahh, getting back to normal)

Welcome again! Someone else should show up soon!

Until you can let us know the details of your pond... The break down of the trout species available:

Brook trout:
Generally the dumbest of the trout and easiest to catch. They don't grow as big as the other species of trout, typically topping out in the 18"-20" range in most ponds with a very large fish hitting 24". As has been said, they require the highest quality water of the group. They prefer was temps below 68 and DO above 8 ppm. They are mostly invertebrate eaters(aquatic insects, nymphs, midges, etc) until they reach the 8" range when they will begin feeding more heavily on minnows and crayfish.

Brown trout:
Generally the smartest of the trout and hardest to catch. They won't reach quite as big a size as rainbows typically, but they will still reach nice sizes. Brown trout to 6 pounds in ponds is not uncommon and double digit fish are possible. They are the most tolerant of warm water and lower DO but still need temps to stay below 74 degrees(70 and below is preferred) with DO above 8 ppm. Brown trout are the most piscavorous of the bunch and will heavily feed on forage fish in your pond.

Tiger trout:
Are a hybrid between the brook trout males and brown trout females. In hatchery conditions, about 85% of the eggs survive to hatch because they heat shock them. In the wild, occasionally under rare circumstances this hybrid does occur. Only 5% of the eggs will survive in the wild. Tiger trout are extremely aggressive as in the case with many hybrids and may be even easier to catch than brook trout. They are more tolerant of warm water than brook trout and seem to have about the same or slightly less tolerance as brown trout. They are as piscavorous or perhaps even more piscavorous than brown trout. Tiger trout grow very fast early on but for some reason do not live as long as their parental species. This is often seen in hybrids though. This means they don't often reach huge sizes but 4-5 pound tiger trout can be expected.

Rainbow trout:
Rainbow trout are intermediate in their difficulty to catch between brook and brown trout. They generally reach the largest size of any of the pond trout. Rainbow trout to 10 pounds are not uncommon in ponds with trout pushing 20 pounds possible. Rainbow trout probably feed more on invertebrates than any of the other trout. Rainbow trout can actually do quite well without forage fish but rather feeding solely on invertebrates. Rainbow trout will feed on fish, but generally make the switch at a larger size and even when larger will still feed on invertebrates surprising small ones for their size as well. To grow double digit rainbows, a forage fish may be needed. A nice thing about rainbows is their is a "golden" morph available. It is the exact same species except that is a golden orange coloration and has the classic red side that rainbows are known for. So you can add diversity to your pond in some "golden trout" and still stay within the same species. Also, rainbow trout are the jumpers of the trout species. They'll commonly take to the air to throw a hook. Something the other trout rarely if ever do.

Splake, a hybrid between brook trout and lake trout are sometimes stocked in small lakes but I don't know just how well they'd do in a pond. Cutthroat trout are also sometimes stocked. They have characteristics very similar to rainbows but with a slower growth rate and much smaller maximum size. Rainbows and cutthroats are so closely related they often hybridize. Other species sometimes stocked in ponds under very specialized conditions could include Atlantic salmon and arctic char.

Year round trout ponds are not very common. It is very difficult to maintain cold enough water temperatures that also provide high enough DO levels. Generally either far northern ponds and/or ponds that are fed by large springs producing cold water can support trout year round.

Not sure I am an expert but thanks for the kind words Jeff. I did stay at a Holiday Express last night though. Does that count?

I do have experience growing them out in ponds. Brook, Browns, and rainbows.

As said by JKB we will need more information.

1.) Where are you located? Just a rough location, no exact address needed.

2.)What mechanism do you have for keeping the water cold enough and well oxygeneatedin the summer whether it be your northern latitude, spring flow, well or what have you.

I'd be happy to give you my two cents once you answer those questions.

As JKB elluded to the brooks are the most touchy and required the highest water quality as in cold clear well oxygenated water. The rainbows are in between and the browns typically can handle marginal conditions although there are limits.

Wow CJ you never cease to surprise me. Very good info!

I stayed at a motel 6 and they forgot to leave the light on so my 2 cents aren't profound but I can say that if you like to catch trout Tigers are a great fish to raise if your pond conditions permit.

I agree with AP, I like tigers a lot!

Troutmanager,

You'll have to excuse these two guys but they are stuck on tigers. I honestly don't know why.

If it's a pond you have about zero chance of reproduction. I'd go exotic, Splake, Tiger or Rainbow Triploid. The gold bows are cool looking. Did you consider stocking koi with your trout, they are colorful?

CJ: Very well written. You left out Palomino Trout.

Anyone got a picture of this golden morph rainbow??? Only thing I have ever seen that looks like CJ's description is a Palomino. I thought that was a cross between rainbows and virginia golden trout, never heard of a golden morph rainbow.

Correction, I googled and it was a California Golden Trout crossed with a Raimbow, first successfully crossed in West Virginia. Website stated all Palomino trout today came from that fish.

Joe what website was that? All the information I've seen is Palominos and West Virgina Goldens are strictly a form of rainbow trout and have no California Golden trout in them. I think someone is giving you bad information.

Here's a link to what we are talking about from the PFGC:

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/images/pages/qa/fish/trout_golden.htm

Species overview: The golden rainbow trout is a gold-orange rainbow trout raised under artificial fish culture conditions and stocked as a novelty for angling sport. The golden rainbow was developed from one fish, a single female trout with a genetic mutation that gave her a mixed golden and normal rainbow trout coloration. She was found in the West Virginia hatchery system in 1954. Through selective breeding with regularly marked rainbow trout, an all-gold, golden rainbow trout was developed. In 1963, this fish strain was popularized as the “West Virginia Centennial Golden Trout.” Pennsylvania and other states hybridized the pure strain of West Virginia golden trout with normal rainbows and produced palomino trout, which were true genetic palominos. Palomino trout were first stocked in Pennsylvania in 1967. Since then, the genetic strain in Pennsylvania has weakened, but in recent years the hybrid was selectively bred back closer to the stronger, better-colored golden rainbow trout. Although palominos were stocked as both average-sized and large trout, today’s golden rainbow is raised only to trophy size for anglers and stocked throughout the state.

The golden rainbow trout is a different species than the golden trout (Oncorhynchus aguabonita) of some California streams. In fish hatcheries, the rainbow trout has occasionally produced other unusual genetic mutations, such as the blue rainbow trout, whose body color is sky-blue.



Identification: Golden rainbows are a deep golden-yellow in body color, with pinkish lower fins, pink or red tones on their cheeks and with the rainbow’s reddish lateral stripe. There is no spotting on the body or fins. The Pennsylvania record golden rainbow trout is over 11 pounds.

Habitat: The golden rainbow trout’s habitat preferences are identical to those of the normally colored rainbow trout. It is stocked throughout the state in appropriate trout waters. No rainbow trout or golden rainbows are planted in the Lake Erie watershed.

Life history: The golden rainbow is reared in fish culture stations. Spawning in the wild is unlikely, because golden rainbows are highly visible in streams both to anglers and predators like blue herons and ospreys. Golden rainbows and palomino rainbows grow larger and faster than regular rainbows. They have “hybrid vigor,” a trait often seen in crossbred plants and animals. Their food preferences are similar to those of other trout.

This article was pulled of the PA fish and boat commission

Here is a blue rainbow



That's not me in the picture

here's another one again it is not me

I can't tell if this is one or not...

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2076/2517321888_fd43e7fdbc.jpg?v=0[/img]

Cecil, I don't know a whole lot about trout, but do know that way back when, Chuck Yeager, famous West Virginian, actually experienced golden trout fishing in CA during one of his tours of duty and was so taken with them that he bought a whole bunch and flew them home so he could have access to them here. I don't remember the full story, just that he brought them here and they probably took off from there, with our DNR possibly jumping on the golden bandwagon, too. I recall this from a book I read about Yeager many, many years ago so I'm quite fuzzy on the details.

Well, that's a different version from what was in Yeager's book!

Me thinks Yeager was a story teller.

Is this the same Yeager that broke the altitude record in a balloon? Or is this the pilot? If the balloon I knew his son in Boy Scouts. If I met him again I'd deck him. He was an arrogant little twit.

California passed a law in the 30's prohibiting the transfer of fish or eggs from California of Onchorynchus aquabonita.

This was THE Chuck Yeager - the X1, the sound barrier, the fighter pilot ace! And remember, he was a risk taker by nature, so he may well have ignored such laws about transferring fish/eggs! I'm going to have to look into that story again - my curiosity has been piqued!

Nah, he knew he had the number to a good lawyer so he could get away with it if he got caught...

Cecil you are correct, I was wrong about being wrong....I was browsing more than one site at a time and got corn-fused. I thought my memory may have began to fail prematurely, I'm only 40, I think.

I have caught dozens of these Palomino's over the years and actually fishing for them will teach you plenty about trout habits in general, you can see how much they actually move around in a hole when you are fishing for them, how many times trout follow your bait without biting, how to get a natural drift or the "feel of it" just by watching the fishes reaction to your offering. Much the same way their color makes them easy prey for osprey and such, fisherman easily spot them too. I witnessed something on Little Sugar Creek once that astounds me to this very day, but without video footage it would never hold up as evidence of a natural spawn. I had skipped school and was working a log jam on the far bank of a favorite section of this creek and was noticing minnows swim up the creek, in amongst the scads of minnows was what looked like a pod of Palomino trout fry, probably 2-4 inches at most. I saw them go by me in less than a foot of water, calm water to boot, not two feet from my boots, if they hadn't been so close I wouldn't have gotten such a good look at them, I have no other idea what they could have been. Having caught so many of these brightly colored fish, it would be hard to mistake the color of these fry for something else. I have no idea what else it could have been. I know this creek has hold over fish in it from year to year and plenty of palominos are stocked there so who really knows? You do see a lot of neat stuff on the creek though.

It's not that a good lawyer would help him get away with it so much as it's that a good lawyer would find a way to prove the prohibition was unconstitutional and unenforceable!

Joe, sounds like an interesting observation... I guess we'll never know what they were. Rosey red FHM have a similar coloration as palominos do. Maybe someone was using them for bait and released a few into the creek? I have caught a hand full of rosey reds in the wild and wondered how the heck they got there... There are a very few trout streams with naturally reproducing rainbows in them in PA and of those, I am not sure any have shown to have palominos in them. Anything is possible though.

I have caught native browns out of this same creek CJ, 3 inchers that hit spinners. I know it is rare, we have a couple tributaries to approved trout water around here with native brookie and brown populations, but never caught what I believed to be a native born rainbow. I never thought of the rosey reds, I'm going to have to find them somewhere and see what they look like. This happened to me 23 years ago?? I don't know the exact year, I used to take a lot of time off school to fish. My folks said if I made the honor roll I could always have a few extra days, so well, that was a good deal for me. How any child cannot be addicted to the outdoors is incomprehensible to me. My behavior was later controlled by how much woodchuck hunting time I was allowed.

HAHA, if you have a pet store near by they should carry rosey reds as feeder fish... The one creek I caught 1 of the wild tiger trout from runs next to the Penn State Altoona campus. The other creek feeds into the paper mill in Roaring Spring, PA and comes from the source that they use to bottle water for Roaring Spring bottled water. 1 was about 6" the other 9". Sometimes immature hognose suckers have brightly orange coloration, not quite like palomino trout, but they do stick out... I wish I grew up in the country. I loved ground hog hunting as a kid. Fun in the summer time to sneak along with a .22 and whack em in the head or what my grandfather liked doing which was sit back and shoot em at 400 yards with the 6mm.

I've popped a couple at 309 yards, same hole, same shooting position, just more than a couple rounds used, if you catch my "drift". I'll try some of them rosy reds when I get my second minnow pond into production. If your ever up towards Erie CJ, look me up. I couldn't live anywhere else but the country. I even feel out of place on this forum at times, despite a formal education I am but a country boy.

Some great fishing in your part of the state! Been since college at Penn State that I was in the Erie area.