Trout? or other. - 05/06/11 03:50 PM
I live in NEPA at elevation. We have a small pond. It's spring fed. It's inflow is very cold. The kind of spring where ankle deep is enough to cool your whole body on a hot July day. The pond itself is about 120 ft long about 10 feet wide at one end and about 40 at the other. The wide end is about 6' deep. The rest tapers to about 18" at the far end. I don't know how warm the water gets in the summer but it's never "warm". The flow from the spring from fall to spring is great 6-8" deep and several feet wide, even in summer is 3-4" deep and about 18" wide.
The dam is more of a slow sieve. Leaks about half the summer flow in the dead center. But it maintains it's depth. I have been working on the leaks. It has a ton of organics in the bottom around 2 feet deep in spots. But the water is clear even in mid summer. I have been clearing it and will continue to over this summer so as to get it down to just a few inches if possible. I have water grass and various pond weeds. But they aren't taking over. In winter I get thick ice on one end but little on the other because of the spring. So winter kill shouldn't be an issue. The pond is currently free of any fish. But has a huge frog and salamander population.
Now to the stocking question. Do you all think with the cold water I should avoid all "warm" water fish. I was thinking of getting some bluegills(warm water) local by fishing with the boy to get something in it. Will they grow well at such low temps? Then I would stock it with a hundred or so trout in fall. (I know I would need to feed them and thats not an issue.) But would the bluegill just compete with the trout and cause more harm than good. Even free it wouldn't pay to mess it up.
The dam is more of a slow sieve. Leaks about half the summer flow in the dead center. But it maintains it's depth. I have been working on the leaks. It has a ton of organics in the bottom around 2 feet deep in spots. But the water is clear even in mid summer. I have been clearing it and will continue to over this summer so as to get it down to just a few inches if possible. I have water grass and various pond weeds. But they aren't taking over. In winter I get thick ice on one end but little on the other because of the spring. So winter kill shouldn't be an issue. The pond is currently free of any fish. But has a huge frog and salamander population.
Now to the stocking question. Do you all think with the cold water I should avoid all "warm" water fish. I was thinking of getting some bluegills(warm water) local by fishing with the boy to get something in it. Will they grow well at such low temps? Then I would stock it with a hundred or so trout in fall. (I know I would need to feed them and thats not an issue.) But would the bluegill just compete with the trout and cause more harm than good. Even free it wouldn't pay to mess it up.