Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Trout frustration

I stocked 200# of trout in my 3acre pond in November. This is the third time Ihave done this. First time, 5 years ago I had fabulous luck with feeding,growing and catching trout up til mid May when water temps got into the 70's. The next year we had a drought and low water with poor visibility due to clay turbidity (I attributed this to unusual amounts of shallow water and wind action)so the harvest was reduced quite a bit. Skipped a year and stocked this year. Average fish is supposed to be around 1# plus or minus. I have only caught 2 so far in spite of using salmon eggs, panty hose flies corn, roostertail spinners and various streamers and other flies. When I feed I cannot for sure say that I see trout rising although something is coming to thte surface. I suspect it is just bluegill. No catfish are visible On the very coldest days not much comes up for food. I have a lot of large channel catfish, >100, in the 8-10 lb range. Is it possible these could eat the trout? A friend who also has a pond and stocks trout in the winter says a wildlife biologist said catfish could prey on stocked trout but I have had my doubts due to mouth size and the low water temps. Anyone have a guess as to whether this would be likely to happen?

What size bass do you have in your pond? I would attribute trout losses more to any of your bigger bass than catfish. However, catfish in the 10 pound range could take on a trout. What were the size range of the trout stocked? There is a huge difference in a 9" trout and an 11" trout as far as what can eat them. When I stock our trout stream, I only stock trout 11" and up... Anything smaller than that becomes expensive pickerel food. A 9" trout could be eaten by a 8-10 pound CC IMO. A 16" bass could also take on a trout of that size without much issue...

I'd be highly suspicious that the cats are going to town on the trout. I grew up fishing 100-200 acre lakes in AZ that were stocked with trout in the winter-using trout in the 9-12" range for bait, Nov thru April. We'd catch cats all winter, even with water temps in the upper 30's, on trout. Cats wouldn't touch anything else until April or May. A 9 or 10lb cat can take a 12" trout without much difficult, IMHO.

Currently, I put in 200# of trout into my 2acre pond each November for LMB and bluecat food....I've never seen a floater in May or June, and I'm sure it's because they've all been munched by the cats, and bass to a lesser extent.

I actually dont thing the CC are eating much of the trout this time of year, especially since a 1 lb average on trout is typically a 12-14 inch fish.

Trout you stocked could have been stressed due to handling, sick from the hatchery, or maybe they just have too much to eat in your pond still? I have seen all three of those factors affect catch rates and feeding.

The bass popularion in my pond is somewhat stunted. I kind of despaired at correcting it and stocked catfish and hybrid striper. The HSB are 4-5 lbs but their mouth size looks too small to take on a 12" trout or maybe I am wrong. I am suspecting the catfish the most. There are only 40 HSB in the pond-probably fewer due to mortality. There are really high numbers of CC-they have spawned at least once to my dismay. There has been a decline in the LMB population corresponding to the CC increase and predictably the size of the average bass has gotten larger while there are far fewer of them.

Layton I suspect you are right . A large CC (10 lbs) can eat a 1 lb trout assuming it can catch it in cold water. A 4-5 lb HSB would be as or more active but due to gape limits would be much less likely to eat a 1 # trout. It might happen but IMO would be the exception. Can you provide a time line on the amount of trout activity post stocking ( lots for a week , less every day , none or little a few days after stocking , etc). Big fish can have a field day feasting on newly stocked fish even as big as a pound as Yolk noted. That may also be what is happening to your small LMB. Its either that or they have gone inactive due to extreme cold (not real likely with trout over that period of time) or sickness of some sort. Don't discount what those LMB will do to trout.

Layton -- what's the chance you've had poachers? Our winter trout are pretty easy to catch -- at times. When they are biting, somebody could easily come in and get 15 to 20 trout in an hour or so.

Just a thought . . .

Ken

On the bright side, if you want to catch a whole bunch of those CC and reduce your population, 1/3rd trout on a 4/0 circle hook is just the ticket......I would think you could just about fish the pond out of larger cats in a very short time. There's nothing a big cat likes better than trout when they've been exposed to them for a few years running.

As ewest implied, those newly stocked trout just don't have the survival skills needs to escape that many CC in a fairly limited space..If you've got a hundred cats between 8-10# and they each eat only one trout a month since November, by mid January your population can take a real hit. I would guess based on what I've seen in my own pond that you could lose up to a quarter of your trout the first night or two.

I would still have to say that something else is wrong if the trout never did feed very good even in the beginning. A healthy trout 12-14 inches could easily escape CC predation in 60 degree water. 3 acres is not necessarily a fairly limited space, and 100+ large CC is not overly stocked for that amount of space.

I am still thinking something else is going on/went on/early on. Or there could be many reasons why they havent taken to the feed, like the feed could be bad/old or it is too low of protein for the trout to eat, or the trout have taken to an alternative food source. Even if the CC have just gone crazy eating them, the survivors should still be feeding on 40% fish food fairly aggressively.

I agree with Nate on possible alternate food sources, when I stock trout in the spring they feed heavy for a day or two then very lightly for the rest of the season, there are plenty of GSH and PS's and bugs, and they grow fast with minimum Trout pellets.

Layton,

How old is your pond? How long have the cats been in? Bass? How big were the cats when you stocked the trout the first time, several years ago?Anything else change over the past 5 years? Nate has far more actual experience in pond management than I, and practical experience almost always trumps theory and book learning, but I have to think those cats are playing a really active role in the scarcity of your trout. If you have a hundred 10# cats [which seems a fairly conservative estimate based on what you've written], that's 1000# of cats in 3 acres, or 333#/acre-quite a bit for a topline predator. They're probably hungry by november, having eaten a lot of bass and BG by then, and I'd sure think they could maul unsuspecting, just stocked trout.

I appreciate all the helpful speculations. Due to rains there was some turbidity with 12-16" visibility in Nov when trout were stocked. Now visiblity is 30-34". I had assumed the poor visibility would aid the trouts' survival. I was feeding the CC's at that time also so they were not ravenous. The pond is 40 yrs old. The CC were stocked 8-9 years ago and have definitely increased in size since the first trout stocking. I caught a CC the other day trying for trout and he was bulging but I had released him before it dawned on me I should have checked his stomach contents. It will not happen again and maybe that will answer my question.

Be sure you let us know what you find, so Nate and I can get back to less controversial issues, like the merits [or absence therof] of green sunfish and global warming.

Big diff from what we see. most ponds the trout hammer the food. We stocked about 40 ponds this fall/winter and many have large cats. What time in Nov did you stock? I get nervous with nov stocking. This year around nov 20??we got a warm snap in the 80's glad we waited until after thanksgiving. They could have died before they had a chance if that happened. Then with catfish they cleaned up any trout before they floated up. Hope they showup for you but this is a possibility if not seeing them feed.

Catfish don't rely on sight while feeding nearly as much as most other predators, so the turbidity probably wouldn't hamper them much, if at all.