Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Date/Temp my trout will die

I'm in central Virginia, current surface water temp is 60 - 64. This is the first year that I stocked rainbow, golden, and brook trout. They have been a blast but I know the end is near and I need to start harvesting. What is your best guess when the first will start to die and when they'll all be done for?

Pond is just under an acre, max depth 11 feet, no aeration.

Thanks for the tips - recipes also appreciated - I probably have upwards of 300 pounds of trout now!

There is no exact answer... No way to say what the weather will be like 2 weeks from now, or 6 weeks from now. There are many variables about your individual pond to say, on this exact date your trout are gonna croak.

Temperature and dissolved oxygen both play a role in whether trout can live in a certain body of water. There are many ponds that stay cold enough at the bottom for trout to live, the problem is the dissolved oxygen levels down there are extremely low. Brook trout are the least tolerant of lower DO and higher temps. When surface temps push 70, expect the brook trout to begin to struggle and when surface temps reach 74, expect the rainbows/goldens to struggle. In central VA, this may occur late May to early June in all likelihood. It could occur a little earlier if we have unusually warm temps or it could occur a little later.

Remember, the trout may still be alive but not actively feeding as they are too stressed to continue to feed.

It also depends on the strain of rainbow trout you have. The hatchery I get my rainbows/goldens from has two distinct strains, one which I have found it much more tolerant of warmer waters than the other.

Jorge -- Travis (CJBS) gave you the most accurate advice possible.

I am located about 20 miles west of Winchester, VA at about 1300 feet. My 0.7 acre pond is about 9-foot deep, with no aeration. It is on the North East side of a ridge, so we are a little cooler than you. I try to get my trout out by June 1.

If we didn't have the Winchester Apple Blossom Festival this weekend, I'd start heavily harvesting this weekend. It will now be the weekends of May 7th and 14th when we'll get the local youth from 4-H, scouts, church, etc. to come out. We'll have a couple of big fish cook outs.

Pickeled, smoked, fried, or as Trout Pizza , it is all good.



We remove about 80% of those we put in each October. Some obviously die. Some get eaten by critters. We've had a few survive into July.

No matter, they are incredible fun in the late fall and the spring time for me, the grand kids, and the neighborhood kids.

Thanks for the info. As I mentioned this has been one of the most awesome fishing experiences of my life having these trout to fish for & feed all winter. I will begin the harvest now with a big push toward Mid-May.

If anyone else is considering doing this - I couldn't recommend anything better - what a hoot! Best $500 I ever spent.

Jorge, Im continually impressed how long rainbow trout make it in our ponds in GA where it is dang hot at times. Many times with 80 degree surface temp they are still feeding. The brooks wil be gone soon probably.

General statement coming- Basically soon the trout will move to the thermocline this zone might be 2-3 feet wide. It wil have water that right now is in the 60's and good DO. As the summer heat continues this zone will start to decrease in size as temp increase and DO lowers. I have found rainbow making it in temps 76 and Dissolved Oxygen at 5 ppm. As one of these lowers they are toast. However as mentioned this does not mean they are catchable. Once stressed they will be tough to catch, actually feeding will cause them to die sooner.

May 22, 201l at 5 A.M. Surface temp 79.2 F.

Sorry couldn't help myself Jorge!

I'm good at guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar too!

Oh btw we are all toast December 21, 2012!

Greg, it would be interesting to see if a hatchery would work on finding those rare rainbows who really seem to handle the warmer lower DO better. Pluck them out and continually select out the hardier ones. I think there would be a demand for a rainbow that was hardier and had a better chance to survive. Then again, it would probably cost a lot of money and take time to bring about a strain like that...

Just splice in some tilapia genes for warmer water preference and you'd be a multimillionaire. That is until the government closed you down!

I could do that here since I had some make it until well in to July the last two years. I thnk this has basically been done without even meanging to do it. THink about it every rough (hot and drouight)summer in western NC they lose fish. They have been selecting those survivors for years now. No more dying at 70 as I used to say for the trout we stock.

do rainbows ans goldens have the same temp requirments

I believe golden rainbows have the same tolerance as they are just a color variation, some people on the forum have them, maybe they will speak up.

Yep same fish just different coloration.

ok i was just wondering because they are a genetic mutation, what about tigers?

Tigers are an intermediate between brook and brown trout but it's been my experience they lean more towards browns in tolerance.

ok thanks

Update: man things changed fast in 3 weeks. 3 weekends ago we had kids on the dock and every thing that was dropped off the end of the dock was instantly nailed by brook trout. What a blast seeing 4 year-olds reel in 1 - 2 pound trout on Barbie and Spiderman rods! The next weekend they stopped hitting artificials but powerbait worked (ugh, but yes I have to harvest them by any means necessary...) brought in lots of rainbows. This past weekend only fish food would work. They are getting much slower, much less eager to feed (I've stopped feeding in quantity). Had to fish with fish food (double ugh) but we still harvested 30-some this past weekend. Only one brook trout (maybe 2.5 pounds!!!!!). Seems like the brookies are sulking and the rainbows are just hanging in there. We've had a slight cool down so I'll hit them hard this Friday, then it warms up and I suspect my fun will be over for the year. I'll miss them... but I'm also tired of cleaning fish!

Sidenote: Some of the rainbows have roe. My wife loves caviar and I read an internet post on how to make it - so we've been having rainbow caviar the last few weeks. The stuff is beautiful. My wife loves it...and so does my 4 year-old daughter. How cool is that?

jorge: Try fishing with Stubby Steve's. It imitates fish pelles exactly, and it will stay on the hook for numerous fish. It works great!

Trout need lots of DO to survive.

If you have good oxygen and aeration, hatchery trout can survive into warmer temps.

Not sure about wild trout

Many lakes and ponds that have cold water lack the DO to keep trout through the summer and fall

esshup: ordered some Stubby Steves yesterday!

Update: Caught a rainbow over Memorial Day. Since then no signs of life from fishing/observing. But, not a single floater. Could they be hanging on or did they die & sink? If they don't float over the summer I guess I'll have my answer in October if any are left.

In any case I'll be getting another truckload next October - what a blast!

They're probably hugging that last little area of the water in your pond where it is the coolest but almost most oxygenated... I rarely see the trout when they die, they apparently sink to the bottom where the turtles clean them up...

Jorge,

I expect you are not too far away from me -- I'm just west of Winchester, VA. I figure I got the Last Live Trout out of my pond two weeks ago.

Over many years of keeping winter trout in our ponds, I've probably seen less than five float to the surface -- yet far more than that have perished. This season, our pond has two medium size snapping turtles, and several catfish between 16 and 30 inches. I figure they got the trout that were reluctant to come in for a good smoke or for dinner.

It is really difficult to keep trout in ponds in VA and WV without a major source of cold water, like from a spring/well that provides several hundred gallons of water per hour at 60 degrees F, or less.

Ken