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#480138 09/19/17 10:17 AM
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Hi everyone, I'm Nick From Italy and this is my first post after my presentation in the "new users" section.
I manage some ponds in my area for bass fishing. The main pond, where i put the majority of my efforts, it's a 25-acre pond, with the shape of a bent triangle, and it's pretty deep in the middle - 45 feet. The water is usually moderately clear with a greenish color. I started to manage it the previous year. In the ponds there are: largemouth bass (pure northern strain - we don't have floridas in italy), pumpkinseed sunfish, common carp, common rudd, crayfish. The pond has a reputation for producing big bass, but since no one used to harvest any bass, it suffered a little bit from overpopulation of bass in the 9 - 15 inch range. Sunfish present was usually big. Some big bass (around 5 - 6 pounds)are present but they're not numerous. I started to harvest medium sized bass (i put them in another pond) and putting additional crawfish and it seems to work. But here's the deal: This winter i would like to put rainbow trout in the pond for two reasons: 1) having some fun catching em 2) add an additional source of food in the pond. In Italy the weather is pretty mild, the water in the pond is about 45 degrees in january, bass spawn in mid april when the water is about 60 degrees, in the summer it reaches 90 degrees and in november is about 60 degrees again. Then in reaches the 50-degree mark in the beginning of december . I'm giving you these information so that you have a better scenario for additional help.
I was thinking about putting 400-500 small rainbow trouts (8 inch) to feed big bass as well as some big trouts (2-3 pounds all the way up to 13 pounds) to have some fun catching em but I'm not sure about some things:
1) how much will the small trouts survive without feed? Do you think that if i put them in the pond in november they will manage to survive until april/may?
2) Do you think 6-7 pound trout and over will eat the smaller trouts?
I look forward to useful replies
Thanks a lot in advance

Last edited by Fivealive; 09/19/17 10:22 AM.
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Welcome Nick, to the forum. Many of us have been in Europe, fished in some lakes and streams, and can envision some of your unique fishes.

I'm no pond expert; don't take anything I say as advice, only observation.

Congrats on the size of your lake. That's plenty of water for quality fish.

Is the water muddied by the carp, reducing visibility for the foraging predators? Trout don't care much for muddy water. Bass also sight feed, so need to see their prey. Perhaps the bottom of your lake is gravel, not mud?

Are you spending lots of money on the trout? If it were my pond, and it's not, I'd definately feed the stocker trout, as the smaller ones for forage would thrive and grow, thereby increasing the quantity/quality of forage for bass later. 8 inch trout could also be 14 to 16 inches by the time the water warms up too much for them to survive. You could be enjoying catching them, and your biggest bass would enjoy them too.

Speaking of the water warming up, is there a good chance that water temps deeper in the pond would remain cool enough in summer for trout to survive? They'd need oxygen supplementation of course. I'll defer to our aeration experts on this. Bill Cody might be able to chime in about aerating some or all of the water column in winter to saturate it with O2 so that a partial depth aeration in warmer months would supplement O2 levels but not upset the deep, cool water refuge for those 6 to 13 pound trout to remain alive.

To try to answer your 2 trout questions, the smaller trout will just be that many more mouths eating your forage base unless you supplementally feed them, forage that your PS and rudds need to thrive to be bass food. Many will survive; they'll grow slowly.

Your big trout will eat some of everything in the pond-insect larvae, crawfish, sunfish and rudds, small trout, small bass, prolly even a few small carp. RBT in my pond key in on crawfish and YP when not eating pellets or insects.

Hope you get some expert advice soon. Keep us posted of how things work for you. And tell us about your other pond(s).

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Thanks a lot for your interest, 4cornerspuddle.

So, i'd say that basically all the fish in my pond are also present in US waters.. except for the rudds maybe... but i think they're very similar to your golden shiners. Unfortunately, so far all the rudds that i saw were really big (2 pounds and over) , maybe because of the overaboundance of intermediate size bass. I hope that as i keep on harvesting bass, all species of forage fish will increase in numbers.
I don't think that water is muddied up too much by carps. In spring visibility is sometimes 10+ feet. In the summer i'd say 3 feet, something like that. In the fall after heavy rain the water can get pretty stained, but usually by christmas it's pretty clear again.

Talking about the trouts,my budget is something around 600€. 8inch RT cost something around 2€ per pound. Big trouts (4 pounds and over) cost 2,5. So i was thinking about putting 400 small RT in the pond and 50 - 100 big RT. I won't have any money left for trout feed so i wouldn't feed them. So, considered all this stuff, the main question is: WILL MY BASS BENEFIT FROM THIS SCENARIO, OR NOT?
When you refer to oxygen levels in the summer, i honestly don't know if the big trouts will survive. Surface temps reach 90°F in july and august. I don't know about the temperature down deep, but i noticed on my fishfinder that there is a distinctive layer of different water around 22 feet deep, and i never caught any bass deeper than that. Anyway, regarding RT, i don't care so much since i was thinking about harvesting the big trouts that i catch.

Later i'll post some pics of my pond and also talk about the other ones smile . For now, again, do you think that my bass could benefit from the RT stocking program that i thought about? Or do you think that i will do more harm than good?



Last edited by Fivealive; 09/19/17 04:51 PM.
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I guess we have Rudd here in the US too? I never knew how similar they were to GSH.

Rudd vs GSH

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Here's a picture of the pond (photo was taken in april)



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If the trout are 1/4 to 1/3 the length of the bass, they will be forage.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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with the thermocline setting up that deep, the trout may survive the summer. The smaller trout will be food for the larger bass, the larger ones won't reproduce.

BUT, if the majority of the bass in the pond are 9"-15", then some of the smaller trout might very well survive. Rainbows eat a lot of insects, so you might be OK for not feeding them. I don't think the larger trout will eat many of the smaller trout, I think the bass will eat more of them than the larger trout will.

Keep on taking out bass. I'd shoot for 20 to 30 pounds per surface acre to remove this year.


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Do you think that 50 to 80 big trouts (3 - 10 lb.) will eat a lot of bass forage during the winter?

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what do you think about it?

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I don't think that few of trout will make a big difference in LMB recruitment. Those stocking numbers only equal 3 per acre. I have a slightly over 1 acre pond. When my stocking numbers of trout approached 50 in number, I think at that point I would see the small BG numbers diminish. If I stocked 25, really no noticeable difference. I would think that it applies to them going after LMB too, however I am no pro.

All you can do is try it, and see what happens. The worse case scenario is that you have lots of trout to fish for. wink

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want to thin the LMB and supply those that are left with forage. Otherwise you want a trophy LMB pond. Perhaps you need a limited predator and/or a better forage for the LMB. The pros here can make other suggestions suitable for such...... more correct types of habitat, other types of forage, etc.

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thanks a lot for the response, fish n chips!
You know, in more than 50 years of existence of the pond, it has produced some trophy bass even though no one has ever tried to manage it. So the habitat should be right for producing big fish. My goal is to make it even better for bass fishing. When i started to manage it the previous year, you could catch 50+ fish around 13 inches in a day of fishing, plus some few big ones. By taking out bass in the 10-15 inches range, i hope that in the future we could maybe catch fewer but bigger fish. I will let you know about my trials and i will keep on asking for suggestions. Thanks again to everyone smile

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Here's the deal. 95+% of all fish eggs laid and/or hatched will not survive their first year. They become groceries and that's a good thing when you consider all of the eggs laid.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

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As you thin out the LMB, I would keep an eye on the BG population. It should start to increase which is a good thing. You need those mid-range BG to feed the larger bass. You said in your first post that you caught nice size BG, but not lots of any others. This could be a sign that the LMB are getting ahead of BG production, thus a reason you may want to think about some habitat for the BG fry to survive until they can get a bit larger.

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Originally Posted By: Fivealive
Do you think that 50 to 80 big trouts (3 - 10 lb.) will eat a lot of bass forage during the winter?



If you are stocking 50-80 big trout in the 3-10 pound each range, I think the $$ would be better spent stocking that same weight of trout but in 6"-8" size range to help feed the bass while you continue to remove the smaller, skinnier bass.


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Originally Posted By: esshup

If you are stocking 50-80 big trout in the 3-10 pound each range, I think the $$ would be better spent stocking that same weight of trout but in 6"-8" size range to help feed the bass while you continue to remove the smaller, skinnier bass.


Yeah, I know that. I was just wandering if those big trouts would eat a lot of bass forage. If they do, I will not stock em. But if the don't , I would like to stock em cause they're just very fun to catch in the winter when the bass is not very active. But of course, my main goal is to keep the bass healthy so if you think the big trouts are going to be a problem , I will not stock em.

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I don't think adding 1-2 per acre will affect the bass fishing at all.


www.hoosierpondpros.com


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3/4 to 1 1/4 ac pond LMB, SMB, PS, BG, RES, CC, YP, Bardello BG, (RBT & Blue Tilapia - seasonal).

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