Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Fly Fishing & Other Fish Species Long-time stocked rainbows

Hello everyone.
In march I put about 50 big rainbows (2 - 8 lb range) in the pond I manage (25 acre - 45ft max depth) . At first, they were pretty easy to catch. Honestly I ddn't fish for them a lot (I mainly fish fr bass), but I caught and released about 10 specimens during the spring. They were swimming close to the surface and they were pretty active and aggressive. Then the summer came and obviously they disappeared. I saw one following my carolina-rigged crature bait I was using to target bass and I found one floating dead on the surface in august. Not a single sign of the other ones. Now with cold temperatures and poor bass fishing conditions, I would like to try to catch some of those rainbows. I'm pretty sure they survived the summer since i only found one dead, bot I tried 2 or 3 times with the same lures and techniques that were working for me past year and had no result. I read that aftere they have been stocked, trouts start to adopt a lot of the characteristics of wild trout, like hiding under cover, being struture-oriented and so on. Do any of you have any experience about it? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Fivealive, my trout experiences are similar. I've added 10 to 20 RNBT, BRNT, and TT (acronym for tiger trout?) for several years. After some harvest, there then may only be 1, 2, or 3 left alive and on 1 or 2 floaters. I don't know where they go. Osprey? Eagles? Dead and simply sink into the weeds for crayfish food? Many dead fish never float, but you probably already know that.

Do you feed? Surface pellet eating rainbows are simple to fool with something that looks like what they've been eating.

You might try live bait. If you have crayfish in the pond, try a small one suspended. Trout just are not that smart, but they can be finicky.

Good luck, and keep us in the loop.

4corbersPuddle, thanks for the reply.
To be honest, I would like to try to target them with lures or soft plastics, I don't enjoy that much fishing with live bait. Anyway, I will keep on trying. I do suspect that some more died since here the water gets pretty warm in the summer (surface temp around 90degrees), but the pond is big and pretty deep so I think there is a good chance that several trouts are still alive. I don't feed them. Years ago I was managing another pond and we put trout in the pond each year in October. It was a lot smaller and shallower than this one, so conditions during the summer were even tougher, but I remember catching a nice RT in September fishing for carp on the bottom with corn. I will try again and keep you updated, I'll stick with lures anyway.
On the net I read that after they are stocked in a pond,trouts tend to keep on swimming pretty much anywhere in the pond, usually close to the surface, because they were accustomed to that in the hatchery. Then after time they start to re-adopt some of the habits of wild trouts.

From my experience in public fishing in a trout stocked lake they would stock when it starts getting cold and even some ice. When ice fished the trout would circle the lake in schools. you could almost know when you were going to get a bite by watching the other fishermen in groups.

I think if in August you saw one dead trout, then all the others also died. Trout often do not float when they die in mid summer. Consider yourself extremely lucky if any of those trout survived the summer. Not catching nor seeing any highly suggests total mid summer trout die-off.