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.