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!