Just some of my experience for any future trout guys.
These Splake were stocked in my lake 10/05/2018 at 6"-9". The lake was iced over by 11/05/2018. There is ZERO supplemental feeding in our lake. Coldest measured water temp was 32.6 degrees (measured with YSI Pro ODO meter). I do not know how long the water was at that temp or if it got colder or not. Problems with aeration led to very low DO levels early on in the Winter. That combined with the most snow anyone can remember made for a tough winter that I THOUGHT had killed all the fish. ~2.5' of cloudy ice with feet of snow covering the ice. Ice did not even
start to break until 6/06/2019. Ice was 100% off by 6/16/2019. Longest ice cover I have personally witnessed.
Stocked Splake
This fish was caught ~6/27/2019, less than 3 weeks after ice started to break. It was ~16". I was amazed at the growth considering the conditions the fish survived. I would imagine less harsh conditions and supplemental feeding could really produce some impressive growth under the ice.
