Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Water Temp. And Cover

New pond, 8’ deep, 1/4 acre, spring fed, western N.Y.

Going to try brook trout to see how they do. I know they prefer cold water but my question is, how do you properly measure your water temperature? It’s going to be different in the top layer than it is on the bottom, so what should I go by?
Also, thought about throwing in some x-mas trees for cover. Are they going to be detrimental to the water quality as the decompose?

Another brook trout lover! Congrats.

I have a simple floating pool or pond thermometer that I use for surface temperature and for depth temp measurement. I attach a sinker to the device to pull it to the bottom, and have a line attached which I use to retrieve the thermometer.

Are you adding forage fish or other species of catchable fish? If not, I'd say skip the x-mas trees. Trout typically don't hang out in cover; they nearly continuously cruise. Sure, in a stream environment, they'll hang in front of and behind rocks an logs, etc. But in your still water environment, I believe they'd swim in the open. With no brush on the bottom, you'll be able to fish without fear of snagging, too.

Aquatic plants could benefit your brookies by providing food and cover for insect larvae and other edible critters.

Good luck with this project. Please keep this thread going. There are only a few of us posting about trout in our ponds. wmbuffetjr has brookies; all I've got are lowly tiger trout and now rainbows again. I added 23 'bows a couple of days ago, ranging from 12" to 16".

Did you folks have difficulty sourcing trout this year like we have in Texas? Not just higher prices, they are hard to find anywhere.

I thought about adding fatheads later in the year; this spring I want to put in daphnia and the brookies along with some lilly pads. Of course I’ll be feeding the trout. Will there be any issues with having brookies and fatheads together?
Guess I’ll skip the x-mas trees.
I’m hoping Zetts hatchery in Pa. will have my trout this spring, I’m going to call them early on. Last year they sold out of bass real early.
If not there’s always a couple beaver dams.

Thanks for the replies gents.


Tyler

anthropic, my fish came from a friend who bought them as fingerlings a couple of years ago. He'd been keeping them in a raceway, feeding them, and hoping to come up with a market for them. His ranch sold, he had no other place to put them, so he told me to come and catch as many as we could from the run.

Now, that's a REALLY GOOD FRIEND! Thank you, Pete.

You ask - Those two fish species will be compatible. FHM are slow swimmers and the brookies when eating fish will likely prefer the smallest easy to catch 3/4" - 1.5" FHM. FHM eat very little of the insect larvae which is a preferred food of brookies. You will get the fastest and best growth of brookies if you buy those from a hatchery where they are fed pellets. Ask them about their water temps for their bookies during July- August. Keep in mind that brookies do best if the water temperatures are kept below 64F with lots of dissolved oxygen.

Very happy to have another Brookie guy here!! Check out New Brandon Fisheries in NY. If I could get Brookies from anywhere those are the ones I would want! I have FHM in my pond and it works great. Good luck and please keep us updated on how it goes!

I’m happy to see that fatheads and brookies are a good combination.

I’m hoping my pond will be suitable habitat, guess you really can’t tell until you try.

I’d love to get brookies from New Brandon but that’s about 8 hours away. Zetts is only 3 but I may call New Brandon and see if they’re going to be making any deliveries down this way.

Thanks for the info again and I’ll keep you all posted on how things go. Sure is nice to have this forum.

Tyler