Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Stocking Rainbow and Brown Trout

Hello all, I'm new to the board. I've been managing my friends pond for the last 4 years with great success. It has become a great bass, crappie, and catfishery. The pond has alot of different species, but I belive I've kept it in balance with a constant inflow of forage (mainly bluegills, fathead minnows, and shiners). Anyway, I've been thinking of adding a new dimension to the pond by stocking trout. The pond is a 2 acre gravel pit pond that is fairly deep for a pond maxing out around 35 ft. It is fed by underwater springs and the bottom stays very cold throughout the summer. My ultimate goal would be to create a sustaining trout population with minimal further stockings. I know that trout could survive in the pond during the summer since most of the water stays very cool and has good oxygen content. What I'm asking is has anyone else experimented with trout under the same or similar conditions and got them to spawn and survive?

Oh n8ly!!! n8ly has some trout in a pond that oversummer. I don't think you'll get them to spawn, they need a stream (flowing water over a gravel bed) to successfuly spawn.

Welcome bigcathunter89, the chances of any type of trout spawning in a pond are pretty slim. Maybe if you had the exact correct amount and temp. of water flowing from springs thru gravel in the pond bottom, but the odds aren't good.
Anyway Trout are a great fish, if you think conditions are good enough give them a try. As you are in PA. there are plenty of trout hatcheries for BRKT, RBT,& BRNT, and definitely give Tiger trout a shot, they are great.

Welcome bigcat.

Quite a few of us put trout in our ponds for the winter. Some are able to keep them over the summer. But, I don't know of anyone who has successfully had them spawn and grow.

From my experience with rainbow and goldens, I certainly don't see any downsides to having them in the pond. Ours go in around mid-October. We try to get them out by the middle of May. The latest I've seen one float up is mid-July.

I mainly manage for big bluegill and I feel the the trout help keep the numbers down. If you've got crappie in the pond, as I do, I feel they will help keep them under control. They don't have any effect on my channel cats. And they don't seem to have any significant effect on my intentionally overcrowded and skinny bass.

The trout are just fun to have around -- most winters. Feeding them is nearly as much fun as catching them. This year however, the water got cold very early, and it froze several weeks earlier than usual. So, we didn't get to do much feeding or fishing.

Thanks for the input guys. I put a stockie brown in a couple years ago in may and never saw it or heard of anyone catching it again. I think they'll add another fun recreational element even if they don't successfully spawn.

Browns are notorious for being hard to catch. When I had browns in one of my ponds I would always have about 10 of them that couldn't be caught that i removed once I drained down the pond.

The only trout that can successfully spawn in lucastrine waters are brook trout, but even then they need upwelling to do so. I've seen some successful hatches in such a manner, in a small lake in Massachusetts, but survival past fry size was low as the pond had lots of predator fish as in largemouth bass.

cecil, thats a hall of fame pic for a hall of fame kind of guy!

Beautiful trout! That's exactly what I want. I've heard many stories of browns being harder to catch, but I enjoy a good challenge.

This is key... It is a rare man made BOW that supports a naturally reproducing trout population. Even larger reservoirs that have large feeder creeks with temperatures cold enough to support trout and conditions suitable to their reproduction, the young trout just don't make it to adulthood. Most of those reservoirs also contain bass, walleye, pike and other fish that would gladly chow down on a 3" trout. Young trout require very specific habitat to allow them to survive to adulthood. Few creeks have this...

CJ, as you stated with all the water quality factors affecting the survival of trout, the predator issue is another problem.
Like the big creek behind your camp the large pickerel can really take their toll.
The small stream that runs thru my property supports a self sustaining population of brook trout but it's mostly too small to allow other predators to grow large enough and only small PS's are any competition.
The term "it depends" really applies to trout.

It's why so many trout are stocked... If fish agencies relied on natural reproduction to keep up with demand, there would be a lot of unhappy fisherman!

You know my twin brother?

No wonder you don't look quite like you in that picture!