Cecil, thanks for the excellent reply to my post. I can't believe the size of those trout...they are huge! I'm use to fishing the wild brookies in local brooks and still waters, you'd be lucky to get a fish around 1.5 lbs. The sea-run trout get pretty big, but I've never caught one of them.
I think I'm going to take your advise about the seed and hay. I've got lots of hay at my disposal. Our springs can be pretty wet so hopefully the seed will germinate before the hay blows away, also might get some bonus grasses from hay seed.
Sunil's suggestion to move the snow off the ice is something that I've done in the past just for skating purposes. No reason I can't do it for my trout. It's not unusual to get a week or two of -4 to - 13 Fahrenheit so the area of the pond frozen is really frozen, the open area is fairly small.
I'd like to avoid running an aeration unit to the pond so I think I'll have a closer look at the spring and see if I can jam some rocks into its channel and create a few more drops.
Thanks for being so helpful, I truly appreciate your advice.
