Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Stocked rainbow trout in Kentucky farm pond

So I stocked 19 trout into one of my farm ponds last February. There were/are no other fish in the pond. The pond is about 1/10 acre surface area, to 6 or 7 feet deep in the center 1/3 of the pond.

These were 8-10" trout. I caught out 10 or 11 in April, they were 12"+. There is a superabundance of aquatic insects in the pond. I'm in one of the coolest weather zones in KY, the pond is partially shaded during most of the day. It's been mostly cool this year, the surface water is still cool to the touch, with plenty of cold pockets in the water. This pond has plenty of cold pockets all year.

The problem is that I haven't been able to get the fish to bite anything since I tried fishing again in late May. I've trout fished for years all over the US/Canada & have gotten pretty experienced. I've tried plenty of tactics in my pond, soft plastics, dough bait, eggs & egg flies, worms of many varieties, spinners, spoons, corn, flies of many types, not a strike.

I don't see any evidence of the fish being caught/eaten, & haven't found any floaters. I'm sure the increase of available food since April wouldn't leave the only 9 fish in the pond hungry.

It's additionally difficult to fish now due to the summer aquatic plant growth.

I'm sure that unless the fish were eaten by an otter (which are known to occur in the creek 1 mile away) there's not much chance that they were preyed upon. There was one 14" common snapping turtle in the pond, which I left there (too small to eat), I assumed that he would be too small to eat the trout as well.

The water is too murky now to see to the bottom.

Does anybody have any advice on how to get the trout out?

Thanks!
Andrew

I wish I had a good answer for you -- then maybe I'd know how to get some tormentors out of my pond. Currently, we've got two huge goldens and one big rainbow torturing us. It happens every year.

I put in about 25 last fall. I'm not sure how many we actually got out, but over the last four weeks, we've had three fish that do everything they can to humiliate us.

We can't catch them. But, when the feeder goes off, they are there doing their three-ring circus acts of zooming, scooping, flipping, and belly flopping.

Oh well, we really enjoy their antics. That is worth a lot.

Ken

P.S. Welcome to Pond Boss. Tell us a little more about what you are doing with your pond. Pictures are always greatly appreciated.

Trout rarely if ever float when dead, the usually sink to the bottom. So if they did die, you wouldn't know it. Invest in a cheap thermometer, if your water temp is over 68 degrees, your rainbow trout will not be very active and very tough to catch. By about 72-74 degrees, they will be impossible to catch and much above that they'll be dead. This depends on DO levels as well, which are often the thing that kill the trout before actual temp does. I suspect your trout are still there, but not active enough to be easily caught. They're probably hugging the bottom if the cooler zone with just enough DO to hang on. Unless your pond is spring fed with substantial flow, I doubt it will hold trout year round.

Thanks a lot for the help!

Catmandoo:
The flying trout circus sounds great, at first I thought that you were suggesting that the trout had literally been tormenting you, like physical attacks. Haha, guess I've seen too much 'river monsters' lately.

CJBS2003:
Thanks for the tip on the sinking phenomena. That makes it a lot easier to give up on the fishing, actually, now I'll switch to a netting tactic. This way I should be able to grab at least one fish (dead or alive) and see how they look. I imagine that they may be showing physical signs of stress by this point, due to heat.

I have lots of pictures, but my only internet connection is this here Android phone. Can't figure out how to post pics with it here? I'd happily email them to someone to have them posted.

To post pics in a thread you need to find an on-line host, like photobucket.

It might be an otter. Your pond isn't very large and trout size is suitable for this animal to start hunting. Probably you won't ever know if your fish were breakfast for that otter unless you find some evidence of it - some scales or something.

What about this phrase "These were 8-10" trout. I caught out 10 or 11 in April, they were 12"+". How did you catch them? As far as I know, trout is very vulnerable to any kind of injuries. It might cause the death of your fish.

So no luck at all after two hours net fishing for these guys. I was hoping that I would at least stir them up enough to catch a glimpse...


Here's a picture of the pond from a distance, it's on the top of a ridge, stays full all the time. That building to the left is my sauna.



One of the pond close up:




Here's a picture of the10 rainbows I caught from the pond earlier this spring (with a fishing pole, red plastic trout worm, I smoked these guys on hickory and NM mesquite)

Thanks for the photograph tip esshup !

Pond in the winter:




Here's the little snapper that was in the pond early this spring:




Here's a few more trout related pictures for good measure,

NM cutthroat (edit; Rio Grande cutthroat, to be specific. I think it's an endangered species now, or close) these are the hardest *wild fish to catch that I've ever tried for:




Washington state steelhead:






I hope it's not too terrible to post these un-pond related pictures here,
My job involves lots of traveling & proximity to wilderness, so I do lots of stream fishing!

Oh, sorry, my bad.
I thought you caught 10 of them and released but I didn't read that they were 19 in the beginning...

I like all photos, some one here are pond purists but I'm not. Keep on posting! Beautiful trout...

Beautiful pictures. Glad that I could help.

Cheers to ya! It's always safe to assume that there's at least one trout enthusiast in a group of people interested in fish related topics .

& thanks again esshup!

I think it is safe to assume that you are correct. Those are some beautiful looking meals fish!

We love to invite ours in for dinner. Sometimes we even treat them to a sauna before dinner! Then we treat them to a bath in spices and cream cheese! Yummm.

Haha, lookin tasty there.

Are the golden trout any different than ordinary rainbow's in terms of raising? Same temperature parameters & all?

I had both of them in my pond at the same time, and the only thing that I noticed was that the goldens were more agressive toward lures - they were caught at a 5:1 rate vs. the standard colored rainbows. Even after being caught and released a few times, they still were catchable unlike some of the rainbows.