I can shed some light on the LMB and the trout in Dixon that you cannot learn from reading a book or looking at articles. First hand knowledge as in been there fishing and lived relatively close for 10 years. Close as in 20 - 25 minutes and 19 miles away.....
Don't believe everything you read is the first thing.
Dixon is a hair bigger than 600 surface acres, and they stock 3,000-4,000 pounds of trout per stocking. While that doesn't feed ALL the bass in the lake, when they do stock them the LMB that are in that particular area know that the feed bell is ringing.
The trout are stupid and sometimes in shock when stocked. The trout that are stocked are mostly 10"-16" and I have NEVER seen a 2# trout stocked unless the CDFW stock some of their large brood fish after they have spawned and they need to rotate some inventory. That's how you see the 10#-12# trout caught. They didn't grow that big there in Dixon.
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Trout are only stocked in the winter, the rest of the year the bass have a great population of Bluegills and to eat.
Thank you for the input. Honestly, 1 to 2 lb RBT are very large for LMB consumption and I was skeptical of it. Was just working the numbers provided. 10" RBT are absolutely ideal for >20" LMB and if they are comprising =>25% of stocking in number then I could see 25% being the LMB mortality number. A 10" RBT is not an insignificant meal even for 28" LMB. The stocking sizes mentioned are a wider range of lengths and weights (ranging .37 lbs to 1.5 lbs). The 10" RBT are sufficient to supply enough food in a single serving to inhibit a second consumption on the day of stocking. It would be a good strategy to use 10" RBT as decoys on stocking day to take pressure off of the consumable, shocked, and disoriented but larger RBT. The loss on stocking day would be a smaller weight of fish that are cheaper to produce.
Esshup, where did you get your number for lake size? I ask because originally I got a number from Google maps measurement tool of ~62 acres. I went with 68 acres because I read it in an article.
