Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations New pond. IL 5.5 acres

I've been reading this forum on and off for the last 2-3 years. This is my first post, but I'm planning on becoming an active participant. There is an incredible amount of well researched and observed information on this forum. So to start, thank you to all the contributors for the valuable insight.

It has always been a dream of mine to have a pond and fortunately that dream is fulfilling as we currently have a new 5.5 acre pond in northern IL that started filling in December of 2024. Our farm property has an incredible amount of water/springs - - to which the pond is fed by 5 of them. The pond bottom is blue clay. I'd say the majority of the pond shoreline is in the 8-12 ft depth range, but there are a lot of contours and depths of all ranges up to a 30ish' basin area that is probably 1.5 acres in size. That 30' section is currently about 20' filled (we still have about 10' to get to 'full pool'). If I get more efficient with this site, I'll post some overhead drone pictures of the pond.

I'm an avid fisherman and spend the majority of my fishing time chasing muskies, but do fish for all species. The pond was built with the idea of having 1 tiger musky per acre (or 6 total tigers). Other species will include: YP, SMB, BT, RES, FHM, WE, suckers, and potentially CC. We stocked FHM roughly a month ago and they are reproducing. I have also added 100 RES/acre to start, too, to help fight off worms in the fillets.

Here are my initial questions:
1.) I've read a bunch of threads on here talking about brook trout recruitment. I understand BT are an affordable fish to purchase and stock, but I do like the idea of natural reproduction occurring - and even more so, potentially seeing BT swimming upstream to reproduce. My father in law owns an excavation company and has built a good number of ponds, so possibly the leg up on BT reproduction is that we have large natural springs feeding the pond and the ability to excavate streams that feed the pond, as well as the material (rock of all sizes) needed to fill those areas. So my question, is this something that anyone has had success with? The spring I have in mind with a very good constant flow of water stays at 57 degrees. My thought is, build a 3-4' deep stream lined with cobblestone rock of various sizes that is approximately 8-10' wide and about 30 yards in length. This stream would enter the pond on the SE end.

1B) Where that stream inflow comes into the main pond, would that be a good area to put walleye spawning habitat? The area I'm referencing is about 3' deep and gradually drops down to 8-10'. I'm aware it's difficult to get WE reproduction established, but with this size/depth pond, and setting up that sort of water flowing into the pond, would it be reasonable to hope for WE reproduction?

2.) Back to the brook trout - which is a species I'm not nearly as familiar with as your typical, traditional midwest freshwater species - - since there are cool, natural springs feeding the pond and it has a good amount of depth (as referenced above) would it be reasonable to think the brook trout would survive the heat of northern Illinois in the summer?  Based on other ponds and lakes nearby, I'm confident the pond will stratify. Will the trout use that cooler water below the thermocline, or is there not enough oxygen in that depth below say 15' for them during the summer peak? I'd imagine the water temp will get up to 75ish degrees on the surface, and will drop substantially once below the thermocline.

3.) Based on what I listed above, would you consider aeration for this pond? The aeration threads are the ones I'm currently browsing, but admittedly, they are not nearly as much interest to me as many of the others. If I don't aerate the pond, would you suggest supplementing grass carp - or do you think there will be a sufficient amount of DO come winter time with this sort of pond/depth/environment?

Thanks for taking the time to read this thread and I appreciate any and all input.

Welcome to PB posting.

Is your weather warm enough for RES to survive winter?

Your questions.

Will the trout use that cooler water below the thermocline, or is there not enough oxygen in that depth below say 15' for them during the summer peak? No O2 equals no fish at least not for more than a minute or so. They would likely stay near where the cool water inflows. Aeration may be an option. Rather than bottom aeration of the whole pond you might look into suspended aeration just below the thermocline during summer.

Call Bob at Pond Boss as he has worked on manmade streams for trout.

Congrats on the new pond. Sounds like a great situation for you to develop!

Here is a recent thread on walleye spawning that may answer a couple of your questions on that topic.

Walleye Spawning - PB thread

I believe we used to have one member that did have brook trout in his pond, but I haven't seen any recent posts (and can't recall the name).

We do have many people that do rainbow trout in their ponds. I believe they are more tolerant of the heat and low DO than brookies.

I think most of them ladder stock the rainbows every few years catch them after good growth and then re-start the cycle. One member was going to try making riffles and simulate a creek environment on his property to try spawning, but it was going to be a LOT of work. If you have access to heavy equipment and electricity on the property, then perhaps you can create trout runs and circulate water with a centrifugal pump (very efficient) during the spawning season.

I agree that your deep pond will almost certainly stratify - and have low oxygen water at the bottom as ewest says.

I wonder if you could set up a couple of moveable aeration diffusers to benefit your trout? Determine the depth of your thermocline in the summer and lower the diffuser a foot every week from the middle of July to the middle of August?

I hope you have great fun with your family enjoying your new pond!

Vermilion, welcome to the forum.
I'd imagine you have an excellent chance of keeping trout alive, and with the stream you mentioned you could build, you just might get trout reproduction.
Provided the flow of your springs is sufficient to form a reservoir of cool water in the lower part of your water column, and the 30 yards or so of flowing spring water allows it to pick up plenty of oxygen, it seems to me that you will have what I have only on a much larger scale.
My 1/4 acre pond is fed in the warmer half of the year with cold river water through irrigation canals and a pipe. Although the deepest part of the pond is merely 9', the water starting 2' down is suddenly quite cool. Trout do fine. You could say the pond is stratified, but not by the customarily accepted manner. The cold water flowing in settles to the bottom. It's got plenty of oxygen, coming from a productive trout river. I do not aerate in summer as it is not necessary and would only upset the cold, well oxygenated water on the bottom.

Sounds like a great spot! My lake is about the same size and not as deep, from my limited experience I'd say you have an interesting plan that should be started in stages to see what will work. It would be great to have a lake with every species in it but sometimes it's not practical and not sustainable...you'll find that one species will dominate and it might not be your favourite species if you know what I mean. For example, I've found that my original plan of having a bass lake changed into having a trout lake with spawning grounds like what you want. But I can pretty much guarantee that your hard work of spawning grounds building might be for nothing if the other predators in the lake gobble up the tasty fry - although it is possible for some species to get along and avoid each other in an ecosystem but youll have to experiment.

My lake only have a few little holes about 13 or so feet deep, most of it is 6 to 8 feet, Im in ontario canada, we had a very hot summer with 26 days over 80 degrees in july last year and august was just about as bad - some days were up to 90. The lake got very warm but my rainbows and brookies made it somehow - they found an area of refuge and I know for a fact that at the bottom the DO was very low...but they made it and they are getting big. I put rainbows and brookies in the lake, the rainbows are easy to catch and the brookies are more elusive...

On the spawning bed, my friend laid out about 6 inches of gravel about 20 feet wide and out 10 feet and put a garden hoses under the gravel coming from a well, we have videos of the brookies spawning and we have caught small brookies so it is working. Brookies spawn in the fall when the water is colder so it is easier for them to find a place to spawn - just make a little area and flush the silt and algae off it before the spawn so it'll help them out.

My advice would be that you should determine what your main predator and forage species should be and just go with that to start, insert the forage fish and then a couple or 3 years later put your predators in so they have an established forage base. Since you put in RES i think bass will be a good predator, the tigers might eat everything you put in there, if you put walleye in they won't eat the RES as easy as the perch...but if the perch over populate youll end up a like a stunted perch!

Many of us have made lots of mistakes and youll do it too - and regret it like us lol, but I guess it's part of the human condition. I wanted a bass lake, so I added Sunfish, while waiting for the sunfish to populate I added rainbows and brookies which I really like but now I have zillions of sunfish that the trout can't eat so I need something to take care of the sunfish - but that predator will ultimately eat my smaller trout and any trout that manage to spawn...see my conundrum? But while I'm trying to figure out what to do about the massive amounts of sunfish last week I'm in the boat fishing for trout and look down and see the first school of large mouth bass fry swimming by (thousands of them), 2 years ago we put about 3 LMB in that were about 3 inches long......and there you have it, my sunfish will be gobbled up, my LMB will grow rapidly and eventually eat any smaller trout, so from now on ill have to eat the large bass and I'll have to stock trout about 2 pounds and larger. good times!

On aerating in the summer, the first year i did it i aerated from the bottom all summer and had algae blooms like crazy, last year I didnt aerate, had a way hotter summer and the water quality was so much better all summer. If it gets as hot this year the only thing I will do is run a fountain at night, I wont aerate.

Cheers and good luck! Send pics!

One very good fishery lake management resource in northern IL for you is - Herman Brothers land and lake management. They are PBoss Forum members here but now too busy to participate on the forum. They have good experiences of raising, dealing with and selling good quality fish of the fish species that you are interested in growing. IMO I would contact them for some opinions and ideas about your pond and the planned projects. They will have good insight information for you. You can use us and or Herman Bros as 2nd and 3 opinions.
https://hbfisheries.com/

If you are seriously interested in utilizing some specie of trout with the potential limnology conditions of your spring - stream fed pond you should get a good quality dissolved oxygen / temperature meter with a long enough sensor probe to reach the near bottom or better the bottom of your pond when it is full. I prefer YSI DO meters. Please return here periodically to tell us about your pond adventures and how well the unique fishery is performing for what you are planning to produce. We can all learn more good helpful information from your pond fishery experiences.

+1 on the Herman Brothers.

I looked at Herman Brothers website this morning. Thanks for the info there. I'll touch base with them.

This is the fourth summer of working on our property/pond. Sometime this week, I'll start posting pictures on here of what we started with, knocking down the original (maybe 1/2 acre) pond, and the then the progression to where we are now.

Are users still posting pictures/videos using the Imgur site, or is there an easier way to upload photos at this point?

I'm going to try to start uploading pictures with descriptions of our pond.

I don't know about others, but I have never had a problem when posting PNG files (not JPEG) as long as they are within the size limit. At least I can see them after they are posted. Others have had great success with Imgur.

Welcome to the forum. I have a smaller pond (about 1.5 acres) but with some similar fishery goals. I put a great deal of effort into reading everything I could find to increase my chances of success with YP, SMB and BT and I can share a little bit of that here.

Regarding BT, they are said to be the only trout (they're actually a char, but we'll stick with the term trout here to avoid confusion) to have a chance of breeding in a pond. There is an article in one of the archive editions of PB Magazine written by Mark Cornwell of SUNY Cobleskill where he details how to get the best chance of success with BT reproduction in a pond. If you call the PB office, you can buy that archive issue. It's well worth it.

I spoke to him about a year ago and he cautioned me that recruitment would be very unlikely with YP and SMB in the same 1.5 acres, as the BT fry would be snacks for the other fish. He suggested that BT do well in BT ponds, but don't compete well with other species. I would imagine that the larger the BOW, the greater chances of success with this. At 5.5 acres, you might have a large enough BOW to make your efforts worthwhile. If you're already building an area with hopes of getting WE reproduction, I would think that it wouldn't take too much more to make it suitable for BT reproduction as well.

Good luck on your build, and keep us posted on how it's going.

I can add this to the discussion about BRKT being able to breed in a pond. I have a pond that has not had any active management in at least 30 years. It has a population of BRKT. I have caught 3 thus far. 2 approximately 5" and one about 3.5". I can see many more. So I'd say it's more than just a chance lol.