OK trout pond owners, What one piece of advice can you give as very important to maintaining survivable trout habitat? What advise can you give to achieve that goal?

My one piece of advice, even though I am new to having a trout pond is to airate, but do not overairate.

Monitor water temp and if possible, O2 levels. You want to shoot for water temps below 70°F

Unless you have some very unique conditions, don't try to keep trout through the summer. Enjoy them during the cold months. Stock them at least a month before expected ice-over

My 2 cents are IT ALL DEPENDS, in a shallow pond like mine (8 ft. deep) you need cold springs, or supplemental water from a well, or cold water from a stream. I have almost 100 gpm piped in from a stream which mixes the pond pretty good and I've never had a problem with trout surviving the summer. As of yesterday the pond was 58.2 @ 5ft., 59.8 @ 2ft. and the water from the inlet pipes was 54.7.

For aeration the bubble tubing is set at 4 to 5 ft. deep and in the summer the aerator is connected to a thermostat which only runs when the temp. is below 66. In the winter the bubble tubing is kept at the same depth and it runs 24-7. I don't use the aerator in the spring or fall.

timberframe you mentioned from another post that your trout did ok last summer and the depth was 10ft., is your pond spring fed, or do you add water from another source?

I personally run the aerator 24/7 at the deepest part of the pond. My pond is 1/4 acre and 9 feet deep at the deepest spot. I had temps hitting 75 deg. last summer but my trout did fine. I even fed them the entire time, but I cut down the amount of food during high temps. My pond is a water table pond and I'm thinking I must get some sort of water exchanging to keep the temps cooler.

2trackin you must be doing something right, it sure verifies that each pond is different with not many hard and fast rules, at what depth did you measure 75 degrees?

AP, shallow and deep, I never seem to have more than 1 deg. difference.

Hi Esshup, When you say to try to keep the water temp below 70*, at what depth are you talking? My pond temp varies roughly 12* from temp top to bottom.

At whatever depth you expect the trout to live and flourish.

Preferably at the surface because the lower water is always cooler, but even if the top 4'-5' of water is above 70, and the lower cooler water is well oxygenated, they will survive. Typically the warmer upper water is well oxygenated, and the cooler lower water that is below the thermocline is not very well oxygenated. If that happens, then the trout will most likely die.

2 years ago I had trout in the pond from late October until mid May. The upper water jumped into the mid 70°F range and I started aerating from the bottom of the pond. I only ran the aerator when the ambient temps were below 70°F (at night) and even doing that after about 2 weeks the remaining trout in the pond died. I attribute it to me mixing the warm upper water with the lower cooler water, bringing the whole pond to over 70°F. I saw the trout hanging out with their nose in the cold water that I was pumping into the pond from the well. When the water in the pond was below 70°F, they didn't do that.

Well we are playing TAPS down at the pond. The outside temps shot up to 95-100 degrees for about a good week. The pond temp rose daily till it stayed at 77.5 degrees. Now we are getting trout dieing daily. Perhaps if I would have had my auxillary spring water pump hooked up earlier things would have been different. Bummer

Timberframe,

Sorry about your trout. That happens to the trolls in Michigan.

Have you thought about moving above the bridge? Beautiful white beaches, summer and winter. Cold water. Great fishing -- if you can get the snowmobile started! Mosquitoes you can shoot with a 30-06 when they are carrying bears across the lakes! That's living!

Well maybe.

Ken

Have a cook out and eat all the ones you can get while they are still alive.....or bareley alive.....

Ken, As a matter of fact, I have thought about moving to the UP. I hate all the Mosquitoes though. But we really like living in the mid michigan area. I will try and get to the point where the trout will survive year around. This year I had about 200 bucks into those 100 rainbows. Only got to eat 12 of them. They were very tastey though. Its kind of like mushrooming, after I pay for a hotel room, food, gas, etc, those Morels cost me about 10.00 each.

My present trout pond has no trout in it (no fish at all) and is heavily dyed to keep bottom vegetation from getting out of hand. I just couldn't scrape together the change this year to purchase the 125 adult brook trout I wanted to plant. I may still plant in the fall though.

Perhaps it may have been a good thing this summer even though I flow in well water when I have trout. I do know they are heavily irrigating in my area and Scott (Esshup) says some of them are pumping up to 500 gpm. Perhaps I could have run into water issues by pumping my well 45 gpm 25/7?

Farther south and east of here where ground water supplies are not as bountiful I'm hearing of wells going dry.

Cecil, I think it all depends on the aquifier. I was told of a couple of center pivot wells that were 800 gpm...

I had a bunch die too, but there's still a few swimming where the well is entering the pond.

Ponds here that don't have supplemental water are at an all time low.

I just checked my pond temp last night. 80 Deg!!!!!

I had one trout die last week, and I scooped 2 out 2 nights ago (went on the grill) that were circling the aerator, but other than that....the rest seem fine.

I'm thinking I should donate them to science

the key is cooler water, we had at least 15 rt die this summer and we ran well water to help hold the temps, but too little too late. 15 is what we saw prob. more on the bottom. we're in northern wisconsin and its' been too hot for too long here. we're prob. done w/trout and will catch whatever survives this yr and stock something diff. next.

You must be doing something right, maybe donate your pond to science too, gotta be a tough summer for trout everywere.

Our farm neighbors added a bunch of RBT to their pond that is downstream from our larger pond. Theirs is pretty deep and has nice water, plus it's heavily shaded all the way around by big trees. The supplier gave them about 1/3 more than they bought and they are concerned about the overall volume and have offered us to fish some out. At first, they had a few die and then added some surface agitation with a rigged up system and the fish seem to be doing much better now. We saw 9 or 10 hanging out right at the entrance of their spring, stationary in the inflow, and a number of others piping in various places around the pond. That seems to have ended and they haven't found any more than the few dead ones the first couple of days. These are all pretty nice sized fish, too, appearing to be no less than 10-12 inches. We've had crazy hot (for us) weather for the past month, too, with heat index values into the 105 range and actual temps in the low to high 90s far more often than I prefer!

I always say, it's better to be lucky than good

Maybe I should start selling pond water....lol

What is it with trout, that when they die, they sink to the bottom? I thought most fish would float to the surface, but not trout for some reason.

i also would like to know the answer to that ?

Most fish do float. I think it has something to do with the size of a trouts swim bladder.

I was told by a trout farmer that trout will sink more than other species. No reason given. I've seen both but have seen them sink more often.

My theory is either the skin of a trout is more easily broken during decomp (small scales etc.) and gas is released vs. being trapped and causing the fish to float, and/or since they are physostomas -- (have an opening between their stomach and swim bladder to release gases -- they are more likely to stay on the bottom.

This opening btw allows them to release gas built up from sudden depth changes from coming up from deep water vs. other species that do not have this and blow up like a balloon when pulled from deep water.