Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Brown Trout as an Apex Predator for Crappie?

Hi Everyone,

In addition to the trout angle my wife and I are considering for the land we are going to be buying in northern Virginia/West Virginia in the next few months, we very much like the idea of a single-species crappie pond. We know, however, that we need an apex predator to keep the numbers of small crappie in check and prevent overpopulation and stunting, but are absolutely opposed to largemouth bass or catfish.

While we might we willing to put smallmouth in, as they are much better eating than largemouth, we were wondering about the possibility of using Brown Trout as the apex predator. We have heard the horror stories about Brown Trout becoming nigh-uncatchable and reaching huge sizes when stocked in ponds, and with their well-documented habit of becoming almost completely piscivorous above 16" or so, we figured they just might be the perfect species to keep our crappie in check.

Browns are well known for being the most tolerant of trouts of high water temperatures, and all the plots at which we are looking either have an adjacent or through-flowing stream, or could provide us with a spring that would feed the pond, so cold water wouldn't be a concern. We also would have some moving water over gravel at the inflow, so the trout could spawn successfully, at least in abstract.

Has anyone else ever thought of or experimented with this idea?

You might look into hybrid Tiger Trout. They are gorgeous fish, get really big, tend to be piscivorous, but don't get hard to catch like big browns.