Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Unusual discovery

Sorry, gonna exercise my rights as a new poster one more time tonight!

I recently read about a pond in TN that intrigued me. It's a bit west of Nashville in a little town called Bucksnort (that should itself tell you that this should be interesting!). The guy that owns it is involved with a hunting and flyfishing outfitters called Game Fair Ltd. in Nashville. Apparently, the pond is fed by a number of coldwater springs, and he keeps it stocked with brook, rainbow, brown, and cutthroat trout, as well as Atlantic salmon. It's the only place I know of in this state that has brookies, except in the Smoky Mts. And it is the only place I know of in TN with cutthroats or salmon of any kind, period. And, for that matter, rainbows and browns that exist year-round are pretty unheard of in this part of the state.

He has a package that I believe includes fly-casting lessons and a day of fishing the pond. The pond is C&R only and fly-fishing only, and the cost is around $200 (varies seasonally I think). Not that I really want to pay that kind of cash for one day of C&R fishing locally, but it's got me thinkin'. Perhaps one of these days I'll luck into a plot of land in my area with a spring, and can create a pond where conditions are right for these species to exist. One of my cousins has a small hole in a field about 300 yards behind my parents' house and while he has no interest in stocking it, I've screwed with the idea of throwing some 'bows in it for put-and-take this fall. However, the discovery of this guy in humble Bucksnort has me hoping that one of these days I can do something similar.

You'll need more than a little spring flow. Most folks don't realize how much cold water imput it takes to keep a pond cold enough for trout in the summer.

I run well water into my 1/10th acre trout pond and presently have 140 2.5 to 3.5 pound brooks in it. I've grown browns to almost 12 pounds and rainbows to 9 lbs. 9 oz. biggest brook so far was 5 lbs. 2 oz. and I should beat that handily with my Lake Nipigon strain in a year or so.

Trout grow fast and are easy to grow on feed, but you need the right water temps (not above 65 F.) and copius amounts of oxygen. I aerate my well water before it enters the trout pond and also at the pond by letting it run up an elbow and splash out.

At $200.00 a session per angler you could justify pumping well water for such an operation though. If you're really lucky you can put in a pond in an area that has a confined aquifer and you won't have to do any pumping. They are around if you are patient and have the right information.

Check out my website for some trout out of my trout pond including the close to 12 pounder.

Good info, Cecil, thanks! This is all just wishful thinking right now anyway, but maybe one day! I just found it bizarre and cool that someone was pond-raising Atlantic salmon in middle TN. Not something you see every day!

Just curious, where in IN is Ligonier? Is it in the southern part of the state by any chance? My girlfriend is from Rockport...well, technically from Patronville (which I kinda doubt is on many maps).

Well, now you say that and I'm wondering if I got it wrong. Seems like I read that he has these trout species. Now I'll have to check it out again! Nonetheless, it's the only place I've heard of in TN with the salmon (barring Kroger and Food Lion, of course!).

AP Center,

Nothing really anymore difficult to raising atlantics (in this case landlocked salmon) than say brown trout. Both species are similar in temp preferences. You just have to find a source for them. They are available as are the eggs. You can have the eggs fed exed from Washington state from an outfit called troutlodge. However they will all be sterile females.

I almost got some atlantics from Purdue University but the lab burned down before I got them and the Indiana DNR was dicking around on O.K.ing it.

I'm in northeastern Indiana about 20 miles south of the Michigan line.

Cecil, yeah I assumed that landlocked Atlantics would not be any more difficult to raise than trout. I actually read somewhere that some taxonomy schemes consider Salmo salar to be a subspecies of S. trutta, as opposed to a truly separate species. Still not sure which way to lean on that argument, but nevertheless I'm quick to agree that Atlantics and browns are pretty similar. As for my amazement on the pond-raised salmon, it's merely a case of it just not being too common 'round these parts...

OK, so you're not at all close to Rockport, but around how far would you say you are from Lafayette? Again, just curious. My GF's sister lives in Lafayette. She studied at Purdue and has, of all things, a BS in environmental science with a water concentration. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to glean some useful info from her before it's all over with!