Stocking a pond with trout

[mijinkal]

I just recieved my premit to stock my pond with trout. yeeehaw!
Does anybody else here do this? have any tips?
I can't wait to get some fish in there and grow some monsters for the kids to catch!
I know I'll be kept busy keeping all the predators away fom my fish too.

[urbanhermit]

How big is your pond and will you stock it every year? Its nice to have different age groups.

[No Tag Soup Please]

My girlfriends parents pond is stocked every other year with trout. I watched them put them in last year and it didn't seem like anything special was done. All the fish were catching this year are weighing around 2.5 - 3.5 pounds. The bigger ones must be from stocking it 2 years ago.

You'll have to stock it though every few years depending on how many fish you take. They will spawn but the bigger fish will eat all the eggs or the babies. Maybe it would be best to just put in those rogue fish or whatever that don't spawn? Someone was telling me about them the other day, never really heard much about them before.

Good luck with your fish though. Its a blast catching them. They sure get smart fast though! The worst part is when you cast in there and watch your hook and they just swim past it!

[mijinkal]

The pond's pretty big. About an acre in size and it is 12'-15' at its deepest spot.
We used to have a lot of bullfrogs, until I got a pellet gun and got rid of a couple hundred over the past couple summers.
I don't know much about taking care of the trout. I may aerate the water to help them out, but I think they'll be fine without it for now. I might also feed them a bunch of pellets to get their size up.

[Steeleco]

Only from breading MANY tropical fish, never trout. But in my experience you'd do well to keep the water as aerated as possible. Seems the more Oxygen and fresh water they get, is as important as lots of good food.

So how big is your fence and your dog "neighbor" LOL :mrgreen::mrgreen:

Good luck in your new endeavor!!

[happyhunter]

I have no experience with a stocked trout pond, but I have kept many aquariums over the years and all fish have basicly the same needs. Water quality is very important with tropical fish and I imagine the same is true for trout. Your gonna need pumps and filters. The pumps keep the water flowing, the filters act as both a mechanical filter and biological filter. The mechanical aspect is where they catch debris and waste and the biological aspect is where microscopic organisms break down the waste making toxic waste like ammonia in the water turn into harmless and even helpfull nitrites. Its important not to overfeed either or that will create more waste in the pond.
The pump is very important too and will need to be pretty powerful to cycle the pond quickly to keep the water cool as well as oxygen rich, as trout will need fairly cool water full of oxygen. Things such as fountains and waterfalls or anything that aggitates the water adds oxygen into your pond. Even if your pond is very large a pump would be benificial to keep those oxygen levels high.
If you have a stream running in and out of your pond you could probably disregard what Ive just said, as the fish waste will flow downstream and cool water full of oxygen would be flowing steadily into the pond.

[Brew]

My neighbor had a pond that was stocked and it pretty much took care of itself. there was just a trickle of a creek going in and a small dam that released water out. The cutties in that pond grew to about 5 or 6 pounds. This pond was maybe a quarter acre. Giant sized prince nymphs on the bottom sleighed them. Good luck and have fun with it.