Spawning trout (?)

[Osse]

I have a .8 acre, 8+ foot deep, spring fed pond. The guy who's dredging it is going to give me some rainbow trout he farms when its done.

Everything I see says that spawning rainbow trout is hard, and that you should just buy hatchlings. Which makes sense if you're going for aquaculture profit, but I'm more interested in creating a sustainable system I can pull a handful of fish out of every year. I'm also willing to do ridiculous detail oriented stuff (like making a nice sexy spawning bed) which probably isn't on fish farmer's agenda.

I'm having a hard time finding info on what features / specs a pond would need for trout to successfully spawn. Is anyone familiar with this? Does anyone do this?

 

[Guppy777]

You could try your states conservation dept, most have websites with lots of helpful information.

 

[Kribensis27]

I don’t know much about spawning trout, but we do have a creek in the area where they spawn every year.

The bottom is mostly gravel, with a few very sandy/silty patches. The water is incredibly clean. Probably drinkable, in fact. It’s crystal clear and only 1-3 feet deep. It’s also very cold. Even in the middle of summer, the water is always in the 50’s to 60’s.

It flows very fast in some areas, and more gently in others. The flow is always moderate to strong. There’s always a very high oxygen content.

Finally, there is a TON of vegetation around the edges, ferns, grasses, native orchids, and other stuff, but almost none in the creek itself.

 

[MasterPython]

I think the best resource would be a university students login info so you can view journal articles for free.

I doubt the process is that complicated since it has been done on an industrial scale for decades.

 

[LowConductivity]

So you want to build a creek with suitable cobble for natural reproduction, or you want to pull spawners and strip/artificially rear fry?

 

[YellowGuppy]

Often times, farmed trout are temperature-treated as fry to become sterile to prevent unauthorized reproduction. Odds are good that the trout you have will never spawn.

If you're looking for a stocking option that can REALLY reproduce, you might want to explore yellow perch. They're a delicious, beautiful fish, and a spawning female can drop thousands of eggs each spring (30k+ for larger fish!) so ponds can often become overstocked in time—a perfect "meat farm" fish, if that's what you're looking for.

Before don't any of this, you'll want to check with your local conservation/wildlife department guidelines - breeding or stocking might be controlled, so adding certain fish might be illegal in your area. This is especially important to be aware of if your pond has any potential of spilling into local waterways in the event of a flood, etc. Nobody wants to be "that guy" who accidentally introduced a highly competitive feral species that wreaks havoc on the local ecosystem!

 

[Osse]

If you're looking for a stocking option that can REALLY reproduce, you might want to explore yellow perch.

Hey, I know I'm coming back to this really late, but I'm wondering about yellow perch. In my experience perch are absolute marauders. Will there be a single frog or salamander left in the pond if there's a school of yellow perch in there with them?

 

[YellowGuppy]

Hey, I know I'm coming back to this really late, but I'm wondering about yellow perch. In my experience perch are absolute marauders. Will there be a single frog or salamander left in the pond if there's a school of yellow perch in there with them?

I've never managed a water body stocked with perch, but they are pretty aggressive and prolific, so that's certainly a consideration if you're interested in having a variety of other critters thriving as well.