pond trout

[Bucho]

We have this ridiculously small "put and take" (is that even a thing in english speaking countries?) trout ponds where people cure their cabin fever during off-season or just go for meat. I have learned to respect them. What looks like literally shooting fish in a barrel follows its own rules which can be absurdly differnt from the wild. :huh: This is where boolies in their original scale come to their right. 4 fish is about twice the combined result of my 3 previous trips... The pattern below is tied with squirrel zonker and a little crystal flash. Heavy smell is advised, we used liquid alcohol based carp flavor.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Nice trouties there Bucho. Do they jump ? Are those holdover fish or are they being stocked unusually large ?

Altho I relied on Gulp! Minnows first targeting big trout years ago thinking smell was an attractive factor, lately the efficacy of tied jigs has convinced me that trout are primarily sight feeders relying mostly on appearance and movement to trigger strikes.

 

[Bucho]

Compared to stocked browns which grew up in the wild, they fight surprisingly spectacular, including jumps. I have no ccompare to wild bows but the smile wasn`t fake.

These fish are being stocked on a daily or weekly routine. There is a law that prohibits stocking for the sake of soon recapture but they somehow go around that with some sort of two week cage holdig loophole.... they get away with it because these ponds have a leisure time - tourism related economical dimension. Long story...

Important thing is that these fish respond very diffently to trout in the wild. For instance, they don`t chase subtle prey but show preference for anything that drops, heavyly rotates at slow pace or smells.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Curious about the smell factor found this from a UK study:

The chemicals that fish can detect are varied but it’s those that the fish uses to find food which are of interest to anglers. The key substances are amino acids and bile acids. These will trigger feeding in most fish.

Amino acids are found in food items and some leak into the water, giving a scent trail for the fish to follow.

In fact, natural foods like worms and snails, which have no real smell to us, actually ‘leak’ low level amino acids into the water which fish can locate.

Salmonids (salmon and trout) have a limited smelling range but cyprinids (carp, roach, barbel, bream etc) have greater sensitivity to amino acids. They are far more likely to be stimulated by baits and additives with natural aminos.

Less well known are substances called bile acids. These are chemicals excreted by fish after they have digested their food, so their presence indicates feeding activity has taken place in an area. This can trigger other fish to search for food in the same spot.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Yesterday after getting SKUNKED on a LOONG ruff country trek in a new area decided to at least get some tugs at a reliable dink trout hole. When I got there there were two guys dunking 2 poles each with Power Bait goo and worms and in the 20 minutes or so before they left my usual orange rabbit jig got one after another 8-12" trout while they caught nothing. They did pull up a double limit stringer of small trout so maybe the fish got wise to their baited hooks ? This is why I now fish ties exclusively for trout big and small.

Few minutes after they left a chunk 20"+ was nice enuf to end my day with a splash.

 

[Bucho]

Remember they find theirr birth stream by smell. Again, these ponds are different. The fish haven`t seen much but pellets - ever. I´m usually with you an the ties. Only exception is night fishin during rag worm migration when a slow presentation of a night crawler is devastating. They will take a worm fly here and there but the real deal is unbeatable.

 

[Jig Man]

Yep, we have them here also, but usually the fish variety is catfish. The TPWD does have locations around the state where they release trout in the winter time. Fishing is fast and furious around those places...

 

[Bucho]

Some ponds here are also stocked with sturgeon hybrids and some sort of african catfish. The keep running into trouble with aouthorities because they die in cold water and they have to make sure to extract them before winter.

I wonder why they don`t utilize the variety of american catfish. A small american species -dunno which - has once escaped and become an invasive pest in the Saar region, maybe that`s why. Bad rep... Thinking about it, maybe thats why they allow the african one which is doomed to expire.

Rainbows are very popular here. Particularly out of driving distance from the sea, so called "salmons" - 2lb plus with red (food additive) meat - are a major attraction. They may only be stocked in closed systems though which is a shame because a wild-run baltic "steelhead" which has excaped a hatchery at small size is a fantastic fish.

 

[hookup]

"put and take" (is that even a thing in english speaking countries?)

We call that "catch and release"

A small american species -dunno which - has once escaped and become an invasive pest

Years ago, rumor habit someone released a breading pair of snakeheads in a pond.  Snakeheads can survive out of water and were able to move from the pond to an open water source.  Now, they are pretty much everywhere.

At first, we thought the "sky was falling" and these snakeheads would eat everything in the local waters, but it turns out they are compatible with other species.

Fun to catch, big, and very photogenic.  

I have not eaten one, but understand they are the fillet of catfish

 

[Bucho]

Jep! I heard of snakehead when I was in Singapore, they are probably the most popular fresh water sports fish on the malayan peninsula. If we had a bigger Asian community here that held them for food I would be tempted....

I heard of the ones in Florida but didn`t know you had northern ones, too.

 

[Bucho]

I remember an artical about locals dangling a pupose-breed big footed chicken over snakehead nests in order to tease them red-hot until they attack anything and then lure them with a very primitive slice of white cane marrow. Looking for footage, I found this video. They seem to be hard wired to attack water fowl.