The brook trout are in a different pond on the backside of the house. Here they are a year before they got to 4 to 6 lbs. I was culling out mostly females in this picture. They are 13 to 15 inches in this picture and around 1.5 to 2 lbs. That age class has been sold or mounted by me once they got to 4 to 6 lbs. a year later.
I just planted 100 seven to eight inch mostly male Lake Nipigons this fall, after catching out all the mostly 5 to 7 lb. browns in that pond, netting what wouldn't bite, draining the pond and drying it out, and refilling. They will run 13 to 15 inches this time next year, and 18 to 22 inches the year after at 4 to 6 lbs.
Here's a pic of one of the browns I took out of that pond this fall. One of 42 browns from just under 4 lbs. to 7 lbs. 12 oz. They went from an average of 1.75 lbs. to mostly in the mid 5 lbs. range to 6 lbs in one year.
BTW, contrary to what you may think catching the brown trout out of the ponds is not like fishing in a barrel. If they are well fed on the pellets very few will strike an artificial, nitecrawler, or minnow. What I have to do to catch them is to match the hatch. That is I have to stretch a piece of pantyhose over two or three floating fish pellets and run a salmon egg hook into the hose. (The pellets are too hard to run a hook into) I usually place a small split shot above that to get the pellet to sink and a small ice fishing bobber above that as a strike indicator. Otherwise you can cast to your heart's content with spoons and spinners all day or use a minnow or nitecrawler and they won't have anything to do with it. And I can only catch them within a half hour of dusk or dawn. Otherwise forget it.
Here's what I'm talking about:
Here's the biggest brown that came out of my trout pond a few years ago. Just under 12 lbs. This one was in the pond three years. Now this one did hit a kastmaster after about 300 casts. I think I pis*ed him off! My neighbor who came over on a lawnmower to net it is holding the fish. Good neighborhood P.R.!
