I don't know but my BIL lives in Massachussettes and they a trout hatchery in the town he lives in. He has two Hudd trout swimbaits that he never throws except on the day the stock the trout. He said you can see all the big 6-8 pounders (big for there) cornering all the trout just waiting for one to stray off. He will throw that Hudd and pretty much call his shot and he said those bass will attack that trout swimbait.

Do you have any idea how much trout stocking in Texas would cost? Those California lakes are tiny by comparison. At $9 pound for imported rainbows, the math simply doesn't work with the size of our Texas lakes and the limited amount of time the trout would survive.

Look at it like this. If TPWD set aside $1,000,000 for trout stocking they could buy 111,111 pounds of Rainbow trout. At a 20% conversion rate (that is how much bass weight gain you get for each pound of trout stocked) TPWD would get 22,222 pounds of weight gain in bass where the rainbows were stocked. Which lakes would get them? How many pounds of trout for each lake? How many predators (bass) are already in the lake? And on and on.

We hear this argument about trout all the time, but no one ever does any research. They just say "we need to feed trout like California". The SAL Program in Texas is privately funded. You'll have to convince those private entities that their money would be better spent on forage than spawning "super-bass." Until then...it won't happen.

There is no question that Rainbow Trout are the best forage for Largemouth bass in terms of nutrition and weight conversion. However, they are only "best" where the habitat is suitable not only for stocking but for large-scale recruitment. That habitat isn't in Texas on a large-scale basis.

And no, I am not a fisheries biologist. Just an interested outdoorsman/novice fisheries manager who does lots and lots of research.

I guess people don't understand how small these lakes in Cali are...

And Miramar is HUGE at 6,600 acres compared to many others out there. What is Dixon Lake, 150 acres?

Well said Mr.Fouzman.It is not a fair comparison at all.I grew up fishing those small San Diego municipal lakes.As you stated they are tiny in size and very deep in most cases.They provide excellent trout habitat and growth environment.The fishing pressure on these small lakes is intense and I would estimate that half that pressure is focused on those very trout by trout fisherman.The trout fisherman are a major source of revenue for the lake.It's as if the astonishing growth rates for the bass is just a secondary benefit for the counties.Our Lakes in Nor-Cal are similarly stocked heavily with trout with the same growth rates for the bass.Although our Nor-Cal lakes are much larger than the SO-CAL lakes they are still tiny compared to the big water you have in Texas.

Tpwd stocks trout in small lakes and ponds around the state for people to trout fish for.

Several of the ones are in Houston and you never hear of huge bass in them. Something else is missing, it's not just "throw some trout in there and 20lb bass will appear"

I know there is no comparison in the lakes in Cali vs. Texas. I've fished most of the lakes in SoCal. I was just saying that, cause that's why Cali has much bigger bass than here! The lakes are a lot smaller, deeper, and clearer than here! Texas will never, and I'm pretty confident of it, produce a 20lb bass!!

I agree and little or no competition. Its amazing what a bass population can do with years of superior genetics and no influence or predators.

And the lake is not HUGE!! It's only 162 surface acres but it's 114ft deep!

You are correct, sir. I mistakenly used water storage in acre feet instead of surface acreage.

Most of the lakes in San Diego are built in steep canyons, so you don't get a lot of acreage but you get depth which they like because they get less evaporation that way. They only get 10 inches of rain a year if they are lucky so they need the little lakes to hold a lot of water. The bass do grow bigger and fatter eating the trout because trout is a fatty fish that helps the bass pack on the pounds. They had to change the type of fish they were stocking in the lakes because when they only stocked the little rainbows, they were all getting eaten by the bass. I remember seeing the stocking truck pull up at San Vicente and when the trout were going in it looked like piranha feeding. I think it would do the bass populations a lot of good here for TPWD to stock some delicious rainbows in the lakes...

The lakes during the winter are cold enough for trout but yes the probably won't survive during the summer months. The bass here will eat trout cause I have caught them using trout swimbaits, that's all I have. And socal Tom I've seen the same thing at Diamond Valley lake when the trout truck arrives it's like a dinner bell for bass!! I've seen trout jump on shore to get away from the bass chasing them!!! It's an awesome sight for those who never seen it before. At DVL I've had wolf packs of 8+ lbs'ers follow my swimbait talk about nerve racking!!! I miss sight fishing 25 foot of water that's how clear the water can be!!

PIG!

The only trout tpw are going give to bass in tx are the ones they feed to the sharelunkers in Athens

Go to Amistad, you can sight fish in 25' there. I've seen the same thing at Lakes of Danbury with big Gizzard Shad, Crawfish and Tilapia. Bring a truck load of any type of forage lakeside, where it's been done before, and it is a melee'. It doesn't mean that bass prefer rainbows. They prefer anything they can get in their mouth. When they'd dump Gizzards, you could catch GIANT bass on a Zara Spook for several hours. On every cast!

Trout are best, but all things being equal, I'd rather see Texas' $$$ going to the forage base that provides the most bang for the buck for our area. Shad and bream.