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.

Hmm gotta wonder if the trout that make it out to deep water would survive the summer months? Id rather see the trout go into the lakes VS the crappy ponds that they put them in. If they do not get caught they are sure to die! Wasted tpwd money. I guess there is more money in trout licenses than what the trout actually cost! Not to mention the fines if you get caught catching them without one. Would be nice if they tried it on a small lake to see what happened.

Just imagine, if TPWD chose to... slowly increase the amount of grass carp present in Lake Austin over a year or two until the carp really had the chance to grow and maintain the grass at a manageable level, and then maybe waited until Travis caught a lot of water and then started stocking trout in Lake Austin.

At 1,200 acres and a consistent 55-68 degree range in the upper end for close to 6-7 out of 12 months when Austin gets a lot of water out of Travis, that would've been an amazing experiment and created a very realistic shot at a new state record.

The trout would've probably stayed in the upper 2/3 of the lake with the consistently cool water from Travis and the presence of grass/increased oxygen. With three to four years of stable water releases and a partnership of privately/publicly funded trout stockings... it's not hard to envision 18-20 pound fish coming out of that lake.

But all of that's a wayward dream now.

Must be some good stuff y'all smoke down in Austin


And how many thousands of pounds of trout would you have to stock/keep stocking in a lake that size to do any good?