Trout food

[cspen]

I'm trying to keep trout that we use for bait for the next trip.Anybody know what to feed them?Sorry I know this is a crappie board but there are some good answers here.Thanks for any response.

[Jerry Blake]

They don't need much food to survive. Probably some goldfish food from the pet department at Walmart would work - or even some bread. Better to feed them too little than too much or their water will get unhealthy real fast.

What state are you in that you can use trout for bait? It's not legal here and several striper guides got busted a few years back and had to pay some big fines - like several thousand dollars.

[cspen]

North Carolina, its legal here you can buy them at a few bait shops around Lake Norman.There kind of expensive so its nice to save them.They hold up a lot better than shad do so they are easy to manage with out a expensive bait tank

[Jerry Blake]

We bought some in Georgia one time to try to catch some stripers on Lake Lanier and they were expensive - didn't catch any stripers either. Had to keep the receipt with us in the boat so show that we bought them and didn't catch them.

[Tim The Lippa Rippa Mon]

I'm trying to keep trout that we use for bait for the next trip.Anybody know what to feed them?Sorry I know this is a crappie board but there are some good answers here.Thanks for any response.

They eat minnows, worms, crawdads, bugs, etc. Minnows or crickets would be the cleanest foods to feed them. Keep em good & cold and change their water a lot. They are very delicate fish to keep alive.

<,"}/>{ Rippa

[Moose1am]

Trout feed on lots of aquatic insects. I guess it depends on what type of trout you have. Lots of trout feed on corn mesh that was dumped into the rivers during the times when they were making home brew. People still use corn to catch trout in the Rivers of Eastern TN and North Carolina I am told.

I would think that they would eat earth worms and crickets or meal worms and other terresterial insects such as grasshoppers. And they also feed on minnows too if they are big enough.

Midge larve are often eaten by trout as well as cadis fly larve and mayfly larve and nymphs. Not sure where you can get these things other than the corn and the minnows though. I think the bait shops would be a good source of food for trout.

Just keep the water cold and fresh and don't let the fish waste products build up in the water. Ammonia, Nitrites and eventually Nitrates will build up in the water pretty fast if you don't change the water every few days.

I'm trying to keep trout that we use for bait for the next trip.Anybody know what to feed them?Sorry I know this is a crappie board but there are some good answers here.Thanks for any response.

[cspen]

Thanks for all the advice guys
chris

[Big Zig]

floating cichlad sticks - break them into two or three pieces. If the trout you got were hatchery raised fish, they will eat this food out of instinct. Most of the sticks are orange in color, the trout are used to seeing brown pellets and seem to accept the orange color well.

Water quality is the trick to keeping trout, I believe it is "ick" that attacks them quickly.

[tarfu]

howdy; call your local dnr office to see if they know where the nearwest hatchery is that raises trout. call them to see what they say. you might even ask them if they have any feed available to sell you. find out about shelf-life any other such stuff. believe it or not there is specific fish foods that are fourmulated for your basic aquacultrist. good luck. tarfu