Author Topic: Golden Trout (Read 13741 times)

krissi · « **on:** October 31, 2011, 07:52:55 AM »

Hi Fly-fishermen

Not being a fly fisherperson, please can you help me? When we bought in our eyed-ova, we discovered there were quite a few (close to 10%) gold trout in the batch. Are these sort after fish? Do you guys target these, or are they a bonus if you catch one? One of my clients says he doesn't want any because they are targeted by comarants when they are stockies, as they "shine" and make easy targets?

Any feedback on these fish would be greatly appreciated.

bryant · « **Reply #1 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:00:59 AM »

Morning Krissi

Your client is 100% correct....

Family of ours run a trout farm, and it was i huge problem, to the fisherman its a score as they really are seen as being "rare". Due to their colour, and not blending in, the birds have a field day. Most of the farms (with open dams, no netting) will bring in a few each season maybe 5% of their order, so anglers still have a chance at getting one... They are seen as more unique.... But in short , birds hammer them as fingerlings..

Taste the same though

Toppie · « **Reply #2 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:04:20 AM »

Hi Krissy,

Not an ardent or specialist fly-fisherman, so for me happy to catch ANY trout!

The Golden trout is supposed to be a hybrid of breeding/interbreeding the fish. Guys prefer Rainbow and Brown trout, but I think here in SA where trout fishing opportunities are rather limited nobody is going to complain about catching a Golden one, if kept for the pan or smoked - they all taste the same.

It is true, I have seen quite a few Goldens scarred or injured by birds of prey (even bigger one's) because they are so easily visible!

Well done with stocking up - we should stock all private water before the bunny huggers get their wish and have the fish eradicated in South Africa.

WalkersKiller · « **Reply #3 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:12:40 AM »

Hi Krissi,

The Golden Trout is a variant of the Rainbow Trout, almost an albino version of the Rainbow Trout which is bred specifically for the purposes of being stocked. They are very easy prey for the White Breasted Cormorant because of the reasons your client mentioned.

You dont really target them, they are a bonus when fishing for Rainbows or Browns and they will make the fly fishing dam angler very happy when one is landed!

Half-Pint · « **Reply #4 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:24:21 AM »

Krissi if you don't mind me asking how did you get into the trout business if you weren't into fly fishing?

krissi · « **Reply #5 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:30:59 AM »

Thanks chaps - we have resorted to buying in eyed-ova as the otters cleaned out our brood stock in July

They munched 63 x 2-2.2kg fish, 120 x 12" fish I was keeping for brood stock and 100 x 7" browns we had bought in for future brood stock before we could wipe the sleep out of our eyes! I emailed the farm we bought the ova from and he said that the golden trout is a species of trout, not an albino as I had also thought, so it is interesting to hear what you say WK

all I know is that we have thousands of these little "white" fish amongst the dark ones - but you can see the gold colour developing. He said the staff had used a gold trout cock on the rainbow hens by mistake.

I appreciate the feedback.

HP - it came up for sale and my darling husband thought it would be a good business for my son, who ran it for a year, then went to study, so I was informed that it was now my business - I was chucked into the deep end and am still learning.

Half-Pint · « **Reply #6 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:35:05 AM »

Krissi if you ever get the time to post some photos Im sure the guys would love to see it I know I would certainly be interested

WalkersKiller · « **Reply #7 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:44:33 AM »

Krissi to the best of my knowledge it is definitely not a different species of Trout... We get 3 species of Trout in Sa, Brown Trout, Brook Charr and the Rainbow Trout (Which is a specially bred Rainbow from an albino version, it is possible that now it might be classed as a subspecies of the Rainbow Trout but it never was a different species) much like the white and black Springbok, Impala and Blesbok that are bred for Game Farms...

krissi · « **Reply #8 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:53:02 AM »

Quote from: Half-Pint on October 31, 2011, 08:35:05 AM

Krissi if you ever get the time to post some photos Im sure the guys would love to see it I know I would certainly be interested

I will do it with pleasure HP - I was scared it would be seen as advertising, so have been reluctant to discuss the hatchery. It is very interesting and actually quite a challenge. You can't inject a sick fish like you do a farm animal

and treating them for diseases, etc is difficult. We battle with water temperature and flow, especially now when it hasn't rained, so keeping ponds going for brood stock can present its own problems.
@ WK - thanks for the info - I re-read your post and I agree with you. You are very knowledgable

so any info from you is much appreciated.

WalkersKiller · « **Reply #9 on:** October 31, 2011, 08:55:11 AM »

No problem Krissi, I might not catch a lot of big fish, but I know a decnt amount about them

dont be scared to ask any other questions!

Toppie · « **Reply #10 on:** October 31, 2011, 09:05:23 AM »

Why must everything in SA always turn into a race issue, even the colour of fish are'nt spared...

Krissi...for such a worthy cause, please advertise!

REEFMAN · « **Reply #11 on:** October 31, 2011, 12:46:16 PM »

Quote from: krissi on October 31, 2011, 08:53:02 AM

Quote from: Half-Pint on October 31, 2011, 08:35:05 AM
Krissi if you ever get the time to post some photos Im sure the guys would love to see it I know I would certainly be interested

I will do it with pleasure HP - I was scared it would be seen as advertising, so have been reluctant to discuss the hatchery.

Advertising!? With pleasure... UA owes you BIG time Krissi!

krissi · « **Reply #12 on:** October 31, 2011, 01:51:38 PM »

Quote from: REEFMAN on October 31, 2011, 12:46:16 PM

Quote from: krissi on October 31, 2011, 08:53:02 AM
Quote from: Half-Pint on October 31, 2011, 08:35:05 AM
Krissi if you ever get the time to post some photos Im sure the guys would love to see it I know I would certainly be interested

I will do it with pleasure HP - I was scared it would be seen as advertising, so have been reluctant to discuss the hatchery.

Advertising!? With pleasure... UA owes you BIG time Krissi!

Thanks Reefz - I am happy to discuss the hatchery and especially learn from others who may know of or have one - most of my clients are local, as carting the little blighters is tricky, so I certainly won't impact on the suppliers up north

.

WalkersKiller · « **Reply #13 on:** October 31, 2011, 01:58:10 PM »

Quote from: krissi on October 31, 2011, 01:51:38 PM

Quote from: REEFMAN on October 31, 2011, 12:46:16 PM
Quote from: krissi on October 31, 2011, 08:53:02 AM
Quote from: Half-Pint on October 31, 2011, 08:35:05 AM
Krissi if you ever get the time to post some photos Im sure the guys would love to see it I know I would certainly be interested

I will do it with pleasure HP - I was scared it would be seen as advertising, so have been reluctant to discuss the hatchery.

Advertising!? With pleasure... UA owes you BIG time Krissi!

Thanks Reefz - I am happy to discuss the hatchery and especially learn from others who may know of or have one - most of my clients are local, as carting the little blighters is tricky, so I certainly won't impact on the suppliers up north .

Krissi I would be very keen to learn what you guys do, and how you price your fish, very interested in fish farming!

krissi · « **Reply #14 on:** October 31, 2011, 04:35:56 PM »

We bought the hatchery 3 years ago. I have been doing it for 2 years now, so am still very new at it. It is situated on the farm Splashy Fen (yes, the same as the music festival). We lease the property, as it is 13km from our home farm. We have 7 large ponds, 1 very large pond and 8 nursery ponds, which are under shade cloth. In a thatch "pandokkie" is the nursery proper ie the troughs where the eggs are hatched and swim-ups are kept until around 2". We incubate the eggs in tubes until they eye ie you can see the eyes in the eggs. They are then placed in the troughs where they hatch. When the babies can swim up to the meal, they are called swim-ups.

Water is from a pristine stream, caught in a weir and gravitated in a 120mm pipe to the hatchery, where each pond/nursery is fed off this pipe-line. This ensures a constant stream of cold, fresh, oxygenated water into the ponds. We have tremendous pressure, so the water jets into the ponds.

We started with rainbows and this is our first year in which we have browns. When we took over, we had brood stock and milked them, hatching out our own eggs - an essay in itself. We didn't have enough (Dean wasn't very successful and only managed to hatch out 365 babies) so we bought in fingerlings from a hatchery in the central berg. As I mentioned, a couple of otters found our "restaurant" and cleaned us out this year, so we were forced to buy in eyed-ova from Machachadorp. This has proved to be a far better option, as keeping brood stock means feeding them for 2 years before you can milk them, feeding them throughout the year (and boy! can those big ones eat!) and of course, running the risk of them either getting eaten or dying. We also run into water problems in the drier late winter and early spring months. Timing the milking is crucial - a week out and the hens re-absorb their eggs.

No brood stock meant we could do a lot of routine maintance on the ponds this year, which was badly needed. A lot of the ponds leaked really badly and needed re-surfacing, the hail-netting was in bad shape (which is why the otters gained access), and the "plumbing" (out-flow and over-flow piping) needed some TLC.

The ponds are like concrete reservoirs which are knee high. On the "wall" of the pond was a "fence" of hail cloth (waist high) and then a "roof" of hail cloth. We have replaced the "fence" with chicken mesh (keep those pesky otters out) and patched the hail cloth (keeps the herons, comorants, fish eagles and kingfishers out and provides shade). The whole hatchery is enclosed by a high fence and we are planning on putting an electric fence around the base - again, otter prevention, as they gained access under the fence.

Dean lost about 11 000 stockies and over 50 brood stock in the first year when the pipes clogged up in a flash flood - the ponds didn't have water jetting into them and the fish died (suffocated). This was devasting but it happened in the middle of the night, and nothing could be done.

We feed the trout a commercial trout food, starting with a meal and slowly building up to a 5mm pellet. The food is approx R230/25kg. We feed on an ad-lib basis ie you throw the pellets into the pond and when the trout slow down feeding (they get into a feeding frenzy often splashing you on the side of the pond) we stop. The babies are fed on the hour and as they get bigger, we feed less times/day until they are fed in the morning and evening only. We do not feed if the water temp is above 18 deg. We presently have around 50 000 rainbow fingerlings and 5000 browns - so it is very difficult to try and feed on a more scientific basis - 10% of body weight. Expected growth rate is around an inch/month.

Pricing is based on other hatcheries at this stage but normally works on around R1/inch. Once they reach 8" plus, the price jumps a bit as they eat more and it is expensive to keep them.

Most common diseases are white fin and pop-eye. I lost quite a few fish last year to pop-eye and with no scientific data, I believe the disease was in the fingerlings that we bought. Water temperature is critical - warm water creates an environment more condusive to disease. White fin is usually a stress condition brought on by over-crowding in the ponds and warm water. If you feed when the water temp is high, the fish cannot digest the food, bloat and die.

We prefer selling the stockies at 6". It is easier to transport them at this stage. I have 2 x 500l tanks and a few smaller ones. The tanks are fed with oxygen while transporting the fish. You starve them for 48hrs prior to transporting or handling them. This reduces the stress and because they haven't eaten, they do not soil the water in the tanks when transporting them. They will eat their own excretement and get sick. This makes it very important to sweep the ponds on a daily basis, letting the dirt get sucked out the out-flow, which is covered by a sieve, but it can block from all the poo.

For ease of management, the fish are sorted/graded a few times to try and keep the same size together in ponds. I don't have grading boards, so we do it manually - very time consuming and towards the end all the fish look the same flipn size! I definitely want to get grading boards this year. Keeping the same size fish in a pond means you don't have the big ones eating all the food (and eating the smaller ones), and when it comes to loading, you don't have to sort fish - although this still happens as they grow at different rates. We pre-sort and count out the fish the day before loading and keep them in a seperate pond. You also have to be careful that you don't transport when it is hot - a sure way to kill them. When stocking a dam, you must take the dam water temp and the tank water temp, then even out the difference by adding dam water to the tank over a period of time. A sudden temp difference also kills them. We do not throw the fish into the dam - we have a 120mm pipe with a funnel and slide them down the pipe into the water. Watching them leap out the water is so amazing!

Hope you found it interesting - it is a very basic description of our hatchery and trout farming a-la-Scott

WalkersKiller · « **Reply #15 on:** October 31, 2011, 04:40:31 PM »

WOW awesome stuff thanks for sharing Krissi I will pass the word on to some people I know!

Half-Pint · « **Reply #16 on:** October 31, 2011, 04:42:29 PM »

Really interesting stuff Krissi. Like Gareth I also find the whole fish farm thing very interesting. Some distant members of our family own a trout farm up here in JHB and their biggest problem is keeping the temp down. In summer those dams get incredibly warm!

krissi · « **Reply #17 on:** October 31, 2011, 05:21:08 PM »

Quote from: Half-Pint on October 31, 2011, 04:42:29 PM

Really interesting stuff Krissi. Like Gareth I also find the whole fish farm thing very interesting. Some distant members of our family own a trout farm up here in JHB and their biggest problem is keeping the temp down. In summer those dams get incredibly warm!

Yip HP water temp is the one of the things that is very difficult to control. We are lucky in that we have the stream, but it does still get hot in peak summer. Sometimes we don't feed the fish for a day or 2 or have to feed them at dawn and late evening. Having a strong through flow of water also helps. Our downside is that we are totally dependant on the stream - it ran dry last spring and we burnt out 3 pumps recycling water.

wernerm · « **Reply #18 on:** January 01, 2012, 02:03:14 PM »

Hi Guys,

We've recently had this debate on another forum as well. The two attached pictures will show you the difference between the Albino trout, which I suspect is what you got and the golden trout, which is in fact very rare and sought after. I have a mission to find and land one of the Golden trout's this year. Must be in South Africa though. The Albino trout is the whitish one.

Credit to tomsutcliffe.co.za for the photo of the Golden trout.

WalkersKiller · « **Reply #19 on:** January 03, 2012, 08:58:38 PM »

Thanks for that, very interesting wernerm