How Big Did Our 3 Inch Rainbow Trout Grow in 100 Days?

We stocked 3 inch rainbow trout into a new Montana pond in May. The trout were from a local Montana hatchery. We begin to catch them 100 days later to see how they are doing. We checked again in October, and caught them through the ice in December. The hatchery said to expect about 1 inch growth a month for the first few months. This pond is full of freshwater shrimp, mayfly nymphs and leeches. We found that the incredible amount of food in the pond resulted in 2 inches of growth per month in the first 100 days, with the trout averaging between 8 and 10 inches. By October, some trout approached 12 inches and were filling out their bodies and grew thicker. In December, we caught some trout by ice fishing. The trout averaged 11-13 inches in length and put on an amazing amount of weight in 7 months.

We will be catching some of the trout when they are one year old to see how big they are then. We will also be stocking 100 Kamloops rainbow trout in May. Kamloops rainbows are the largest landlocked species of rainbow trout in the world.

Ponds in this area that have freshwater shrimp have produced rainbow trout of up to 10 pounds in a few years. We can't wait to see how big both species grow. We will post yearly videos about how big these fish grow.