Trout growth over winter
 

How much do trout grow over the winter? Went to a stocked trout pond where I caught mostly 11" fish last year. Yesterday I was catching slightly fatter 11-12" fish. There's no lack of food in the pond, massive hatch of mosquitos, tadpoles, frog eggs, snails, midges, water bugs and red worms (look like blood-worms) of various sizes. I guess I thought the fish would have put more length on instead of solid fat weight. Still learning...

Also most of the fish I landed were silver but one had much more vivid colorings. Most noticably it had black markings on the gill plates (terminology?) where all the others were just silver. Is there a way to tell male vs female rainbows? Will post a pic later when I pull my first fish fry of the season out of the fridge.

on smaller trout iv'e been told that if the back of the jaw line is past the eye than it's a male. on larger trout this is more pronounced and the bottom jaws of males develope a hook at the front.

How much a trout grows is directionaly proportional to the amount of food present. When we feed fish in the spring with pellets they seem to grow an inch a month, but that drasticaly drops off when the water cools (first ice).