Trout growth over winter

[Dgirl]

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.

[waterninja]

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.

[Rumtan]

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).