What Do Trout Eat? What You Need To Know About What These Delicious Fish Eat!

Whether you are fish stocking or fishing for trout, it is essential to know what they eat. A lot is known about fish feeding patterns and habits, which helps a lot if you are looking to raise them in your home pond. Most eat anything from worms and minnows to sea and land insects, other fish, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, rodents, and more. You can also purchase fish food from an online store, so it is essential to know precisely what trout eats. In the sections below, we examine the trout feeding habits, including the best food, and when to feed them.

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Trout Feeding Habits

There are various types of trout and feeding habits may vary depending on the breed. For instance, rainbow trout are born with a ready-to-digest digestive tract and feed on terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, including worms, minnows, insects and zooplankton. As they grow and swim into the seas, usually between 1 and 3 years, they begin to eat small fish, krill, squid, and shrimp. However, inspects remain a big part of their diet throughout their life.

On the other hand, sea trout primarily feed on small crabs, prawns, shrimp and other fish. They tend to migrate from one region to another and average at 19 inches long. River trout also have to do with meals available in their environment, which includes insects, crustaceans and other small fish and aquatic invertebrates. Trout prefer feeding in the early morning and late evening. They also come out in numbers during the summer when temperatures are warmer.

You can find them in the stream with faster riffles where the water gets re-oxygenated a lot faster, usually, as it encounters resistance from rocks, boulders and logs. If you stock trout in a pond, you can feed them as soon as the temperatures climb above 10 degrees Celsius. Like many fish, they feed throughout the seasons. Just make sure the temperature is considerably warmer, during the winter and on those cold days.

Popular Trout Food

Trout eat from a wide range of options and a hungry trout will probably eat any small aquatic or terrestrial invertebrate and some vertebrates. However, if you are stocking trout or simply fishing to catch one, we review some of the popular foods trout loves below. Note that there are many different breeds and each type has various distinctions in its feeding habit.

1. Rainbow Trout Food

Rainbow trout is arguably the most popular type you’ll encounter and has a striking, colourful appearance. Most rainbow trout are carnivorous and hardly eat aquatic vegetation. They also don’t pick and choose, so they’ll eat any meal provided it is the right size and still alive. Their meal mainly comprises aquatic insects, leeches, snails, crayfish, mussels, smaller fish, mayflies, insect larvae, and fish eggs as they get older. Most rainbow trout rely on the life forms living around their habitat.

2. Steelhead Trout Food

Steelhead trout are larger than regular rainbow trout and very desirable among anglers. They are also closely related to salmon and swim to dwell in the sea after spawning in freshwater streams. Because of their migratory nature, steelheads eat from a wide range of options, and aren’t particularly choosy, although this is the theme across most fish species. These trout will eat anything from insects to mayfly nymphs, fish eggs, crabs, crayfish, midge pupa, mussels, snails, smaller fish and small mammals and rodents.

3. Brown Trout Food

Brown trout will eat anything that’s the ideal size and are known to attack small mammals that come to drink at the edge of the stream. They are native to Europe and unusually go for larger prey than their close relatives. Some of their popular meals include minnows, sculpin, and other small fish, plankton, insects, snails, small turtles, young mink and mice, crayfish and small crustaceans. A large hungry brown trout has quite a few items that it won’t eat.

4. Lake Trout Food

Known for their large stature, lake trout can grow up to 100 pounds and are popular in North America. They have a diverse diet and will eat anything that’s alive and small, relative to the trout’s size. Some of the common foods include smelt, herring, whitefish, crayfish, sponges, insects, crabs, plankton, and insects. Most lake trout that prefer plankton don’t grow as large as their more carnivorous cousins. They also have a shorter average lifespan.

5. Cutthroat Trout Food

Cutthroat trout are easy to distinguish from the rest because of their distinct colouration. They are also longer and wider, with red slashes around the neck and gills. Like other types of trout, the cutthroat spends its day eating from a wide range of choices, including fish eggs, mayflies, grasshoppers, crickets and other insects, snails, herring, shrimp, salmon, squid, krill, and small crustaceans. Smaller cutthroat trout are born in the river and depend on insect larvae, but later swim to the sea to explore a plethora of ocean meals.

6. Bull Trout Food

Bull trout are likely the pickiest of all the different types available. These fish are common in the Pacific Northwest and North Canada. They are routine feeders, so you’ll probably come out empty if you chose the wrong bait. Bull trout prefer whitefish, insects, small trout, salmon, and sculpin. They also migrate to fresh and saltwater, and their diet will depend on their habitat, which can vary greatly. They are also known to completely ignore flies, so don’t even try fly fishing for bull trout.

Other Trout Food

There are several other types of trout and each breed has its selection of food. Trout are known to eat mayflies, caddisflies, midges, stoneflies dragonflies, damselflies, frogs, leeches, shellfish, and many other aquatic and terrestrial dwellers. Although we know much about what different types of trout eat, they probably have many other options. Sea trout migrate across several miles and encounter various preys. Adult fish are known to attack anything small and live. However, trout have a few things they avoid, depending on the breed. It is essential to know which breed you have if you are stocking trout in a pond. Nonetheless, most types will eat the feeds provided for fish farmers.

The Best Fish Food for Trout

Trout feed has seen tremendous modification over the years but still come in palette diet forms with nutrition for all stages of growth. These compact palettes feature various ingredients, including fish meal and oil, grains, soybean, spirulina, squid meal, shrimp meal, earthworms, minerals, and vitamins. It is recommendable to incorporate both purchased and natural trout feed for a healthy pond. However, the fish feed works pretty fine and contain high amounts of fat, which is essential in fish diets. Over the years, soybean and grains have been selected over the fish meal, but nothing is wrong with feeding your trout small fish that they eat in their natural habitat.

Summary

In conclusion, we have established that there are different types of trout, including river, lake, sea, and rainbow trout. There are several breeds available, and each has unique feeding patterns and choices. IF you are stocking trout, make sure you know the best food for the type you have. Similarly, you should know the right bait to use when fishing. Even so, trout favours insects and small aquatic dwellers. Make sure you review each trout food you purchase to know what’s included and if it is healthy for your pond. That said, there’s little that a wild hungry trout won’t eat if it is the right size and alive.

Sources

https://kempoo.com/fishing/what-do-trout-eat/

https://www.wildtrout.org/content/trout-stocking