What Trout Farms Actually Feed the Fish You Catch | And Why It Matters

James
Aug 27
4 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Nice Trout caught on my Orvis rod and reel

Quick Summary, Trout Feed

Ever wondered what's actually going into the trout you're pulling out of your local fishery? There's a big difference between a well fed fish and one raised cheap and fast. Here's what I found out.

What Trout Are Actually Fed

Most farmed trout get raised on pellets. Not scraps like you might think. Young fish need loads of protein to grow, around half their feed is protein, plus a good bit of fat. As they get bigger the mix changes, less protein, still plenty of fat.

Good feed brands like Skretting, Coppens and Aller Aqua get the balance right. Cheaper operations skimp here, same as cheap tackle skimps elsewhere. Less goes in, and it shows in the fish that come out.

Why It Matters to You as an Angler

Fisheries that don't overcrowd and feed properly end up with hardy fish. Fight hard, look the part. Cram too many fish in and feed them rubbish and you get soft, weak fish that barely put up a scrap.

Have a proper look next time you land one. Good colour, solid weight, a decent fight. Tells you more about a fishery than the price on the day ticket ever will. Bad fish normally look fat and round. Good ones are slimmer, strong looking, ready for action.

At Barnt Green fly fishing, where I'm a member, they only buy trout from the best farms going. Quality is genuinely important to them. You can tell from the fish, they fight like mad, top healthy fish every time. I believe they get some of their stock from Exmoor Fisheries down in Somerset, spring fed, out on the Haddon Hills, low stocking densities, hand graded fish. Would explain a lot.

Wild Trout vs Farmed Trout

Farmed trout aren't just fed differently, they're bred differently too. Raise a trout on pellets, packed in tight with loads of others, and within a generation or two it's a different animal to a wild one.

Stock those fish into a river and they don't do as well. Higher death rates. Easier for predators to pick off. Worse at fighting for food and space than the wild fish already there. It's why a lot of clubs have moved away from heavy stocking altogether, put the money into the habitat instead and let the wild population get on with it. Funnily enough the wild fish end up bigger and more plentiful once you stop propping the water up with farmed stock.

Trout Farms Worth Knowing About

Leadmill Trout Farm in Hope Valley does it right. Low stocking density, decent feed, big earth ponds rather than cramped tanks. Fish raised like that settle into a new fishery far easier once moved.

Bibury Trout Farm in the Cotswolds is another good one. England's oldest working trout farm, going since 1902. Runs off spring fed ponds, clean water straight from the source. Still produces millions of trout eggs a year off the back of it.

Exmoor Fisheries out in Somerset is the one I reckon Barnt Green get their stock from. Spring water and the River Haddeo running through 14 earth ponds, low stocking density, hand graded fish. They supply clubs and fisheries right across England and Wales.

Me Fly Fishing on a Stillwater with fishing gear — Me Fly Fishing at Leaches Trout lakes thats shut

The Environmental Side of It

Feed's not just a welfare thing, it's an environmental one too. Uneaten pellets and fish waste build up around a farm. Nitrogen and phosphorus get into the water, oxygen drops, algae takes hold. Similar to what happens naturally in a heatwave, just caused by the farm itself.

Better run farms deal with it properly. Modern feed's more digestible than it used to be, so less passes straight through uneaten. Decent farms actually monitor how much they're putting in rather than just chucking pellets and hoping. Farms running off spring water, like Bibury, tend to have a much lighter footprint than ones just discharging straight into a river.

There's also where the fishmeal and fish oil comes from in the first place, wild caught fish, which puts its own pressure on ocean stocks. Nothing simple about it. Feeding trout well is good for the trout, but it still costs something down the line.

Why Running a Fishery Is Getting More Expensive

Feeding trout properly isn't cheap. Getting less cheap every year too. Fish oil, one of the main things in decent trout feed, has shot up something like 117% over the last decade. Fishmeal's held fairly steady in comparison, but that oil price is squeezing margins hard for anyone running a fishery.

Big part of why some fisheries have struggled or shut altogether. Feed and stock costs keep climbing, but you can only push day ticket prices so far before people stop coming.

Lechlade was one that closed down, a place I used to fish all the time. I don't know the full story behind it, but rising costs like this are exactly the kind of pressure that finishes smaller places off. Doing it right, decent feed, low stocking, well looked after fish, costs real money. That cost isn't going down anytime soon.

The Verdict

Doesn't take much digging to see what a fishery feeds its fish, and how it stocks them, makes a real difference to what you actually catch. Worth keeping an eye on the condition of what comes out of the water next time you're on the bank. Tells you more about a fishery than the website ever will.