I’ve had a terrible time trying to catch stocker trout after that first two weeks when they are all bunched up and hitting almost anything. But then yesterday I caught a couple near some wood on a 1/80th oz. jig fished under a strike indicator. I’m just wondering if after they disperse they start relating to structure somewhat like bass or do they still just mainly just cruise around looking for something to eat.
My experience in TN is that they eventually disperse. The longer they are in the river, the more they start acting like natural born wild trout. However in TN many of them are harvested so we see the same stocked cycle (and behavior) over and over. Occasionally you catch a RB that has been there for a while, gained real river colors and some weight. I have had good luck with a homemade Woolly Bugger which uses Sulky Holoshimmer (from Joanns) excusively in the tail on these stockers in TN.
My experience has been to go on a day when everyone thinks there all gone and no ones there, (Usually during the week) and sit and watch the water, watch it for longer than you think you should, you can see how there acting, where there at in there adjustments. I’v seen them searching for food, hanging in a lane watching for whatever is coming down there way, rising to anything that looks like a fly on top of the water, sometimes there not skid dish of people yet but will have adapted to rising for flies. Of course the longer there in there the more they become like native or wild trout…
I would echo the comments on a wooly bugger. For stocked fish, once they get out of the pods and start setting up, it’s hard for them to refuse a black or an olive wooly bugger. I particularly like a size 10 with either a gold, copper, or black bead. Wooly Buggers are one of my favorite top three flies to use. Good luck.
They definitely do disperse, as others have said. If they’re heavily fished, they become extremely finicky and can be some of the toughest trout to fool.
cycler68,
I have had good luck fishing a Soft Hackle Hare’s Ear, just under the surface, for stocked Trout. Hatchery Trout are accustomed to looking up for their food.
Doug
Thanks for the good advice. I’ll definitely spend more time just watching & then try fishing them with a small woolly bugger. I love woolly buggers for fishing just about anything.
Black marabou leach and ryacophila emergers for freshly stocked trout. If that does not work then start changing flies like crazy. A lot of stockers are going thrugh a period of “Culture Shock” after being released. The only predictable thing about them is the fact theat their behavior is totaly unpredictable. And yes - the longer they remain in any water the more cautious they get. Like their natural instincs are slowly waking up…
Just to clarify, I think you are talking about the pond-stocked trout, correct? They probably act different than the stream-stocked trout.
I’ve had the same experience you describe. And I too have found the bigger trout to be somewhat more stationary around some woody structure. But the stuff I fished were smallish logs or branches, and only 1 or 2 trout were using it. Where the big numbers of trout are (and you KNOW they are there!) remains a mystery to me. :rolleyes:
I fish the Youghiogheny (mostly stocked fish, some holdovers) here in southwestern PA with a couple buddies from work and one always checks the stomach content of those that he keeps. He says he often finds small pebbles and moss (stringy algae) in the stomachs and we have gone back and forth between those are probably the disoriented, newly stocked fish dining on anything that moves or resembles their normal trout pellets diet. Then I started thinking that perhaps the trout are learning to catch insects on the bottom and the pebbles and algae are sort of the by-catch of doing so. And maybe they digest the bugs but the rocks and algae take longer to get through their digestive tracts. Perhaps that is just wishful thinking as I don’t know how long it takes for the fish to learn to catch bugs.
Perhaps I should come up with a pebble/algae fly pattern? 
In my experience, stockers will hit anything that darts out infront of them.
Like a beadhead anything, just jerk it fast infront of them, making them follow it, and have to take it before it goes too far from the rest of his friends.
To me it seems each group of stockers acts different.
Stockers are a different breed…They dont behave like wild fish…For one…they tend to suspend in mid water and pick slow current like you find in hatcher raceways…Wild fish or those that have been in the water for awhile tend to hold closer to fast current. See what level they are holding in the column and fish something at their level or slightly above it. Its often easy to induce a hit by stripping a bugger or crackleback in front of them with short fast strips. Cheers.