North Carolina offers winter trout anglers a unique opportunity to catch trout locally by stocking ponds in municipal parks with surplus trout. These "trout next door" often cannot survive in these waters through most of the year, but they are stocked on a "put and take" basis during the winter.
Here are some tips for pursuing the trout next door.
See if your state has a program for stocking surplus trout in local ponds for the winter months by going to your state's wildlife resources commission website and looking up the trout stocking schedule. Here is the winter trout stocking schedule for North Carolina ponds.
Take note of license requirements and fishing rules for the stocked ponds.
A great time to fish is immediately after stocking. However, be prepared for crowded conditions.
Great baits and lures, if the rules permit, include Berkley PowerBait, live worms, and Trout Magnets, crappie jigs, or small rubber worms jigged through the water. Also, spinners can work. Fly fishermen may want to use streamers, being very careful if backcasting to avoid hitting people. Roll casts may be advisable under crowded conditions.
The quality of fishing in these ponds will likely diminish over the course of the winter months, and the trout that remain will typically die off as the water warms in the spring.
