Does corn kill trout?

[MOPanfisher]

The trout in the original post made it for 54 days on a straight corn diet, they didn't die.

[bfishn]

I...Trout are meat eaters, not veggie tarians.

True that. Having personally hatched and fed out over 100K of them I learned that and a few other things. Like they won't grow a whit on (much cheaper) grain-based catfish feed. Gotta buy that $$ 50% fish meal based Silver Cup.

Hatchery reared, pellet fed trout will eat anything you throw in the water that remotely resembles a feed pellet. I laid down a nice smooth bank of chat around my fishing pond for the customers' pleasure without a thought to the natural instinct of a child to throw rocks in the water. Big Mistake. Try telling a beaming kid that just caught his first fish he can't throw rocks in the water. Only later when I cleaned their fish in front of them and a gut full of gravel spilled into the sink did the parents understand. Since I charged by the pound, I had to weigh back the gravel and deduct it from the price. Big pain in the butt for me, and an even bigger pain in the butt for the trout that ate it and lived.

Another thing I learned was the amazingly long time they could go without feed. A friend that had a similar operation in Missouri had a bad medical bout that kept him from buying feed for a bit over two months. His pond fish had some scuds and crawdads to get by on, but the raceway fish had absolutely nothing for that time. They got really skinny, but came right back with a regular feed regimen.

I had a few customers that used their own canned corn for bait. The trout couldn't digest the whole kernels any better than I can. I had zero fish die from it. I suppose if you had some penned up and fed them nothing but canned corn for 6-8 months that they'd starve to death.

Anecdotally, the very best bait for fresh-from the-hatchery slicks is trout feed pellets. Buy a quarters worth from the gumball machine at a hatchery Breifly dunk the handful under water for a moment, then spread them out on a dry surface. In 10-15 minutes they'll be soft enough to stick one on a #6 hook. Set a bobber to put the bait in their face and have at it.