We should all know what happens when trout get stocked in Western American lakes – its bass fishery grows into huge world-record sizes as a result of feeding on its stocked trout. Largemouths of that caliber simply don’t exist in these waters, as we are in too cold of a latitude to grow such specimens, but what our trout waters do have growing in them instead are big smallmouths. Unlike out west, juvenile trout aren’t what’s entirely feeding and growing the big smallmouth. What's helping them to achieve monstrous sizes on these two-story cold-water fisheries is a diverse menu of pelagic species. The cisco, smelt, whitefish, and alewife forage is what sustains the trout and henceforth feeds the secondary species of these fisheries, smallmouth bass. Their sizes, growth rates, and weights are a product of their availability and abundance. To maintain their weights, big smallmouths require a combination of these oily, protein-rich forage species. Whether or not smallmouths prey on stocked trout as Western USA largemouths do, I’m sure many of them get eaten too. Stocked and native baby rainbow trout are extremely vulnerable to predation, anywhere.   O