Urban Trout Fishing Program

Mattucks: The urban trout stocking program it was a way to increase angler usage of our facilities. During the winter months warm water species aren’t as active and they’re not as vulnerable to being caught. And we were looking for a way to get the angler something else to do during the winter months. So we stock the trout into the lakes and we get a tremendous amount of usage on the area lakes in the winter months. We send several hatchery trucks from around the state down to Bennett Springs. The fish that are harvested out of Bennett are both browns and rainbows, typically a mixture of those species. The fish are loaded onto the trucks and then they make their way up to the cities. The smaller trucks we use we have to hand dip the fish individually off the truck so that can be a little bit of excitement. The anglers sort of like that activity because they really get to see the size of the fish that we’re stocking into it. And occasionally we have some surplus large-sized fish that are stocked in the lake. So, we pull off a 3 or 4 pounder and drop him into the lake, the oohs and ahhs really get going. Some of the trucks have large tubes on them that we just hook up a hose onto them and then run the hose right down into the lake and we open up a valve and the fish rush right on down into the lake. At times the ice does pose a problem. Sometimes we have to delay stockings to a later time, other times we do chop holes through the ice and stock the fish and it varies according to where the fish are stocked. They are cold water fish and if they'd stay in the lakes long enough during the summer months they would die from the rising water temperatures, but through our creel surveys and electrofishing trips out on the lakes, we find that virtually none of the fish are left past the end of May. A couple of the lakes are catch and release fishing with artificial lures, flies, and unscented plastic baits. The regulations are visibly posted at each one of the parking lots at the lakes we stock trout into. But then there’s also lakes that we stock that are catch and harvest that the anglers can basically use any type of bait, including corn, marshmallows, Velveeta cheese, power baits, salmon eggs. You name it, they throw it at 'em. Mother: Just watching his face, watching him catch fish. When we’re at home, you know, he always asks me to play and I’ve always got something I’ve got to do or the phone’s got to ring and this is where I can give him full attention. And just watching his face when I tell him we’re going fishing is priceless.