330,000 Catchable Trout To Be Stocked Before Opening Day
MADISON – Nearly 330,000 catchable size trout are being stocked in dozens of inland trout waters across Wisconsin before the May 4 inland fishing season opener. A list of waters receiving fish and how many were planned for stocking is now available online.
Go to the Department of Natural Resources website, dnr.wi.gov, and search keyword “fishing,” and click on the trout stocking feature in the center of the page.
Becky Walters, a DNR fisheries technician from the St. Croix Falls Fish Hatchery, stocks domestic brook trout into Arkansaw Creek in Pepin County. About 200 yearling fish, averaging 9.5 inches, were stocked April 4.
WDNR Photo
“Cold weather has delayed some of the stocking this year but we still plan to have everything done by the May 4 opener,” says David Giehtbrock, DNR statewide fish production manager.
DNR fisheries crews have been stocking rainbow, brown, and brook trout raised at Nevin, Osceola and St Croix Falls state fish hatcheries. They've also been working with fishing club volunteers, students, and others to help stock the fish raised under 21 cooperative rearing agreements with DNR.
Some of the fish are to be stocked in urban fishing waters, small lakes and ponds cooperatively managed with the local municipality and used as a place for fishing clinics and kids fishing.
The trout are stocked in waters where the habitat is marginal and there is no natural reproduction. They are a small subset of the state's overall trout treasury -- more than 13,000 miles of classified trout water and trout populations that have generally increased statewide over the last 60 years.
Read “A Trout Treasury: Welcome to the good old days of trout fishing,” in the April 2011 Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine to learn about the general, overall improvement in the total number of trout, and trout in all the size ranges since 1950.
Find links to downloadable and interactive maps of trout streams and other resources to help find places to fish on the inland trout page of the DNR website.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Dave Giehtbrock (608) 266-8229