Archive for January 31st, 2008

Trout Stocking: Easy-to-catch Sport Fish

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish Restoration Program

Every winter Inland Fisheries stocks thousands of rainbow trout to provide unique angling opportunities statewide.

Rainbow trout are widely considered to be very good sport fish, and fun to catch, but they’re generally fairly easy to catch as well, and will take a variety of bait: corn or lures, or worms.

Carl Kittel coordinates the trout-stocking program for Parks and Wildlife. One hundred twenty sites will receive the trout.

The vendor that supplies us trout, supplies them to four of our hatcheries around the state. And we stock quickly from the hatcheries to the sites. So, we don’t grow them much beyond the size they come in. Most of the fish we stock are an average size of nine inches; there are a few fish that go into the urban fishing program that we get to a larger size, or grow to a larger size to an eleven-inch average.

Rainbow trout are great fish to get the kids started on.

Generally, in the urban fishing lakes we think we have pretty good fishing pretty much all the time because they’re frequently stocked. In other lakes, we stock less frequently and the fishing probably is best within a few days after that stocking. And you can find out when stocking will be done in your area on our web page.

Find a link to fishing regulations and the rainbow trout stocking schedule on our website, passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…with support from the Sport Fish Restoration Program…which also provides funding for winter trout stocking in Texas…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.