Planned vs Reality of Lake Stocking #s - Large Discrepancy

[Divad]

How on earth is 28% fulfillment to plan acceptable?! Thurston County’s well known little selective gear trout lake was planned to receive 1,785 jumbo plants this year, though it has only received 500. And I’m sure other lakes are in the same boat.



I called the WDFW and the gal this morning told me to call the hatchery as if shifting the inquiry elsewhere…the hatchery never picks up nor do I think that is the proper communication route.

With added closures to local rivers folks (like myself) look to lakes to scratch the itch. Why is more focus not going on to manage fisheries we can actually control? I feel like if I missed the mark by 62% at my job I’d be fired.

 

[Guy Gregory]

Well, in WDFW's defense, if you ain't got the fish, you ain't got the fish. I suppose fish die in hatcheries for lots of reasons.

 

[Stonedfish]

Personally I like quality over quantity when it comes to lake fishing, but that is just me.
I think they overstock some lakes.
I’d also prefer to have fry plants versus jumbos as I think they produce a better quality fish. Sure some get picked off, both those that survive and carryover end up as nice solid fish. Again just my preference.
I also think it is waste of WDFW resources to send a stocking crew out to plant only 50 trout in a lake.
One thing for sure, they’ll never make everyone happy regardless of what they do.
SF

 

[Divad]

I’m completely fine with quality > quantity. The issue I see is that they constructed and allocated a plant schedule that is largely incorrect. Forecast should be relatively close to reality in this case but it’s far from it.

I just hope the proper auditing is being done on the backend in the supply channel (hatcheries) to ensure either this doesn’t happen, or forecasts are closer to expectations. This is all stuff I deal with at work on large scale projects it just seems baffling one can be so off, and then tuck tail and evade when asked about it. The latter got me a little pissed this morning.

 

[Divad]

I guess my other big point is it’s a fishery that is manageable w/o exogenous variables like river conditions, run size etc. With those issues depleting fishery availability I’d like to see lake planting operate with a little more care.

Oh heck I’ll just go side drift wild steelhead to get my jollies.

 

[Wetswinger]

Concerning that Thurston Co. lake..So. Sound Fly Club Oly used to purchase large fish for stocking into this lake. I don’t know what is happening with that program anymore. Could that be a factor.?

 

[RCF]

Why not just publicize that the following lakes are going to stocked ---> no numbers, no dates, and no size references. That way it will increase the anticipation of not knowing while at the same time not having to worry about meeting expectations.

 

[jasmillo]

I’ll help you out and sink some bags of cement with fins to the bottom of that lake that you can snag. They should fight better than the jumbos from the hatchery in question.

All kidding aside. Definitely happening across other lakes I keep an eye on.

 

[Bambooflyguy]

I wish they would winter stock a few King Co. year round lakes for us ……

 

[Divad]

I didn’t know that @Wetswinger, I sent them a message to see if they know what’s going on. Might stop in at Eels next week to see if they had some big fish kill or a grizzly setup shop in one of the hatchery pools.

@jasmillo lol! Those cement bags might be the ticket, sometimes the fish from there are just awful. it’s not a dump of those in December.

 

[wetline dave]

Divad what I see reading between the lines is you are mot catching bigger fish and think you should catch them like you catch fresh pants. Well hold over fish a different game so change your tactics as almost every planted lake will have large hold overs.

DAVE

 

[Divad]

Divad what I see reading between the lines is you are mot catching bigger fish and think you should catch them like you catch fresh pants. Well hold over fish a different game so change your tactics as almost every planted lake will have large hold overs.

DAVE

Nono haha I know that, I haven’t been out there in a couple weeks mainly because the fish there hunker into the lily pads for a couple months in fall. I did make some cool patterns with weed guards that worked when I was there last which was fun. And I’m always chatting with other anglers.

I enjoy watching the catchable updates and knew something was off on the lake. Although it’s catch and release a lot of fish get poached so a sustained stock is a must. There are better holdover lakes in the county tbh.

 

[Bambooflyguy]

Said lake the fish die off quickly too…..death sentence being stocked there. And they’ve planted some ugly zombie spawned out looking trout…..pretty lame! My .02