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3. Lake Stocking

With lake stocking season just around the corner I decided to share the results of something I just researched. This is the stocking results for one of the 3 million lakes in Alaska.

In a previous thread Wbranch mentioned Alaska's amazing stocking program. This backs up what he said.

In Chena Lake a 259 acre lake this is how many fish were stocked since 1995:

Arctic Char: 120,070

Coho Salmon: 319,621

Grayling: 45,977

Rainbow Trout: 210,592

Chinook(King) Salmon: 200,892

Total Fish: 897,152

Est. total fish caught 1996-2010: 130,479

If you have stocking numbers that can beat this then post away!

The catch number to stock number ratio is only 14.5% - is that considered a good return on investment?

I'm not sure on that question.

I guess unfortunately I have to. We have four "trout parks" here in Missouri, each of which are stocked with approximately 100,000 per year. And the longest of these so called trout streams is three miles. So excessive.

Well you beat me for sure.

Talk about over crowding. That is so sad.

Well I have one that makes both of yours look puny in comparison. Pennslyvania stocks 1.2 million steelhead smolt every year into about a dozen, at the most, little creeks in NE PA. There are only three streams that I consider really fishable with a fly rod and one of them is just a zoo. The other two have somewhat less pressure and if you are willing to walk 1 - 2 miles away from your vehicle you can often find long stretches of stream with just half a dozen other guys.

I would like to see the harvest records for those streams. I bet that those streams are way more heavily fished than the lakes up here. Chena lake gets from 2000-3000 anglers per year.

I don't have actual Fish commission numbers but I've heard about 150,000 are landed every season - many of them are killed. I see the same guys go out every day and kill their limit of three steelhead in the 6# - 9# range. How much frigging steelhead can you eat a week? I've been told they don't taste all that good unless you smoke them.

Many people are saying the fish numbers are down drastically in the creeks from five years ago. There are other factors besides fishermen that are affecting the return, and therefore, the catch rate.

I've been told that a little, invasive minnow called the Gobi has invaded Lake Erie and the walleyes just love to eat them. Well as the walleye fishery has improved, and the fish are getting bigger, they are also eating a tremendous amount of the steelhead smolts that are put in their natal streams every spring.

In addition to the walleye issue the black cormorant has really rebounded since Lake Erie's waters became so much cleaner after another invasive species, the zebra mussel, came to the lake and is filtering millions and millions of gallons of water every day. The cormorant has been breeding prolificly and eating lots of steelhead smolts. I read where the PA Fish & Game commission is killing off all the eggs in cormorant nests in an effort to curb natural reproduction.

It is so sad how a little invasive fish like a Gobi can cause so many problems.