The Mo. Dept. of Conservation announced that fish losses at Missouri hatcheries in 2008 will result in about 180,000 fewer fish being stocked in 2009 at Missouri trout parks and other waters. This is about a 10% reduction, or 0.25 fish per angler, according to James Civiello, Trout Hatchery Program Director.

Civiello said that normal stocking was done for trout openers across the state, but the numbers of 12-inch fish will be reduced for the rest of the year, due to limited supply. Flooding at Table Rock Lake last year negatively affected trout both due to flooding and poor water quality, and other hatcheries had water quality issues, especially murkiness and water too warm for the fish as the slug of floodwater moved rapidly into and through the springs. MDC will monitor hatchery inventories, trout tag sales and other factors to keep the understocking from having more than minimal effect on angling.
This reduction does not affect trout stocking at Ft. Leonard Wood, nor will it have an effect on winter trout fishing in urban lakes. The latter are supplied from non-MDC hatcheries.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Fishing, MDC Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.