Last Known Stocking

[laker67]

The only person, I'm aware of, to get fishing access from her was Tom Hargrove. Under the guise of "entomology research" while he was going to SMS. For all others it was "Posted"!

She allowed myself and Jim McGowin to visit her trout raising facility. She had everything you needed, just on a smaller scale. A very friendly lady and quite knowledgable. Never even considered asking her permission to fish.

[laker67]

. There are trout in HaHaTonka spring that nobody seems to know anything about also....supposedly no recorded stockings since the castle burnt down.

Hi FW. The spring was a privately owned stream when I was a kid. It was named "Trout Glenn". It had a nice resturant and some lodging facilities. It was pretty much for the rich and famous back then. Our local bankers, back then, were pictured in the local paper with some very nice rainbows on numerous occasions. The owner died and the property was inherited by the daughter. I think the state purchased it from her several years later. In the early 80's we caught brown trout in the spring branch, plus where it dumped into loz. Mike Parker caught a 6 lb brown during that time period. It was the largest brown I know of. In the early 60's, several 2 digit rainbows were caught. I do not know if any trout still exist in the spring branch.

[Chief Grey Bear]

I may be way off but, isn't there a pay to play trout creek in that vacinity???

[laker67]

I may be way off but, isn't there a pay to play trout creek in that vacinity???

If you are talking about loz, it is the one that FW mentioned, Trout Dale, near gravios mills.

[Phil Lilley]

I will have to ask Dave over at the hatchery next time I see him, although Mr Heinz the previous manager would more than likely know more about this since that was his time period. I agree that many trout stockings are not documented so it is very possible it has been stocked in the past. The Neosho Hatchery has reared many different species in it's existance. Smallmouth, Muskie, Walleye (which they are doing some now), largies, trout, and on and on. At one time they experimented with stocking Indian Creek and several others when I was a kid with trout.

I can contact Art Heinz if no one else knows him.

[drew03cmc]

Please do Phil! I would appreciate it.

[bronzeback miner]

Sequiota Park in Springfield actually used to be a rainbow trout hatchery. Man that would be cool if that were still the case!

That is true, Sequiota was used as a hatchery until 1959 when Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery came online with the completion of Table Rock Dam

[drew03cmc]

I found some interesting information, most of which is conjecture and not based on science whatsoever. Rather, I am basing this on my eyes and images of trout. In examining photos of redbands taken from the isolated portions of the McCloud River, where cross breeding and hybridization are highly unlikely and comparing them to the pictures of adult and juvenile trout of Crane Creek and there are few similarities. Looking at all of the requisite characteristics for a Great Basin redband (McCloud River is included in the GB subspecies of redband), I see some similarities, however, a perfect match eludes me. I have looked at all of the fish pictures from Crane on OAF. Now, the primary identifiers of the McCloud River redband trout are white tipped fins, including the pelvic, anal and dorsal, yellow-green body with pink to brick-red stripe, forked and spotted caudal fin which is more deeply forked than a hatchery or coastal rainbow and they are heavily spotted above and below the lateral line. Most of what I saw are rainbows from Crane that are heavily spotted above the lateral line and sparsely spotted below the lateral line, if at all. It is possible that the lack of spotting lower on the body is due to a variation in spot patterning, but the typical McCloud River Redband has spots heavily over and under the lateral line. I compared from all times of year, spawn, summer, winter, etc. To be honest, the hatchery reared rainbows on this site http://www.nativetroutflyfishing.com/troutandsalmon.htm much more closely resemble the trout that you find in Crane for the most part with the lack of lower body spotting. Some do possess spotting below the lateral line and I am sure the fish in Crane do as well. I don't see too much in the way of redband genetics in the trout in Crane, but there likely is some due to the origin of the trout that initially inhabited the creek. Now, if what I have read on here is true where the only things swimming in Crane were crawfish and tadpoles at at least one time in history, it is likely that the trout in Crane have no redband genetics. If there is redband blood, it has been minimized through the years and bred out with Missouri-Arlee blood, but that is just speculation. I would love to see the results of a genetic study with a regular, hatchery fish from NFH, a McCloud from the isolated regions of the McCloud River and a Crane Creek rainbow to see where we stand on the claim of a pure population.

I might be overthinking this, but think that a genetic test would be a good thing to know what actually have on hand here.

[Phil Lilley]

Art Hines replied. Said Neosho raised the rainbows from California in the late 1800's and stocked them in Crane. No stockings since. Neosho has not stocked any rainbows since the turn of last century.

[Chief Grey Bear]

What did Art say about MDC stockings??? That is what I am most curious about.