North Fork Brown Trout Stocking Expedition

[The Troutdoorsman]

List of things not to volunteer for: Help a friend move, cosign on a loan, take a cross country trip with your mother-in-law. When given a chance to serve as an official volunteer with the Missouri Department of Conservation, say yes. A fisheries biologist buddy, asked me if I would be interested in going on a stocking trip on the North Fork of White. Ok so: in a boat, on my favorite river and involving fish. This is everything I’m about, although it’s different putting fish out of the boat rather than into it.

Blair in the snow

So, I showed up at Blair Bridge at the prescribed time. It had just begun to snow. About a minute later, here comes the stocking truck. They backed it down the ramp and got a big hose out, opened up a trough and water, and fish shot out like a fire hose. The fish were shot into a tube with netting and a wire frame around the bottom. 3,000 brown trout in all, the rainbow trout in the North Fork or wild stream bred. The average length was 13 inches.

Stocking truck unloading

Of course as a volunteer, I was put to work right away. These guys had the operation so down pat that it was easy to fall in line. I would sit in the front of the boat and dip-net the fish out. I quickly learned that with about 10 or 12 fish wiggling around in the net you can’t just dump them all out at once and then try and count. You have to put the net in the water and try and shake them out one at a time. I asked if there was a specific part of the hole I should put the fish, riffles, runs, deep slow holes? I was asked in reply "Where do you want to catch them?"

Every stretch had a specific amount of browns to be placed. If you had more or less fish in your tubes, then you thought (easy to do when you’ve got fish shooting at you at a rate of dozens per second). You would have to adjust and notate what was actually placed. We released about 1,000 above Patrick bridge where the regulations only allow one keeper 18 inches or larger. Below Patrick, we released 2,000 until our take- out at James. The stocking truck at Patrick was crazy. It pulled up on the bridge, several feet above the tubes and the biologists. So this time, the fish were shooting down and had a five foot drop before they hit the water. The guys holding the inner tubes that the fish were landing in were getting showered with fish water. Not a popular fragrance with the ladies.

Brown trout in a stocking tube

Stocking from Patrick Bridge

The water was just high enough to be able to get the boat through the skinny stuff. The fish tube would have to be taken off and walked through the riffles. This was quite a chore. Imagine the current pulling a tube with 200 pounds of brown trout in it and having a tube in each hand.

When it was all over, I would have to say it was one of the most interesting days I've spent on the river. Perhaps most amazingly: after being loaded into a tanker truck, transported over 100 miles and shot through a water cannon, I only saw one fish that I didn’t think was going to make it. I couldn't help but think back to something I had heard my friend’s wife say. She has a job where she is responsible for a certain amount of people. But she always points to the difficulty of her husband’s job saying, "Fish are harder to manage then people." Now I know what she means.

Fish Shooting From Stocking Trough

Rusty Stocking Brown Trout

[SmallyWally]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing your day with us.

[Justin Spencer]

They have never asked me to do that, maybe they think I might overstock in certain areas! Thanks for the story.

[Krazo]

very interesting. thanks for sharing.

[Gavin]

Nice write up and thank you! I've never done the stock trip...but get in on a shock trip if you get the chance. Still a ton off work.

[ness]

Good write up and pictures.Thanks for sharing that -- interesting stuff.

[sean c]

They have never asked me to do that, maybe they think I might overstock in certain areas! Thanks for the story.

You need to bribe Rusty with some cold beverages to "accidentally" spill some extra fish in certain areas next year.

Rusty were the fish all the same size?

[Aaron Mills]

I think I reaped some of the rewards of your labor this weekend. Very much appreciated. I caught several browns and returned them to their rightful place above Patrick.

aaron

[Justin Spencer]

You need to bribe Rusty with some cold beverages to "accidentally" spill some extra fish in certain areas next year.

Rusty were the fish all the same size?

I remember Rusty bringing some Boxer beer to the drift boat conclave, so I could bribe him with about 20 cases of beer and it might cost me 20 bucks, stuff is nasty!

[The Troutdoorsman]

Sean- There was quite a bit of variety in the sizes and it's hard to be accurate after staring at 3000 wiggling fish, but I'd guess the smallest was around 6" and the biggest around 16". On both ends of the spectrum I thought to myself "I didn't think they stocked them that size.

Justin- I've since refined my palette to the sophisticated flavor of Milwaukee's Best.