State: Bennett Spring still has plenty of trout

[Phil Lilley]

State: Bennett Spring still has plenty of trout

Reports that flooding swept all trout away were exaggerated, conservation official says.

Mike Penprase

News-Leader

There are plenty of trout at Bennett Spring State Park for holiday anglers despite a fish kill that occurred during recent heavy rains, Missouri Department of Conservation representatives said.

Contrary to angler-generated stories on the Internet, the trout-fishing park wasn't knocked out by the deluge that hit the region nearly two weeks ago, said trout hatchery manager Mike Mitchell.

Mitchell estimates the trout park lost less than 10 percent of its trout, which, counting fish ranging in size from tiny fry to big lunkers, number between 600,000 and 700,000.

Asked about accounts claiming flooding washed the trout park clean of fish, "It's kind of exaggerated."

"Nothing like those rumors actually occurred."

Anglers will find the trout park has enough fish for the end-of-summer Labor Day holiday, when trout anglers end a hot-weather lull at the park, Mitchell said. It sits on the Laclede-Dallas county line.

It wasn't the flooding caused by heavy rains south of the trout park — Mitchell said he's heard anywhere from 6 to 11 inches fell in the area — that killed fish.

The real culprit was high temperatures from water that flowed across soil baked by a series of 100-degree days, he said.

"What happened was, the runoff, when it hit the spring, it did not cool appreciably," he said.

"It hit the hatchery and was 75 degrees for at least an hour."

The normal water temperature in Bennett Spring and the nearby hatchery is 56 degrees, and some trout couldn't tolerate the temperature change, Mitchell said.

"This hot water, plus heavy silt loads, did not allow a high oxygen level for the fish to breath," Mitchell said.

"We did have some mortality; we did lose some fish."

Such a loss is unusual, Mitchell said.

"Most of the time, there are no huge hits," he said. "The numbers we lost would be comparable to a large parasitic infestation that cannot be brought under control quickly."

The warm, murky water hit quickly, so there wasn't time to do much to protect the trout, Mitchell said.

"When you deal with a cold-water species like trout, you have something in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 minutes to react before there is mortality," he said.

Because the most heavily-affected fish were 11Ï-inch stockers scheduled in September and October, the Department of Conservation is planning to bring in replacement fish from Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery at Branson, Mitchell said.

Being able to do that demonstrates how flexible Missouri's trout program is, Conservation fisheries field operations chief Chris Vitello said.

"We really try to operate the cold-water system as a system, and we were able to buffer the impact by getting fish from elsewhere," he said.

"I think the typical angler, this year and next year that goes to Bennett, I don't think they're going to notice any difference, either in number or size of fish."

Rumors that the trout park won't have fish for months are unfounded, Mitchell said.

"That's not going to be the case at all," Mitchell said.

"We will go on business as usual until the end of October."

[rcguy]

That's great!. I hope to get down there in late sept. Also looking forward to some winter fishing.