Fished Out

[WestCentralFisher]

I recently read a Facebook post that got me thinking. It was about how a trout stream in the Ozarks gets "fished out" between stockings. As someone who spends a lot of time trout fishing in White Ribbon (aka stocked, statewide reg) areas, this is a really common sentiment I hear. I'll pass a follow fisherman, ask how it's going, and hear "oh, I think it's all fished out." Rarely do I argue. If someone wants to leave my favorite fishing hole because they think its fishless, well, that's just how it plays out. 

It's also almost never true. 

It is definitely accurate that you can generally tell if you've hit the stocking lottery or the inverse pretty quickly. A couple summers back, I was floating the 11 Point, and got nearly blanked in the Blue Ribbon section. I crossed into White Ribbon water at Turner Mill, and started hauling them in like I was at the Bass Pro aquarium. It's not hard to do the math there. 

Conversely, I had almost the exact inverse happen the time I was there before that. Caught fish until my arms got sore until Turner Mill, then caught less than a dozen over the next two days in the White Ribbon water. Not exactly dead, but so much as hooking a fish was an absolute event. 

What I can honestly say is that I don't believe I've ever been to a put and take water in the Ozarks (outside of urban ponds) that I came away believing was actually fished out. I have had lots of times when all the good looking, easy to access pools seemed to be empty of trout, but there is almost always a way. Maybe there is a pool with steep banks and so much dead fall that it's almost impossible to fish, but if you slide down precariously on your backside and make the perfect cast, you can just make it work.

Sometimes, you find yourself doing what I call reading water in reverse. This means you are less trying to piece together where the trout want to be, and more trying to find the small, but real crossover between where trout can survive, but most fishermen wouldn't bother taking a cast. Maybe 98% of the riffle is way too shallow, but there are two little pockets that are just deep enough. It takes some looking, and some false starts, but it works more often than you think. 

Now, I could easily ask myself if any of this is worth it. After all, the blue ribbon, wild trout streams exist, and generally provide much more consistent fishing, along with prettier, wilder fish. And that's all true. But I have some sort of personality flaw, where I always think to myself "okay, that's the popular stretch, but what about all that water down there no one has much of anything to say about?" I often find that these so called put and take streams provide a sort of challenge that is generally not available on most Missouri trout streams, where, wild or stocked, you generally know where the fish will be or in roughly what numbers.

On these stream stretches, it might be hilariously easy or the most frustrating day of the year that you only pull out of the fire with one 11 inch trout right before sunset. You just never know which it'll be, and that's the fun part.

[ollie]

Yes, most of them still have fish somewhere in them, it is just harder to get them and you generally have to search them out. Most people who say they are fished out normally just go to where they know they have stocked them and maybe a few hundred yards in either direction. Capps fishes that way to an extent. They only stock at two locations so if you just hit those spots and don't catch or see anything follow then you might think they have all been fished out. 

[Dewayne French]

It is always funny to me that people actually call and ask "when are the trout being stocked"....I mean can people not catch them unless a truck just left the ramp. 😁🤦‍♂️Most of us just laugh at that, but I guess there are people that think that way. And no I have not seen an area "fished out" unless it was by otters, but that is another totally different meaning there.  

[WestCentralFisher]

Yeah, honestly I almost prefer not to be there right after the truck leaves. Generally, word of mouth seems to spread pretty fast even on more remote creeks (stocking trucks are not exactly inconspicuous) so it's not long until the place is pretty crowded usually. 

Or, sometimes it really is just too easy. One time I must have arrived at an access just after they stocked a bunch of browns, because hundreds were bunched up in a giant circle by the boat ramp. Half were facing the wrong direction. I caught and released two in perhaps four casts (I remember missing a couple strikes) just to confirm that it was as easy as it looked, and then left the river to go for a hike. 

[fishinwrench]

For about 3-4 days after a stocking the trout will stay schooled up like crappie, but within a week they tend to scatter and become more individualistic.   

[jdmidwest]

Dumping a large number of trout in increases the chances that all will have to forage more for food that is in limited supply.  I have noticed in brown trout areas, the larger fish come out of the hiding holes to compete with the new ones for food.

[Quillback]

The perils of trout stocking.  Ham was telling me that the average life expectancy of a stocked rainbow on the White below Bull Shoals is something like 2 weeks.  They are easy to catch when they are right out of the truck and people will hammer them.  

[tjm]

Yes, many will get killed in the first two or three days, but if 90% get killed and eaten in the first week, that leaves 10% and often most of that 10% will still be there months and sometimes years later. They likely won't be in the immediate area of where the stocking took place.  I've taken trout from fished out water numerous times and often seen holdovers in highly fished stretches. Made me believe that not all trout like powerbait. I've caught and released trout in the Park that from coloration and general condition must have been there a year or more. Taken trout year round from an urban stream that people quit fishing a week or two after stocking. 

[Quillback]

There's always a few that escape the gauntlet.  I catch a random rainbow once or twice a year on Table Rock when the water is cold.  They are always quality fish, fat and very silvery colored.

[WestCentralFisher]

Yeah, I am almost given to believe there is a genetic component. 80-90% of stocker trout are immensely susceptible to being caught immediately, but even in a pod of fresh stockers at the parks you'll see a few that completely turn their nose up at Powerbait. By 1 pm probably over half the fish still left in the creek will be more or less unsusceptible, and you need to try other things to catch them or just find the dumbest few left (yes, in my youth I fished with Powerbait. A lot. Scandalous, I know.)

There is also no doubt a learned component. I toss little Panther Martin spinners a lot, and they work tremendously well for both wild and stocked trout, except in the places they don't. And those are invariably the super heavily fished streams with primarily holdover trout. They're awesome on the little wild trout spring creeks, or the bigger rivers where fishing pressure is more diffuse (Eleven Point, Niangua, Current River down around Akers Ferry, etc.) 

But on say, the Blue Ribbon section of the Current? You can occasionally catch one on them, but they're more or less useless at least in the heavily fished stretches. But if you switch to something the trout see much less often like small crankbaits, etc, suddenly you're in business.