In anticipation of the summer fishing season, Idaho Department of Fish and Game has a huge shipment of planter fish planned for eastern Idaho.

“We've got about 53,000 fish coming over our way in the last week of April and through May,” said James Brower, regional communications manager. “In the month of May, we’re stocking a whole lot of places here in the Upper Snake region.”

Brower said stocking trucks will be making 36 visits to many of the local lakes, ponds and streams to drop off catchable-size trout between 10 inches and 12 inches in length. Most will be rainbow trout.

One notable difference will be 1,800 tiger trout delivered to the Jim Moore Pond (formerly called the Robert’s Gravel Pond) during the last week of May. Tiger trout are a sterile hybrid between brook trout and brown trout.

Another big delivery of note will be at Ririe Reservoir.

“Ririe Reservoir is getting a huge shipment in our biggest tanker truck,” Brower said. “They’re getting 6,700 rainbows sometime between May 6 through 10.”

stocking

Brower said Fish and Game will try to announce the delivery date for Ririe Reservoir in case the public wants to be there. “There’s a ton of fish coming, and it will be fun to watch.”

He said most of the fish come from the American Falls Fish Hatchery, with a few coming from the Mackay Fish Hatchery.

“A lot of people monitor the fish-stocking schedule on our website,” he said. “It is posted there for people to see. A whole lot of folks will wait until they see an area stocked before they go fish it.”

To find out about Idaho waters, stocking schedules and maps, go to idfg.idaho.gov/ifwis/fishingplanner/.

The Salmon-Challis area also will be stocked with 4,400 catchable size fish during the month of May. Included in the stocking list, are Blue Mountain Meadow Pond, Hayden Creek Pond, Hyde Creek Pond, Kids Creek Pond, Mosquito Flat Reservoir, Squaw Creek Pond and Stanley Lake.

According to Mike Demick of the Fish and Game, two of the ponds, Blue Mountain Meadow Pond near Challis and Squaw Creek Pond near Clayton each received 100 steelhead this week.

“The number of trout actually released may be altered by weather, water conditions, equipment problems or schedule changes,” Demick said in a news release.

In addition to regular stocking, Fish and Game has been taking electrofish-caught rainbows from the South Fork of the Snake River and dumping them into Becker Pond at Ryder Park in Idaho Falls.

“I heard of an individual who said he caught about 75 fish in two hours,” Brower said. “So the fishing there is pretty phenomenal. There was one 23-inch rainbow in there. There’s some good-sized lunkers that we chucked in there.”

The electrofishing program on the South Fork is an effort to reduce rainbow trout in the river and promote native cutthroat trout.

“They’re in their test phase,” Brower said. “It does take some effort to get it done. This is sort of the testing phase to see how much it is going to cost, how much effort is it going to take and if it is even feasible in the long run. … They haven’t crunched the numbers yet.”