These Stocks Will Keep Market Up

It’s been a frantic week for anglers as well as for local merchants and landing operators, who have been busy with preparations for today’s opening of the 1997 general trout season in the Eastern Sierra.

But nobody has been as busy as Department of Fish and Game hatchery personnel, whose job it is to put thousands of rainbow trout in lakes and streams so anglers can take them out again.

“We’ve been running in circles,” said Mike Haynie, hatchery supervisor.

Literally.

From the Mt. Whitney Hatchery near Lone Pine and the Fish Springs Hatchery near Big Pine, hatchery troops in souped-up trout trucks have been hauling fish up and down U.S. 395 all week, turning off on side roads to dump their loads in the many creeks spilling down from the snowy mountains, and then returning to the factory for more.

“If you had been sitting there on the highway, watching the sunrises and sunsets, you would have seen us every day,” Haynie said.

Probably. In all, the DFG stocked 45,000 pounds of half-pound rainbow trout in the last week or so.

“That’s 90,000 fish,” Haynie said.

That’s also a lot of trips for trucks that carry an average load of 1,000-2,000 pounds.

Of the 45,000 pounds, 33,000 went to Mono County. But Haynie assured that there are plenty of fish in southern Inyo County, whether they were planted by his staff or not.

“A lot of those small tributaries leading to the Owens River have wild browns in them. In fact, that whole watershed is loaded with little browns.”

To keep anglers busy battling little rainbows, the DFG will maintain a weekly stocking schedule--planting each water every other week--throughout the season, which ends at dusk Oct. 25.

After that you can watch the sun rise and set without those trucks getting in the way.