Trout time: How Nebraska lakes get stocked for eager anglers

Young anglers gathered around the banks of Halleck Park Lake in Papillion to watch a Nebraska Game and Parks Commission tanker truck shoot out about 1,200 trout into the water. The tank made the trip down from the northeastern Nebraska town of Royal, where one of the state’s five fish hatcheries is located.

Matthew Perrion, who oversees the Hatchery Division within the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, said many people like to keep tabs on the commission’s stockings throughout the year in order to easily nab some fish. Some of the most common questions posed on the commission’s fishing Facebook page are from eager anglers asking about when certain lakes will be stocked with new fish.

“People will find out when they are or [when they] get close, and they’ll start fishing them,” Perrion said. “They start catching them within seconds, honestly, of them being stocked into a lot of these lakes.”

Game and Parks crews stock millions of fish into Nebraska’s lakes every year to keep fish populations high at popular lakes and to replenish lakes where fish either aren’t living quite as long or aren’t reproducing enough. Perrion said Game and Parks management biologists and district supervisors help decide which lakes get stocked and with what fish species.

“They’re out on a lot of these area lakes,” Perrion said. “They know them very intimately, and they know what species are in them and the history of them.”

Game and Parks crews chose to restock this lake in Papillion because of its popularity and the large number of fish that get harvested by anglers. Rainbow trout stockings, in particular, are a staple in the commission’s urban fisheries program.

“These lakes, if they meet certain criteria – water quality, water temperature, dissolved oxygen, water depth – they’ll become qualified,” Perrion said. “Then we’ll stock these trout for people to fish them in their backyard, essentially.”

The commission stocks more than 20 different types of fish species every year. In addition to trout, most of the fish being stocked in Nebraska’s lakes are walleye, but other common species include largemouth bass, channel catfish, hybrid green sunfish and bluegills.

The rainbow trout being stocked in lakes this year are averaging longer in length, thanks to having more time eating and growing in Nebraska’s five fish hatcheries. The trout going into Halleck Park Lake averaged just more than 13 inches long – a little longer than the commission’s typical average.

While it might be tempting to take home a few more fish this year, Perrion said anglers still need to abide by bag limits, or quotas on how many fish can be harvested by a certain angler. Bag limit signs are usually posted around lakes.

“Bag limits are really important to keep in mind when people are out fishing,” Perrion said. “A lot of that goes back to some of the North American model of wildlife conservation. We want to maintain numbers so everybody has the opportunity to go out and fish. If we didn’t have those bag limits, [people] could potentially harvest a whole lot more, and then there might not be enough for somebody else.”

Just a few minutes after Halleck Park Lake was stocked, several anglers lifted their lines with fresh fish flapping off the hooks. The 1,200 trout dropped into this Papillion lake are just a fraction of the millions of fish that find new homes in Nebraska’s lakes, thanks to fish stockings.

But Perrion said just because your nearby lake hasn’t been replenished, it doesn’t mean there aren’t good fish waiting to be caught.

“We have a lot of sport fish populations, like crappies, bluegills, bass, that usually replenish on their own,” Perrion said. “There could be a secret honey hole somewhere that hasn’t been stocked in 10 years, but it’s a really good fishery.”

Before throwing a line in, anglers need to have a current fishing permit, which are available at many outdoors sporting goods stores and on the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission’s website.