As promised, fish were stocked yesterday afternoon on the Lil’ Mo’ river. That’s the good news, bad news is 90% of them are between 6 and 9 inches long!! What a waste for this river. The bait chunkers won’t keep them ( just rip their guts out and throw them back) and they can’t grow much bigger before the summer heat comes. About every 10 th fish will approach 12 inches. Melissa usually sent better fish down here, she understood the circumstances of this river and tried to send us some larger sized trout, that’s why I miss Melissa!! Hope she is enjoying her retirement. I don’t know the person running the Spring River hatchery but have tried to explain the situation to Ryan Gary in hopes of getting some nicer fish stocked. However do want to thank him for the fish we did get!!🤗🤗.
They stocked everywhere except River Ridge. Not sure why they didn’t. Maybe he forgot his key to the lock on the gate, or maybe someone was parked in front of the stocking tube. People seem to just have to park right in front of the stocking tube, rather than walk a few extra steps. Melissa had told me in the past that she had told her drivers that if they pulled in the parking lot and the tube was blocked by a car, just drive on off. Not to try and find someone to move the car because it takes too long and it’s a long trip down here.
It’s like fishing in a barrel right now, but they will generate Friday and that will scatter them some. The water temperature is around 60 degrees all over the river. The generation should solve any oxygen problems, flush the silt out of the river, and bring the water level back up to normal.
My advice if your coming fishing is rig up your “000” weight rod and break out the attractor flies. Hopefully our river is about to get back to normal.
Added 5:30 today: after reading this Ryan Gary took the time out of his busy day, which I muchly appreciate, to call me and explain that we are getting small fish because that’s all the Spring River hatchery has!! All the fish were lost again in a flood on the river this spring. He sez the good news is they will only get bigger as the years stockings progress. Thanks again Ryan for all you do.
