“Trout,” just the word brings to mind clear, cold mountain streams, the smell of pine trees, and the graceful whip of a willowy fly rod dimpling the surface of the pool as it delivers a tiny artificial fly. Oh, to cast to the rise of a rainbow.

Well, thanks to the Fisheries Division, Indiana has trout available a whole lot closer to home than the far distant mountain streams of the West. Each year, IDNR biologists stock hatchery raised rainbow trout in select waters here in the Hoosier State. The 7-inch plus rainbows released for put-and-take fishing for Hoosier anglers are just as energetic and just as tasty as their wild bred mountain cousins.

Stocked trout can be caught on conventional fly casting gear, but you don’t need to invest a great deal of money to enjoy the fun and frying pan benefits of stocked trout. A very effective method of fishing for trout is as simple as using a spin casting rod rigged with a lightly weighted No. 6 hook under a regular bobber.
Good producing natural baits include pieces of nightcrawler, red worms and bee moth. However, some less conventional baits work equally as well for not only hatchery raised trout, but their wild strain cousins as well.

Back in the late 1960s, my Uncle Bob Bolton of Gallup, N.M. took me fishing for trout on Lake Ganada on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Expecting to see an exotic array of tackle, I was surprised to see Uncle Bob load up standard spinning rods for the outing. I was even more surprised when the choice of baits came down to pieces of nightcrawler or Velveeta cheese.

Yes … Velveeta cheese. Thinking the trout fishing was turning into an assault on the local carp, I was surprised at the outcome.
A small ball of Velveeta about twice the size of a pea fished about four feet under a bobber was the killer presentation of the day. It out fished night crawlers.

A more exotic bait just the ticket for persnickety trout are colored miniature marshmallows. If you are trying to “match the hatch”… white and pink are the preferred colors. Believe me… the trout fight just as hard and taste just as good if they are caught on a marshmallow and brought to the bank by a ZEBCO spinning reel as they do when enticed to strike a Royal Coachman fly delivered by a fine, split-bamboo fly rod.

The Indiana inland trout season officially opened April 25 with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources advance stocking 50,000 rainbow trout in 18 streams and 15 lakes. The only other requirement to legally fish for trout beyond a current Indiana fishing license is an Indiana trout/salmon stamp. The daily limit for trout is five per angler. No more than one may be a brown trout. Fish must be 7 inches long to be kept.

In 2009, the DNR trout stock program includes portions of the following inland streams: Pigeon River (Steuben and LaGrange), Turkey Creek (LaGrange), Little Elkhart River (LaGrange), Rowe-Eden Ditch (LaGrange), Curtis Creek (LaGrange), Solomon Creek (Elkhart), Cobus Creek (Elkhart), Little Kankakee River (LaPorte), Spy Run (Allen), Missis-sinewa River (Randolph), Big Blue River (Henry), Brookville Tailwater (Franklin), Harden Reservoir Tailwater (Parke), Mill Creek (Fulton), Crooked Creek (Porter), Fawn River (Steuben), Potato Creek (St. Joseph), and Jackson Creek (Brown).
Trout are stocked in the following lakes: Rainbow Pit (LaGrange), Island Lake (Sullivan), Little George Pit (Sullivan), Airline Pit (Greene), Oak Lake (Clark), Pine Lake (Clark), Wyland Lake (Kosciusko), Oliver Lake Chain (LaGrange), Fancher Lake (Lake), Sand Lake (Noble), Bethel Pit (Pike), Clear Lake (Steuben), Lake Gage (Steuben), Fairfield Pit (Tippecanoe), and Cedar Lake (Whitley).

Special regulations apply to some of the listed trout fisheries. A detailed explanation of each fishery’s regulations can be found on page 16 of the 2009 Indiana Fishing Guide. Lake Michigan and its tributaries are governed by a separate set of regulations. To review the regulations go to page 17 of the 2009 Indiana Fishing Guide. The information is also available at www.fishing.IN.gov

Natural lake summer surveys

Indiana Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologists are scheduled to conduct fish population surveys at 19 natural lakes this summer.

Biologists use surveys to monitor populations over time and to help identify fish management problems. The surveys provide biologists with information on the diversity of fish present, as well as abundance, size, and rate of growth.

Lakes to be surveyed include Everett in Allen County; Terry in DeKalb County; Dewart in Kosciusko County; Adams, Appleman, Cedar, and Wall in LaGrange County; Koontz in Marshall County; Big, Crane, Crooked, and Loon in Noble County; Long in Porter County; Loon and West Otter in Steuben County; and Goose, Larwill, New, and Old in Whitley County.

Readers with questions or comments can contact Jack Spaulding by e-mail at jackspaulding@hughes.net or by writing to him in care of this publication.