The Drift: Loving Stocked Fish

Unless you live in Montana, chances are most of the trout you’re chasing either came from a hatchery, or are a few generations removed from fish that did. Of course, all the rainbow, brown, and brook trout here in the Rockies were originally bred in hatcheries, even if they’ve managed to establish wild, self-sustaining populations in some areas.

There’s this romantic ideal in fly fishing of chasing wild trout, often in tucked-away valleys and sweeping cirques, surrounded by more moose than humans. That still exists in pockets, but even those high-country fisheries aren’t immune from the influence of stocked fish. The reality is that we depend a whole lot more on stocked fish than we’d like to admit, or probably even realize.

Consider the many streams strewn throughout the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. They all dump into Flaming Gorge Reservoir, and they’re all located in the historical native range of Colorado River cutthroat trout. Cutthroat trout are in those streams, but brook trout have enough of a foothold that fisheries managers continue to poison streams, clear them of nonnative fish, and re-stock them with cutthroat raised in hatcheries.

The Green River—below Flaming Gorge Dam—can’t even sustain rainbow trout. Every rainbow trout in that prized fishery comes from a Utah Division of Wildlife stocking truck. The brown trout are self-sustaining, as are the whitefish (and the few pike that have taken up residence). In 2025 alone, Utah stocked approximately 12,000 rainbows in the state’s premier trout fishery.

Here in Wyoming, things aren’t much different. There’s some natural recruitment on my local tailwater, but rainbow and cutthroat trout are stocked frequently to keep fish numbers high. Wyoming’s famed golden trout fishery is almost entirely sustained by fish dropped from helicopters, as there are very few self-sustaining populations of those fish anywhere outside their native range in California.

One of the most scenic spring creeks I’ve ever fished only has trout in it because there’s a national fish hatchery located there. The fish are escapees from the hatchery, so there is some wild reproduction, but again—they’re all originally hatchery fish.

Even the stream I grew up fishing had hatchery trout in it. I suspect there’s some natural reproduction in that creek, but it got a regular infusion of a few thousand rainbows before Memorial Day every year.

I’m sure some of these fisheries are stocked because they wouldn’t exist otherwise. With how poorly most anglers practice catch-and-release, and the hordes of guides who only focus on numbers of fish in the net instead of teaching their clients how to be anglers, there’s got to be a significant amount of fish mortality after each fishing season.

This might be a chicken-or-the-egg discussion, but is it possible that our general inability to be happy with what we have has led to increased stocking? And with more fish in the rivers, we’ve come to expect 20 or 30-fish days as the norm, instead of 10-15 fish? So fisheries managers, who are all paid with tax dollars, are tasked with supporting both what the public demands, and what’s best for the fisheries. That means a lot of stocked fish to keep anglers happy, and in many places, coolers full.

We know hatchery fish have negative impacts on their wild counterparts, especially where steelhead and salmon are concerned. It’s less pronounced with trout (and less studied) but likely still prevalent. But many of our fishing opportunities wouldn’t be possible without hatcheries.

It’s been in vogue lately to talk down on hatchery trout, and there’s a push to make wild, native, and small trout the “it” thing in this sport. While I agree that more people should care about and fish for the few native fish we have remaining, we can’t just ignore how important hatchery-raised trout are.

This Lahontan cutthroat measured a bit over 26 inches long, and it was the first fish I caught from Pyramid after a half-dozen trips there. It was almost certainly a hatchery fish, or the immediate descendant of one.

Tiger trout are an entirely manmade creation. They’re gorgeous, mercurial, taste great, and grow quickly. Without hatcheries, we wouldn’t have them stocked by the thousands across the Rockies.

And how many kids end up like me, with their first trout experience coming at a pond stocked with fish that seem, to a child’s eyes, impossibly large and elusive?

I caught this fish late at night with my buddy Nick. He’d caught one this size the day before. Like kids will, we shot back to the lake the next day, and fished until I finally hooked the big one. This fish was a broodstock rainbow that had finished spawning in a nearby hatchery. Instead of letting that fish go to waste, it was stocked in a pond so a kid like me could experience the thrill of a big trout.

Hatchery fish have their problems, sure, but we can’t overlook their role in fly fishing.