The popular annual stream trout stocking season starts April 3. Find out when your favorite trout stream will be stocked with the stocking calendar available on the DNR website at www.iowadnr.gov/Fishing/Trout-Fishing
The DNR Trout Program offers Iowa anglers a variety of trout fishing opportunities, including announced catchable stockings, unannounced catchable stockings, fingerling stockings, wild populations, streams with restrictive regulations, easy universal access areas and remote streams with difficult access.
Iowa’s three trout hatcheries produce and stock about 310,000 catchable-sized rainbow or brook trout and 110,000 fingerling brown trout into hundreds of miles of northeast Iowa streams April through October. A list of stocked streams is available on the DNR trout map or trout stream webpage.
“The trout come off the stocking truck hungry and ready to bite,” said Dan Rosauer, Manchester trout hatchery manager. “Toss your lure upstream and allow the current to bring it to the hole. Try a #4 spinner in gold, silver or black or use a red wiggler or wax worm on an ice fly.”
Funding to support the trout stocking program comes from the sale of fishing licenses and trout fees. Last year more than 41,500 Iowans and more than 5,000 nonresidents fished for trout.
Anglers need to have a valid fishing license and pay the trout fee to fish for or possess trout. The daily limit is five trout per licensed angler with a possession limit of 10.
Weekly stocking information is available on the 24-hour trout stocking hotline at 563-927-5736.