Plenty of fly fishermen believe the likes of GPS units, Google Earth, online mapping and tell-all fly fishing sites have let some of the adventurous air out of fly fishing, but for California meat hunters anglers for whom chasing the hatchery truck is just too much work, we offer up the California Fish & Game fish stocking Web site (found via Alert Underground Reader Tom):
The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has unveiled a new feature on its Web site that allows anglers to better scout out prime trout fishing spots. The new “Map It” feature at www.dfg.ca.gov/fish/Hatcheries/FishPlanting links the weekly trout stocking schedule for bodies of water throughout the state to Google Maps, providing directions and other pertinent info to anglers who are planning fishing trips.
“The scheduled fish plant pages are now receiving more hits than any other section of our Web site,” said Walt Beer, DFG’s Statewide Hatchery Coordinator. “This is proving to be a wonderful one-stop planning tool for anglers who want to maximize their chances for a good day of fishing.”
Beer added that numerous anglers have emailed DFG to praise the addition of the “Map It” feature, such as one Visalia resident who wrote, “What a great idea!”
Basically, when you want a livery, pellet-fed trout dumb enough to eat the rocks in the stream – and you want it right now (and you want turn-by-turn directions, and maybe photographs, and maybe stocking times to the minute) – there’s a place on the Internet just for you.
This, we guess, signals the end of a hallowed bit of fishing heritage; the line of smoking, beat-up, duct-taped vehicles following the hatchery truck from hole to hole.
Internet pundit Nicholas Carr famously asked if Google was making us stupid, and while the question’s still out on that one, we suggest the Internet almost certainly is making us lazier (at least those of us looking to “maximize their chances for a good day of fishing”).
At first, this seemed proof of the coming fly fishing apocalypse, but then again, the sooner we get the rubber trout away from the wild ones, the happier everyone will be.
In that vein, we offer that Web address one more time: The California Fish & Game fish stocking page.
See you waiting for the truck, Tom Chandler.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I disagree. Any angler, fly or otherwise, who visits remote, backcountry lakes in order to catch trout is “chasing the hatchery truck.” I like to know which lakes have been stocked with what and when, in order to better narrow my choice of lakes to fish on backpacking trips. Some of our high country lakes have been stocked with goldens. I’d like to know which ones. professor(Quote)
Of course, I don’t know if this site gives that information. professor(Quote)
Wait a sec. That guy’s last name is “BEER”? So damn cool. Beer. Heh. Megan(Quote)
I think it’s a great idea! Now all we have to do is check the web site for dates and locations to know where all the yahoos are gonna be and plan our trips elsewhere. Brilliant! Guido(Quote)
Walt Beer? You sure that’s not Malt Beer? Don(Quote)
Professor: Surely you’re not comparing those who hike to fish backcountry lakes stocked (typically) with fingerlings with those who want to know exactly when something’s stocked so they can limit out in seven minutes? Tom Chandler(Quote)
I’m saying that a service such as this can prove useful to more than just that guys who like to catch and eat fish. BTW on that note, I’m not opposed to keeping a planter here and there and will target them so I can eat trout “guilt-free”. Also, there’s a nice piece on this concept in the newest Drake Magazine. Makes ya think, is all I’m saying. professor(Quote)
On the positive side of the equation, it has been my experience that many of those who have become dependant on their GPS units have no idea how to read a map or use a compass. A “thinning of the herd” is only a dropped Garmin or dead battery away.
Also, you are correct on the “Google making us stupid” question. The same venerable magazine came back exactly a year later asking if the opposite was true.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/intelligence
In any regard, a sense of discovery can certainly be enhanced by occasionally getting off-line. A Wannabe Travelwriter(Quote)
I look at this the way I look at “game farms”. The kind of folks who enjoy the activity are best confined to such places, where they will not be a nuisance to the rest of us. Philip(Quote)
I like to know just so I can avoid crowds and “truck followers”. But its like you said Tom “those who want to know exactly when somethings stocked to limit out in 7 minutes”. Its good to know when its stocked to give enough time to let them get hungry and adapted to life out of the box. Its one thing when you have a solid year round fishery and good hold over populations but if you live where it sucks , here, then its a helpful little tid bit that can give you a better edge then the catch and kill morons out there. Not to mention knowing where, not so much when, OHDNR stocks our Erie steelhead then you can mental map out the creeks and nearby rivers that they will most likely run up to spawn. There are a great deal of unstocked feeder creeks and a certain river that will remain nameless but because its close enough to a stocking site the “flaming river” gets a decent run, and when 90 percent of the fisherman here fish the tribs that were intentionally stocked I get to have a chunk of water to myself without 27 center pin floats going down the same seam with another 54 sets of boots standing in the very seam they’re wishing to catch something to hang off there stringer. So I’ll go to great lengths to avoid that crowd and finding out the stocking sites help me out in a positive way. Its the knowledge thats dangerous its how its used! WT Bash(Quote)