Thousands of rainbow trout are swimming in Nanaimo’s popular fishing fishing holes.
The Vancouver Island Trout Hatchery, based in Duncan, trucked trout to Nanaimo on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to stock Westwood Lake, Diver, Green and Long lakes and the three Colliery Dams with catchable-size rainbow trout. Each lake received 500 to 2,000 of the fish.
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The stocking program is paid for by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C., a not-for-profit organization formed in 2003 that receives its operating capital mostly through freshwater fishing licence revenues.
Each year the society’s six hatcheries raise rainbow, cutthroat, eastern brook, kokanee and steelhead trout for recreational fishing and white sturgeon for conservation purposes.
According to a society press release, the hatchery released 9,800 coastal cutthroat trout and 155,000 trout of other varieties into 58 lakes across Vancouver Island lakes in 2020 and stocked 662 lakes across B.C. with more than 5.6 million fish.
The society releases about 3,000 fish into each of Colliery Dams No. 1 and No. 2 and 2,000 fish in Colliery Dam No. 3 through multiple deliveries of fish annually.
For more information, visit www.gofishbc.com or contact the Vancouver Island Trout Hatchery by calling 1-250-746-5180.
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Rainbow trout school near the shoreline shortly after being released into Colliery Dam No. 2 lake Wednesday. (Chris Bush/News Bulletin)
Rainbow trout school near the shoreline shortly after being released into Colliery Dam #2 lake Wednesday.
