New arrivals find home in City Park Lake
It took longer for Mayor Jack E. Lay to dip the first net-full of rainbow trout into Oneida City Park Lake Wednesday (Jan. 9) afternoon than it did for some 3,000 more trout to be released from a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service tank truck and into the lake’s cold January waters.
Stocking the rainbow trout at the lake is a short affair. It was conducted as it is each year: With little fanfare. Besides Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency employees, only Mayor Lay, Chief of Police Mike Cross and a couple of other Town of Oneida employees were present, along with photographers for local newspapers.
But the trout stocking — which is conducted by TWRA at no cost to the town — will benefit anglers at the park over the next several months. By the weekend, several anglers were venturing out to try the fishing at the park.
Oneida City Park is one of several locations where TWRA has stocked trout or will stock trout in the coming weeks as part of its Winter Trout Program, which is carried out with the coordination of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service — the trout placed into Oneida City Park Lake came from the USFWS’s Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery near Byrdstown — and funded primarily through the sale of trout licenses, which are required to fish for trout in Tennessee (a trout license costs $18 and may be purchased at any license agent; a general fishing license is also required).
“We try to find locations in or near larger cities and stock trout in local ponds,” TWRA Region III Fisheries Biologist Travis Scott said. “We try to get a public pond with good access and get folks a good place to come out and catch trout. Typically, it’s in areas where there aren’t any other trout streams around or close by.”
Rainbow trout survive well in cold, clear water, but do not fare well in warmer waters. Aside from Tennessee’s mountain streams, there are few places the trout can survive throughout the year. According to Region III Fisheries Biologist Chris Simpson, the trout do not survive in water temperatures above 70 degrees.
Scott said the fact that the trout thrive in winter waters is a plus for anglers.
“There’s usually not many other species that will bite very well in the winter, but the trout bite well and they do well in these small ponds,” he said.