If you’ve gone fishing anywhere in Ohio in the last several months, there’s a good chance the fish you caught were put there by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).
The ODNR stocks several bodies of water with 11 different species of fish every spring, from March to May. Roughly 30 to 40 million fish are stocked every year.
Around 10 million fish are released just in central Ohio. This includes five Columbus parks: Goodale, Schiller, Franklin, Linden and Westgate. At these parks, fishers will probably encounter coldwater fish like rainbow trout. This spring, ODNR released 85,000 rainbow trout across the state, mostly in small bodies of water like local ponds.
“We stock those in catchable sizes so they create an immediate fishing opportunity for people. Once we stock them, people can show up the same day and catch them,” said Chris French, the fish hatchery program administrator for ODNR.
Kyle Stoller and his sons Gus and Henry started fishing in Goodale Park this spring, right after ODNR stocked the park with fish. Stoller and his sons have caught bluegill, bass and rainbow trout so far.
On June 1, they were having pretty good luck fishing with a plant bulb as bait after they weren’t able to dig up a worm.
“We’ve caught like four Bluegill,” Stoller said. “We are not particularly experienced but we’re having fun.”
The fish that are released by ODNR come from six fish hatcheries. The hatcheries raise sport fish to be released for fishing and they also raise endangered or threatened species of fish to grow their populations. In order to have enough eggs, broodstock are kept at hatcheries and spawned there. The hatchery staff also purchase eggs from other states or collect eggs from fish in the wild.
The hatcheries raise fish from the egg stage and are released either at fry stage or when they are full, catchable adults of 10-13 inches. When the fish are ready to be released, they are transported around the state via trucks with tanks of oxygenated water and released into bodies of water through hoses.
“Whether you want to fish for saugeye, rainbow trout, yellow perch, catfish, bluegill, hybrid striped bass or muskies, you can do it all in central Ohio and you don’t have to go far,” French said.
ODNR encourages people, especially families with children, to take advantage of Ohio’s ponds and lakes and go fishing.
You need a license to fish in any public body of water, unless you’re 16 or younger. The sale of these licenses is one of the main ways ODNR is able to fund their hatcheries and stock fish. ODNR also receives a federal grant as part of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Sport Fish Restoration Program.