Was I Following The Stocking Truck?

[Driftless]

Crawford county does not stock trout. I have never had this feeling before. In the first half an hour of fishing I caught 20 browns between 12 and 15 inches. All of them were fat and healthy.

The waterway was seriously degraded from cows and farming. I dislike Habitat Improvement as a general rule but this stretch could seriously use it. It is also PUBLIC Fishing Water.

None of the runs were deep and most of them were very silty. If there was any depth at all in a run there was a trout. The bottom was light colored and so were the trout. I literally walked by holes because I knew there would be medium sized trout in them and I am a big trout junky.

This stretch could use some improvement and some harvest of trout. I fished the stretch for 3 hours and my total was 71 browns. All between 12 and 16 inches. I rolled one really large fish at the beginning of my outing at the Kickapoo.

Fished from the Kickapoo up to Morovitz Hollow Road on Pine Creek in Southern Crawford County.

[itchmesir]

http://dnr.wi.gov/fish/species/trout/trout_maps/Crawford_color_portrait.pdf

Quote:

Class 1(Blue)

High quality trout waters that have sufficient natural reproduction to sustain populations of wild trout, at or near carry capacity. Consequently, streams in this category require no stocking of hatchery trout. These streams or stream sections are often small and may contain small or slow-growing trout, especially in the headwaters.

There are 5,400 miles of Class 1 trout streams in Wisconsin and they comprise 41% of Wisconsin's total trout stream mileage.

Class 2(Green)

Streams in this classification may have some natural reproduction, but not enough to utilize available food and space. Therefore, stocking is required to maintain a desirable sport fishery. These streams have good survival and carryover of adult trout, often producing some fish larger than average size.

There are 5,911.6 miles of Class 2 trout streams in Wisconsin and they comprise 45% of Wisconsin's total trout stream mileage.

Class 3(Orange)

These waters are marginal trout habitat with no natural reproduction occurring. They require annual stocking of trout to provide trout fishing. Generally, there is no carryover of trout from one year to the next.

There are 1,864 miles of Class 3 trout streams in Wisconsin and they comprise 15% of Wisconsin's total trout stream mileage.

You say none of them are stocked... But the maps say differently.. Obviously the DNR is a bunch of fibbers

[Driftless]

Information below is direct from the WDNR HSOforum. There is one local sportsman's club I belong to that does stocking in the area but pine is not included.

http://infotrek.er.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=220:1:0::NO::P1_COUNTY_NAME:CRAWFORD

[hookncook]

For a 24 hour fishing challenge, 3 of us went on the Mississippi and 2 of us fished for 24 hours straight, the other fished for 18 hours. We fished from 7:00 on a Friday to 7:00 on a Saturday. Between the 3 of us, we caught 585 fish, this included panfish, northern pike, and bass. We pretty much stayed within 2 miles on the same stretch of river.