It is not long before brown trout will start moving into the feeder creeks of lakes to spawn.

As set out in the Tasmanian Inland Recreational Fishery Management Plan 2018-28, the waters that need stocking, Assisted Fisheries, will receive fish transferred from the spawning traps in the Central Highlands. Wild adult brown trout account for most of the fish transferred into waters that do not have self-sustaining stocks. Waters such as South Riana Lake, Curries River Reservoir, Four Springs Lake and Penstock Lagoon amongst several others, will benefit from these fish.

We have six traps that we move fish from:

• Liawenee Canal and Sandbanks Creek at Great Lake,
• Hydro, Scotch Bobs and Tumbledown creeks at Arthurs Lake,
• River Derwent above Lake King William.

The catch rates at the stocked waters are greatly improved by these transfers of adult brown trout. Some waters have been stocked this way since the 1960’s. Through monitoring spawning runs and anglers catch rates, we have seen no impact on the resident trout stocks in the waters the fish are transferred from.