By Peggy Walton
From the March 23, 1994 edition of The New Castle Record
Over a million trout are scheduled to be stocked in over 400 miles of streams and nearly 20 trout ponds and lakes prior to and during the 1994 Virginia trout season which opens March 19.
The staff at the Paint Bank Fish Cultural Station began preseason stocking activities on Monday, Feb. 28. Manager Charlie Stephenson said the size of Paint Bank’s trout are a little larger than usual this year, despite adverse weather conditions, and some 200,000 of them will be stocked this season.
The top streams in the Botetourt, Roanoke, Martinsville and Craig areas that Paint Bank services include Jennings Creek in Botetourt, Smith River in Henry, Big Stoney in Giles, Potts Creek n Craig, South Fork in Roanoke in Montgomery and the city portion of the Roanoke River in Roanoke.
Game wardens traditionally have assisted in stocking or maintaining traffic control on the winding narrow mountain roads along the streams.
Lt. Lee Haupt of Verona said the actual preseason stocking doesn’t present too much of a problem. “Keeping them in there is the big problem,” he said. Newly stocked trout are quite vulnerable and easily caught. After being in the streams for a number of days, they begin to develop sone of the wariness expected of trout.
-Prepared by Shelly Koon
