Cane Creek And Cumberland Mountain State Park Stocked With Trout

The TWRA stocked both Cane Creek and Cumberland Mountain State Park Wednesday with rainbow trout to provide visitors with some easy winter fishing.

TWRA Fisheries Manager Will Collier said fishing is slow this time of year and this provides incentive for people to get outdoors. He said they specifically look for areas that are more populated to encourage as many people as possible to fish.

“We want to recruit young anglers,” Collier said. “Get them figuratively and literally hooked into fishing and keep providing that opportunity so we retain them as anglers, and then possibly reactivating fisherman that used to active.”

Collier said they are stocking smaller bodies of water so anglers can fish from the banks. He said the project is designed for fishers to keep their catch as the water temperature will be too high for the trout to survive in the waters come spring.

“It provides a good meal for a family or individual to take home with them,” Collier said. “Seven trout for a person is a fantastic meal. You know they may not be keeping bass and things like that to eat, but a lot of people that catch trout especially in these locations, they’d be incentivized to keep them, take them home, put them on the grill and enjoy a good meal.”

Collier said the trout being released in the Upper Cumberland will come from Dale Hollow Fishery in Celina.

“It’s somewhat centralized,” Collier said. “A lot of these fish are coming from the Federal Hatchery (Dale Hollow), but we send them to other state hatcheries that hold them and then their person will go out and stock their locations. It is a big task, but it’s something we are able to do because we have a good infrastructure of hatcheries throughout the state.”

Anglers are limited to seven rainbow trout a day. Fishing license are required for those over the age of 13 years old. Anglers will also need to purchase a trout stamp for their license. Those under 13 years of age can fish with no license.