This happened to me at a high mountain lake in Colorado maybe 40 years ago. It was a Cessna Skymaster equipped with bomb-bay doors. Was peppered with fingerling trout.

I wonder what the kill rate is.

I was walking through the woods in the uintas and saw a bunch of fish in the ground. Figured the guy missed the lake.

Having dropped a few things from airplanes in my time, it is probably surprisingly difficult to hit smaller lakes with fingerling trout. Unless you have a spotter, it is hard to see straight down and gauge the moment of release. Then there is the wind, which has to affect those lightweight little critters a lot.

The worst impact on the fish would be the first moments of the drop, where their airspeed is highest. As soon as drag slows them down, they would fall at a much lower speed. Hitting the water would be a lower impact than that first second or two of the drop.

Heck, I've seen fish die just from being chucked back into a pond. Can't imagine this is much more gentle.

It also surprises me how often they are stocking. Wouldn't think those remote lakes would experience that much fishing pressure.

Whirling disease.

Right out of the Russian Tactical book, this is how they dropped soldiers into the snow during WWII. Survival crate isn’t as important and getting them there...

Former employee of mine just got hired on by Utah, and this is part of what he does.

Virtually no mortality. Fingerlings aren't that heavy, so they never gain that much speed. Those lakes are often pretty marginal for winter survival because they are iced over so long. 7, 8 months of ice cover and no food is no an ideal environment for fish. Second, though human pressure is usually rather low, there's lots of other predation in high lakes. One eagle or osprey will take the population down to near zero if they nest nearby.

Whirling disease is really a non issue for alpine lakes. Very few are infected, and if they are, whirling disease on the west slope is much less problematic on the west slopes than on the east slopes of the Rockies. We think it has something to do with the species of tubifex worms that act as intermediate host to the parasite not being as susceptible.

I was canoeing on a Canadian lake years ago when a plane flew over and dropped little trout. Several landed inside our canoe, and many on the water around us. We did not see a single dead one on the surface after the drop. I did see several that hit the water, lay on their side for a very few seconds as if stunned, and then vigorously swam down into the lake.

They do that here to stock the remote Adirondack lakes.

Why bother stocking sterile lakes?

So.....very few people fish for them and those that don't die off in the winter are eaten by predators yet we keep restocking them.

Your tax dollars at work.

I've wondered the same thing. The fish hit the water at perhaps 50 MPH (forward speed combined with falling speed); they've got to be at least stunned.

This was my first thought.

I've stocked sockeyes by plane in AK. When dropped from a lower height there is mortality due to the high rate of speed when they hit the water, and they don't orient themselves headfirst into the water. From higher up (100' or so) there is virtually no mortality at all.



This is the viewing window the pilot has so he can see how the fish are doing.



Here's a shot of the fry going into the plane. You can see the air lines that run from a tank under the pilots seat to air stones mounted inside the tank in the plane. If the pilot sees the fish starting to get sluggish he can give them a shot of O2.

Learn sumtin new every day!

What Hank said. The terminal velocity of a fingerling (after it decelerates from plane speed) is very low - on the order of a few feet per second. Probably no more than if they were dropped from 15 feet or so. Slower than the water they dropped with, in fact, because they have a higher drag factor than a sphere of water.

The fly fishing snobs you see carefully cradling their precious trout during release . . . who gently move them back and forth to move water across their gills before they swim off . . . who gasp in horror at anyone "tossing" a trout back into the water . . . now those guys would have a heart attack if they saw this.

Here is a video of a guy who runs a business called Fireboxstove.com. He is from Utah and has many Youtube videos of his trips up to these remote lakes where he catches his dinner and cooks them up on his camping gear.

Great thread.

Nice Utah lake fish at the 3:00 and 13:00 mark

There has to be a difference between releasing a fish that has been fought to near exhaustion and has hook wounds and dropping fingerlings from a plane. I'd imagine (can't prove, obviously) that the fingerlings are less stressed being in a tank (a by now familiar environment to them) until the moment the bottom drops out than the mature stream trout having been caught and fought. And that doesn't even cover the protective slime layer damage on the caught fish.

Rocky, I've read back and forth arguments on damage to the air bladder to a trout that is "tossed" back into the water. If true, then releasing from altitude would be murder!

Then it's hard to reconcile the comments above about there being virtually no mortality from air drops, I'd think.

Golly, that seems like a good lake. Can I fly fish in that lake?
Sonny boy...You fly what ever you vant into that lake.

Hank, thanks for those pictures.

Seems weird at first, but obviously a few spotters could confirm mortality rates and evidently its low or zero as mentioned, Weird that you need to be at least 100 feet up. I'd have thought lower at first thought...

Jeff

Most Wildlife Divisions in the West are run solely on revenue generated by license sales and monies from the Pittman Robertson act.

I worked that project on both ends, both loading the plane and on the lake that was being stocked. We were out in a boat on the lake as it was being stocked and we saw very few dead fry. On reading on the pilot's website my old manager states that 250ft is the magic height. I knew it was at least 100ft, couldn't remember for sure as its been a while. I do remember that they tried dropping them from about 20ft and almost all of them died from hitting the water at about 140mph. Dropping them from higher up allows for the fish to get orientated head first (think of a high diver going in like they should vs a belly flop) and it isn't too high up that their gills dry out on the way down. He states that its at least 98% survival doing it this way, stocking 10 million fry a year into that particular lake.

Matter of fact they are probably doing these transports right now, if the ice is off the lake. The plane takes off of the Richardson Highway just north of Paxson.

Size matters.

Walked off the end of the deck late one night - about 2 feet to the ground. Easter actually. Laying there, after ruminating on how incredibly stupid that was, all I could think of was my version of my favorite commercial. "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up. And the cats are eating me!"

Anyway, it took me a good three weeks before my rib muscles didn't spasm if I moved the wrong way from what as a kid would've been a fun leap.

At least I've gotten my stupid stunt of the year out of the way.

Good info! I owe you a beer or coffee or such one of these days. I"d LOVE to see that in action, dropping the fish, but while Paxson is usually close, I'm in Talkeetna for the summer, learning how to catch all these fish for folks. Not difficult, just a few things are a hair different than at home.

I'd love to be the guy in the plane "bombing" the guy in the boat. You want fish? Here's your fish!

Like dropping cotton balls.

"Revenue"...."Taxes".....semantics, call it what you like but what Dutch describes (and I believe him) is clearly a waste of money collected from the public.....period.

They need the altitude to get away from the water. They maintain drop speed until they get away from the falling mass. That also allows them to orient, which is not something the fish do, but rather it is how drag orients them. Higher drops either dry the gills or allow them to fall too fast.

I see what you did there...

The eagle and osprey predation you describe is more than a bit dramatic. It would have to be a mighty small and shallow pond for there to be any real effect from a single predator. There is also the point where predators quickly clean up the easy stuff and then predation falls off sharply... and long before "near zero."

Yes! I also know about fishing with dynamite!

Now, now you are arguing about stuff that is in my baliwick..... and you are flat out wrong. I spent 16 years stocking private ponds and helping customers deal with predation. If an osprey nests within a mile or two of a stocked pond, that pond will be wiped out by at least 90%. No exceptions. I had one pond I stocked several times a year because the owner enjoyed watching the eagles and osprey catch their breakfast. Hey, it takes all kinds, and it payed the same...... I once dropped a bunch of fish and an osprey swooped in while the fish were still dis-oriented and grabbed a fish in each claw...... That customer was not amused.

Yes, in an environment with a varied natural terrain, like a like with shoals, vegetation, structure (fallen trees, rocks, etc), you would be right. There's a balance between predators and prey.

In many alpine lakes, there's no such environment. These are typically cirque lakes, typically do not have varied terrain, vegetation, or structure. Trout are vulnerable because they'll come to the surface to feed on insects. Add to that that these are naive fish, in an unfamiliar environment and not used to evading predators, and things don't end well.

As far as the economics, the people that are attracted to these lakes are usually out of staters, so they pay higher license fees and spend well in local eateries and lodging establishments. It makes very good sense to cater to these high end customers with a few fish. 99% of them catch and release anyway. The air drops are dramatic, but many are stocked by volunteers and back packs with fish in ice water. Those smaller fish only cost maybe a dime, and the delivery is just about free......

Helicopters no worky at that elevation?

They do, but are much more expensive to operate.

That is interesting, I never knew that is being done.

Gotcha. Makes sense on the cost. I always thought the fire douser baskets would be a good way to stock those high alpine lakes. Cool video.

dems are thinking of doing the same with wets and muzzys.

Very interesting

It wouldn't surprise me if those airplanes/pilots are offering their service pro bono . . . much like the private pilot organizations that donate their plane and expenses to transporting patients from one city to another.

Huge difference between "near zero" and "90%" and neither number is in the normal range.

If they have their stockings on it won't hurt them, skydiving or not.

Skin a trout???
Surely that is a store bought fish!

I planted cutthroat and golden trout in high mountain lakes around McCall, ID that way, back in my college days. The Seven Devils area is impressive, ley alone from the air.

Fish have skin, ,they can be skinned.

We even filet catfish and then flip the skin off with a knife like other fish, takes a bit of practice.

No reason one can't skin a trout,.

It wouldn't surprise me if those airplanes/pilots are offering their service pro bono . . . much like the private pilot organizations that donate their plane and expenses to transporting patients from one city to another.
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Aircraft are too expensive to fly and maintain to do much pro bono. That 185 in the video looks to be a late model and had to be modified to do those drops. That is an expensive plane to start with. That would be cost prohibitive and somewhat limiting the mission of the aircraft. I suspect that all-in-all it is fairly expensive to do that. No income tax dollars involved- all license revenue, grants and Pittman-Robertson money.

You can skin trout by cutting across the front abdomen and up to the bottom of the spine just behind the head. Head in one hand and body in the other, bend the head up and back over the back, breaking the spine. Hold the head in that position and push the body forward through the skin that peels back over the body as you do it.

An old salt taught me that trick.

Heres a variation:

rost,

I'm thinking he was wondering why anyone would ever skin a trout. I've eaten bunches, wild and stockers, and never even considered it. But others might I guess.

Catfish, yep, I skin them.

Geno

PS, enjoy your AK time, I would

Trout are best when you can fit four or more into a cast iron skillet. And the skin coated in cornmeal and fried golden brown is the best part.

10,000# bombs are very impressive too...










They shake the hell out of a C-130 at 12,500' and make you grin like a Cheshire Cat.