Wildlife officials stock Utah waters with nearly 2.4M more fish than last year - KSL.com

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SALT LAKE CITY — More than 10.6 million fish were stocked and released in Utah streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs and ponds throughout 2023 — the most the state has added since 2018, according to wildlife officials.

That's close to 2.4 million more fish stocked in bodies of water across Utah this year compared to 2022, an increase of about 28.6%, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources officials said Thursday, summarizing the season.

But the reason for this increase has very little to do with Utah's drastic drought improvements, as one might think.

Utah biologists have stocked fish since 1871, regularly adjusting the process for various reasons. For example, they raise fewer but larger fish during years when survival rates in a specific body of water need a boost. In other years, they raise a larger number of smaller fish for areas that need higher growth rates.

The number of fish released from state fisheries increased drastically this year because regional aquatics managers asked biologists to raise smaller fish species than in recent years, according to Faith Heaton Jolley, the division's spokeswoman.

The total weight of all the fish stocked this year only rose by slightly more than 30,000 pounds from last year, or 2.6%.

"Our fish production in our hatcheries typically stays the same with the amount of pounds of fish, but the number of fish stocked will fluctuate depending on if we are stocking large or small fish," Jolley explained to KSL.com.

More than a dozen fish species were stocked across the state throughout the year. This year's wet weather, headed by record snowpack, did help in this process.

Drought conditions had forced the division to consider fewer fish in some bodies of water than others, depending on current and projected levels heading into the spring of 2022. Those decisions were pondered after conditions worsened in 2020 and 2021, and Utah received a below-normal snowpack.

An increase in water levels this spring and summer helped biologists avoid these types of caps and quotas for different bodies of water, Jolley said.

Utah's combined reservoir levels, for example, reached as high as 86% this summer, after maxing out at 61% in 2022, Utah Division of Water Resources data show. There were also major shifts in streamflows and other water data, especially as the state's snowpack melted.

Biologists ended up stocking fish across a little more than 600 bodies of water. With reservoir levels still at 78%, about 22½ percentage points above the state's median for December, water levels may not be a major issue as the division looks to stock millions more fish next year.

Craig Schaugaard, an aquatic section assistant at the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said that's good news for people looking to fish in Utah.

"Stocking is a crucial management tool that we use to provide Utahns with the numbers and species of fish they desire," he said. "Stocking fish helps ensure that the public has a great fishing experience."