Fishing season in Nanaimo has arrived.
Freshwater Fisheries Society of British Columbia refilled two lakes at Colliery Dam Park with hundreds of fish on Friday.
Duaine Hardie, fish culturist with the fisheries society, said 500 rainbow trout were dumped into both lakes at the park.
“That’s the trout of the area,” he said. “It’s what the Ministry of Environment asked for us to be stocking, so that’s what we’ve put in.”
The freshwater fisheries society is a non-profit organization that operates under a mandate to conserve freshwater fisheries throughout the province. Each year the society stocks more than 800 lakes and streams with more than seven million trout, char and kokanee.
“We stock approximately 70 lakes on Vancouver Island,” he said. “They are all public water bodies that we stock. Part of our mandate is to do the provincial stock.”
According to the society, approximately 50 per cent of all fishing and angling occurs in the 800 lakes and streams that they stock.
Hardie said the majority of the lakes, streams and dams that they stock do not have any fish populations. He said stocking with fish provides recreational opportunities for British Columbians and preserves delicate fishing stocks in other parts of the province.
“Without stocking there would be no fish,” he said.
Rainbow trout were dumped into two dams at Colliery Dam Park in #Nanaimo earlier today. pic.twitter.com/MIi4WxM0ei
— Nicholas M Pescod (@npescod) May 19, 2017