The Sydenham Sportsmen’s Association released around 33,000 rainbow trout from its hatchery over the weekend.
Fish Hatchery Manager Mike Prevost and volunteers gathered at the hatchery on Creamery Hill Saturday morning to transport the one-year-old fish and release them into the Sydenham River at Harrison Park.
He says the fish were collected last May and raised from eggs.
“The salmon and the rainbow trout migrate up the Sydenham River at the Mill Dam, so we are putting them back into the Sydenham River, so they will go back out eventually into Georgian Bay and sometimes out into Lake Huron,” says Prevost.
He says once the fish are two, three or four years old, the fish will migrate back to lay eggs.
The association undergoes fish stocking for salmon and trout in May and June, and if all goes well in any given year, the association stocks about 50,000 one-year-old rainbow trout and 85,000 Chinook salmon.
“It helps increase the population for the anglers and ecosystem,” says Prevost.