NORFORK – More golden rainbow trout have been stocked in the White River system below Bull Shoals Lake dam. About 500 of the rainbow trout that have a color variation making them appear a bright golden yellow were part of a shipment of 10,000 rainbow trout stocked Monday from the access here to other points upriver toward the dam.
The rainbow trout were bought from and delivered by Crystal Lake Fisheries of Ava, Missouri. The purchase was made possible by a Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement to the state for flooding on Spring River and damage caused to the Jim Hinkle/Spring River Fish Hatchery at Mammoth Spring in 2017, according to Christy Graham, the AGFC’s trout program coordinator. The Hinkle hatchery has not operated at full capacity since the flooding.
The AGFC bought 60,000 rainbow trout, which included a few thousand of the color-variant golden rainbows (about 5 percent of the total), from Crystal Lake Fisheries last year and is buying an identical amount this year, to be delivered over the next three months. While most will go into the White River in coming months, 15,000 will be stocked in the Spring River, Graham said. Likely more golden rainbows will be included.
The golden rainbow trout proved immensely popular to state trout anglers upon being stocked last year. This particular color-variant of rainbow trout was developed at the Missouri commercial fish hatchery. The fish has the distinct pinkish stripe down the middle of its body like a regular rainbow trout, while the rest of the color varies from a pale white to light yellow to a bright golden yellow that gleams underwater. Otherwise, they are a rainbow trout in every way.
“They are the same species genetically as a regular rainbow trout that we stock. They are just a color
