​Article about the 2021 Fish Plant
by
​Larry Shuman

Shasta Trinity Unit of BCHC Fish Planting The Shasta Trinity Unit for years planted fingerling trout in the lakes located in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. We lost those lakes about 7 years ago to endangered frogs and until more studies are completed by the California Fish and Wildlife (F&W) will not be resumed. The studies when completed will hopefully bring back some of the lakes we historically planted with trout. In 2019 we were approached by F&W to see if we would like to plant trout in the Caribou Wilderness Lakes, 7 lakes total. Of course, we said yes. Well, it did not go as planned. We approached the plant the same way we planted trout in the Trinity Alps. We lost a good percentage of fish because the lakes are warmer and not high alpine as in the Alps. That did not deter us or F&W we discussed changes and in 2020 we planted the same 7 lakes and lost less then .5% of the fish distributed in the lakes. Our changes worked. With this success F&W asked if we could handle 18 lakes in the Caribou Wilderness. Again, we said yes. This upped the amount of planning and logistics significantly. We planned for 3 days of planting over 2 weeks. We successfully planted 37,900+ fingerling trout in 18 lakes with very little loss. In some lakes we lost only 1 or 2 out of a 1000 or more planted. To accomplish this required 37 pack stock days with 7 packers and 10 to 12 others helping with the logistics. But let me tell you we had a lot of fun. It was successful, no incidents, and great food and fellowship. In 2022 F&W at our request has added 3 more Lakes in Thousand Lakes Wilderness to the list. This and the fact that the wildfires went through most of the Caribou Wilderness will add more work to accomplish a successful plant in 2022. We will need to assess the lakes and trails asap when the snow melts to see what it will take to plant in 2022. Right now, we are allotted 45,000 trout and plan on needing 47 pack stock days with 4 days of planting over 3 weeks. Of course, this may change as we get closer and look at conditions of trails and lakes. We are really looking forward to this year’s plant. We would like to invite any BCHA member to contact Larry Shuman at 530-526-0590 if you would like to help with this major project.