If you're just coming in to this story about stocking a pond on Galiano Island with trout then I suggest you have a look at PART 1 to get caught up on the back story, then check out PART 2 about the trip to Galiano and Part 3 about an unexpected turn of events that happened while we were prepping the pond.
This is the part of the series you've been waiting for: the actually stocking of the pond with fish!
Spearheading this initiative to first convince Jesse of Bodega Ridge to research what it would take to put trout in his pond, and then actually being given the go-ahead by him, helped me learn a lot about stocking ponds. Along the way, as I would tell friends that I was doing this project they'd either look at me in one of two ways: that I was crazy or that I had some sort of wisdom about fish that they didn't know I had. The truth lay somewhere inbetween those two, as I am a little crazy and I have a little bit of knowledge about trout. The rest came from getting on the telephone and asking a lot of questions, mostly of Bernie from Mountain Valley Trout Farm near Sooke on Vancouver Island.
It took a while to find the right guy with the right price, but when we landed on Bernie we just knew. Any dumb question we had, he was there to let us know they weren't dumb, and then tell us all we needed to know and more. Jesse calls him our "fish guru". So to get to the point here, Bernie got off the ferry that day onto Galiano Island and in the back of his truck he had 550 rainbow trout. He and Jesse had a brief conversation about the pond and aeration and some fine details.
Next, Senator Larry Campbell arrived! As a friend of Bodega Ridge, we invited up the beloved former Mayor of Vancouver to throw out the ceremonial first bucket of fish into the pond. Here he is peering into the tub with Jesse.
And then it was time to get to work. Bernie dipped his net into the tub.
He filled up this bucket.
Here's what it looked like inside.
And here's what one of the larger trout looked like. They were supposed to be 8 inches each but for the most part they were about 4 inches. As they grow an inch a month we figure that by early next spring they'll be big enough to eat. You can catch them now, but they're pretty small to grill up on the stove in your cabin at Bodega.
Here's Larry dumping in the first ceremonial bucketful. As you can see by his right leg, he stepped into an unexpected sinkhole near the edge of the pond but held it together enough to let those first couple hundred fish go.
Then it was my turn. It felt pretty amazing, after months of talking about this and pre-planning with Jesse, to see those fish swimming around in the pond. It was definitely the highlight of my month.
Jesse heaved the last bucket, and as he didn't have waders or boots on he did it from a ways back. It might look a little crazy but this is actually the method that Bernie recommended, and if you've ever seen the fishery stock a lake then you've seen THIS method where they're essentially shot out of a thick hose. THis is actually easier on them than that method.
And there it is. The pond stocked with trout. They're a little smaller than we anticipated but still catchable right now. In fact if you look closely you'll see the ripples of one that just jumped, meaning they're hungry!
Stay tuned for the final instalment of this series where Jesse and I throw some lines in the water and have a mini fishing derby!
