Every fall for the past four years (except the year the eggs were diseased) the Lower Mountain Fork River Foundation has planted 13-19 Whitlock Vibert Boxes with 7000 Brown Trout eggs in the Lower Mountain Fork River. The LMFR only gets a few stockings of brown trout during the year, and we are hoping that this will complement the current population of brown trout in the stream.
We are achieving a hatch rate of about 95% every year whereas the wild egg hatch rate is around 18%. Reaching adulthood is a little more difficult to measure but now that we are four years down the road, some of those browns you are catching could very well be wild. Look at them carefully before releasing them back into the stream.
If you are interested in how we do this, please check out the link below.