Experiment On Sterile-Hatchery Trout Includes $200 Lure

Catch a trout and have a chance to win up to $200. That’s the incentive being dangled by the Fish and Game Department to get people to take part in a two-year experiment.

The agency wants to see if sterile hatchery trout called triploids, do as well in Idaho streams as their diploid cousins, who can reproduce. Many of the sterile trout will be sporting a small wire tag on the lower jaw. Anglers landing a tagged fish are asked to return the tag to the Fish and Game Department. If they do, their names will be entered in a drawing.

The lure is gift certificates of $100 to $200 from an Idaho merchant of their choice. Tags should be mailed to Hatchery Trout Research Project, Post Office Box 428, Jerome, 83338, or any Fish and Game regional office.

Returned tags should be hammered flat, taped to a piece of paper and placed in an envelope for mailing. Flattening the tag is important because they can be torn from envelopes by postal machines.

Anglers are asked to include their name and address, phone number, stream, location of catch if known and date of catch for each tag turned in. Anglers will have their names entered in the drawing once for each tag turned in.

In the southwest region, triploids have been stocked in Silver Creek, Crooked River, the Middle Fork of the Payette River and most recently Mores Creek and the Boise River below Barber Park in Boise.