Richard Formato

Richard Formato is an avid catch-and-release fly-fisherman from Wytheville, Va. When not on the water, he operates a small business there. Formato loves to fly-fish in his native Southwest Virginia because of the great water and wonderful people. He also loves to fish the flats and shallows of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic whenever work and weather permit. He is on the Department of Conservation and Recreation's board of directors and is a trustee of the Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive.

Recent columns

• What about Bob?
• Notes from the Charlotte Fly Show
• A chance meeting
• A wish for Jack

• Column archive
• Talk fly-fishing

For anglers who look forward to the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries’ “Put and Take” program, it won’t be long until your streams are stocked full of trout, making the trip from the hatchery to the stream ... . to your freezer.

As a sportsman, I feel the VDGIF’s stocking program is somewhat bizarre.

Basically, the Commonwealth’s “Put and Take” program is free trout for fish eaters.

You can’t call it a “sporting-based” program because the way the Commonwealth has set it up, the put and take program is about as “sporting” as shooting fish in a barrel.

There is little sport involved in going on the Internet and seeing exactly when and where trout are stocked, with white posters stapled on trees designating the areas just in case there is any doubt.

These stocked trout supplied by the VDGIF are low hanging fruit, and treated with little respect by a lot of fisherman who fish in these waters. The state knows what how many fish it puts in the water, but it has no idea how (and by what means) the fish get taken out.

I have a tough time getting into the Put and Take program for 3 reasons. Number one, the stocked fish don’t know a fly from a raindrop, so unless you have a fly matching dog food ... lots o’luck! Two, because the VDGIF posts the stocking schedule, the fishing pressure is usually very intense. Three, the areas are nasty. Ever seen anyone get a citation for littering? Never.

A few years ago, I went to a Floyd County creek on a freezing cold January day to basically just get out the house. Depressingly, I knew well before I got to the water what I was in for. The stream had been stocked the day before. Truck after truck was lined up on every turn out.

I still remember this one dude with a long gray beard, and big belly swaggering back to his vehicle with a pitiful stringer of 7-inch Rainbows, looking like the cat that ate the canary. I fished for a few minutes to the blank stares of the other anglers, and quietly climbed out of the water to head home and regroup.

It was events like this that led me out of the white poster boundaries and into a whole other world of wild trout fishing.

As my skill level improved and my range extended, I gradually forgot about the stocked streams and learned about the joys of the National Forests, wild brook trout and tailwaters.

For the skilled spin fisherman and fly fisherman, the stocked streams have limited usefulness during the stocking season that runs from early October to early June. Last week, I fished the stocked sections of Cripple Creek at Raven’s Cliff. Cripple Creek is beautiful, has terrific water with incredible scenery.

Because it is heavily stocked, unfortunately, this time of year it doesn’t have much of a viable trout population.

The Put and Take Program encourages anglers to keep fish, and the promotion of this program means a constant battle to maintain fish in the water. The one thing that connects all stocked waters is that stocked Rainbow trout do not look like real Rainbows.

A trout from a hatchery (left) looks different from a trout raised in the wild.

Hatchery Rainbows are long and silvery, usually malnourished from adjusting to natural conditions once in a stream and they do not have the natural colors that make the Rainbow such a stunning fish.

A wild Rainbow will have very distinct spots with denoted halos’ and red fins with white tips.

But as with every fall, the trout trucks will arrive and the fishing will improve in the stocked areas as these streams will be artificially filled with taxpayer trout.

I don’t have a problem with “the Put” in the Put and Take program. It’s “The Take” that turns all these waters upside down.

A lot of anglers see these fish off the stocking truck as theirs, and they will pack as many as they can get in their creel to take home without getting caught.

I know plenty of anglers who catch and keep as many as they can for every relative they know, and I have met anglers who transplant many trout to privately stock their ponds, lakes and creeks.

Anglers will use every means including Spider Line and 20-pound test line Stren line (which you can’t break with your hand) and this combined with a treble hook, is no match for a sad little half-pound trout.

Empty worm containers litter the bank of Cripple Creek at Raven's Cliff.

The secondary offshoot of the VDGIF stocking program is trash. Every stocked stream I have ever visited is littered with empty pop and beer cans, power bait bottles, empty shrink pack beetle spinners and empty worm containers.

So where is the benefit to the area consumer, the angling community and to the environment? In my opinion, Put and Take is a bad policy followed by weak enforcement.

Too often, these areas are not a friendly place as anglers stake out their territory, and joust for position.

Believe it or not, other states have adopted other trout stocking models that seem pretty effective.

North Carolina stocks streams all year long, but in most water you can’t catch and keep until late June — which gives their trout plenty of time to spread out and acclimate to the water. When “keeping season” is in, most trout have become more adept at surviving, and the fishing is what is supposed to be ... a sport that requires skill.

Anglers always like to say, “that’s why we call it fishing, not catching.”

Someone needs to tell Virginia.