Kansas isn’t a trout state. It does have a short winter trout season, which only exists due to a stocking program run by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. But state officials say the supplemental fishery is costing them too much. In response to those rising costs, wildlife commissioners voted in June to shorten the Kansas trout season by a full six weeks.
Starting this winter, the season that used to run from November through mid-April will open on Dec. 1 and close by the end of March. That’s a loss of one-and-a-half months for the state’s recreational trout fishermen.
The new season length coincides with the state’s already established stocking dates. As KDWP’s data shows, however, those stockings have declined in recent years as the stocker rainbows the state buys from hatcheries have gotten more expensive. Kansas’ annual stockings dropped from a high of nearly 150,000 rainbows in 2011 to about 75,000 rainbow trout in 2023. (The state’s stocking program dates back to the early 1990s.)
“We do not know the reasons, but prices have been increasing each time we go out to bid for trout,” KDWP fisheries director Bryan Sowards told KSNT Monday.
He pointed to figures that showed how rainbow trout now cost the state agency more than double what they used to a decade ago, rising from an average of $1.50 per fish to around $3.50.
These hatchery-raised ‘bows provide the public with an alternative and fun winter fishery — one that wouldn’t exist otherwise, as there are no trout species native to Kansas. But as prices have gone up, fisheries managers are balancing those costs with the benefits of a relatively brief, put-and-take fishing season. Trout are coldwater fish that need water temps below 67 degrees, and temperatures in the waterbodies where KDWP stocks trout often rise above 70 degrees in the summer.
“The trout program offers a unique opportunity for anglers to enjoy in the winter,” Sowards said. “We encourage anglers to keep what they catch because in most locations trout will be gone by June.”
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Kansas wildlife commissioners are also considering a $5.50 increase in the fee charged for trout licenses. Sowards confirmed in an email to Outdoor Life that the proposal is already on the agenda for the commission’s August meeting. At the current rate of $12, license fees only cover roughly half of the state’s trout stocking program.
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