Spring stocking: how thousands of trout make their way to Cook County lakes

Each spring, as the snow melts and lakes begin to open, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources launches its annual fish stocking season.

It’s a coordinated effort that sends thousands of trout into area lakes, one truckload at a time.

In mid-May, nearly 5,000 pounds of yearling rainbow trout arrived on a semi-truck at the Devil Track Lake fish hatchery in Grand Marais for the first round of spring stocking.

A portion of the yearling rainbows were immediately offloaded onto a smaller truck and trailer and distributed to area lakes, including Trestle Pine, Trout Lake, and numerous others. The remaining fish were piped into two 3,000-gallon stainless steel tanks inside the hatchery, which serves as a holding area during the multi-day stocking process.

Rainbow trout being unloaded from semi-truck | Photo by M Baxley

From the hatchery tanks to the deep lakes throughout Cook County, each stocked fish is a small investment in the future of Minnesota’s outdoor traditions.

The purchase of a Minnesota fishing license and trout stamp helps “support these operations that are needed if you like catching trout,” said EJ Isaac, Grand Marais area fisheries supervisor with the Minnesota DNR.

“So it’s the DNR fisheries department that is in charge of doing this work, and this is kind of showing where some of those license sales dollars go,” said Isaac.

A video of the Grand Marais area fisheries spring stocking process is below.

Kalli Hawkins June 13, 2025