Newer high lake planting data ?

I talked to one of the WDFW database folks last winter and it sounded like they had plans to update the high lake stocking. But obviously nothing has happened. Unfortunately the data is not tied in to their main stocking database and it has to be updated every year, which they have not done. So I expect it to be updated at some point, but who knows when. I think most of their effort is going into a new regulations app right now.

Don’t forget that the lakes stocked are only a fraction of the high lakes with fish. Lakes with natural reproduction are not generally stocked so they won’t show up on your map.

Perhaps you need to resize your image so it can be posted

Matt- You wouldn’t want to share that GPX file would you 🙂

Thanks,
Viet

Hi. Here is my recent exchange with WDFW about the High Lakes webpages’ data

From: Brian Miller
Sent: Sunday, February 4, 2018 3:03 PM
To: Spinelli, Justin P (DFW) <Justin.Spinelli@dfw.wa.gov>
Subject: RE: High Lakes Fish Stocking

Hello again. It’s only February and I am already yearning for high lakes. I was looking at the Fish Washington High Lakes Stocking Info pages again. However the latest High Lakes stocking data I’ve been able to find on the site is 2012, and a search on the Catchable Trout Plant Reports page using a 08/31/2014 to 02/04/2018 search filter only returns plants for January 2018.

The current High Lakes webpages are the finest collection of search tools and data (if kept up to date) an angler could hope to plan daytrips or extended journeys into backcountry regions of Washington State for fishing. In 2016 I used the High Lakes Fish Stocking Map to compare several different areas before ultimately deciding on an extended loop trip through the Indian Heaven Wilderness to visit as many lakes as possible. That data is now too dated to make valid comparisons.

What’s the status on a new website? Will it have the (current) High Lakes Stocking data, with the filtering, and search features of the existing site?

Thanks
________________________

Brian

Spinelli, Justin P (DFW) <Justin.Spinelli@dfw.wa.gov>
Brian,
Not much has changed since September. The new website continues to be developed and is consuming programing resources. The high lakes on Fish Washington are still a viable resource for developing a list of waters to visit as the stocking records are the only thing that are out of date. If you have a list of waters that you are interesting in exploring we will do our best to provide you with updated records.
-Justin

So rather than posting records WDFW would rather go through the effort to email you data on each lake you are interested in? What if you tell them you are interested in every high lake in WA and share the results ?

[quote quote=114476]So rather than posting records WDFW would rather go through the effort to email you data on each lake you are interested in? What if you tell them you are interested in every high lake in WA and share the results [/quote]Hallelujah! I am happy to report checking for some High Lakes data today and finding a stocking report from August 2017 on the Fish Washington High Lakes page.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Brian.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Brian.

Unfortunately the WDFW High lakes pages have been “updated”.
Gone is the interactive ESRI map with hot link icons for the stocked lakes color coded with when the lakes were stocked that also took you to the individual lake pages that show species and years planted :(.
Gone is is the search function by county and species :(.
That was a most elegant, concise, and feature-rich planning tool.
More’s the pity.

I emailed to ask about it.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by Brian.

Is anyone else unable to view stocking data on the WDFW high lakes page as of a couple weeks ago? I could initially see it on the new website but at some point within the last month the page for a given lake stopped displaying species/stocking info and only showing location, acreage, and elevation of that lake. I’m running into the same problem with every lake I search and am curious if it’s an overall website issue or just something with my particular browser. Error form has been submitted.

The response I got from the fisheries program Director inferred that the Fish Washington mobile app was the agency’s highest priority for IT development resources (means labor and cash to this retired IT guy). That’s sad because while I use and generally like the app, the search function is so limited for an “application”. I could do more with a pdf and a decent pdf reader on my phone if the file were kept updated with emergency closures and openings.

So will it work on the app? I don’t have their app and don’t really care to have it.

No stocking data in the app. It’s an electronic pamphlet that updates with the latest open-close-spcl regs status every time the app is opened if connected to cell/wifi service. If not in cell/wifi coverage it defers to the last update downloaded.

You can find locations on a map display, do a GPS “find me”, or by a name search. Touch the body of water on the map and it gives you the open-close-spcl regs status. On rivers the GPS locator can be pretty handy due to a maze of closures.
However it sure would be nice to be able to search for open waters by county, species, and especially year-round in winter.

If I ever do get pinched because I was offline and didn’t get an update, I’ll take a screenshot to try to get it dismissed in court. But I haven’t seen a WDFW LEO in 50 years of fishing so not likely.

Such a bummer! I guess there’s no publicly available stocking records for the high lakes whatsoever anymore, does anyone know of a way to access these records otherwise? I assume Trail Blazers and/or Hi-Lakers keep a database. Or I suppose WDFW could be contacted on a lake to lake basis, does anyone know who at the department is in charge of coordinating high-lakes management or might otherwise make sense to contact?

It looks to me like WDFW intends to have more information on those high lake pages so I’m guessing the stocking records will be back at some point.

There is no single person at WDFW to contact about individual high lakes. You have to contact the fish biologist who is responsible for the area where the lake you are interested in sits.

It is worth keeping in mind that in many ways the stocking records give a distorted view of the high lake fishery anyway. Lakes with reproducing fish typically don’t get stocked so if you just go by what is stocked you’ll be missing out on a lot of lakes. When I go out of state I never look at stocking records ahead of my trips. I will check them afterward to compare with what I found. But I don’t like the sometimes false bias that checking stocking records gives me when I explore a new lake. On my last trip to the Beartooths in Montana the two lakes that produced the largest fish for us were both lakes that were supposedly fishless. Had I paid attention to Montana’s high lake website I would have skipped fishing those lakes. On a trip to Idaho we were catching fish over 18″ out of one particular lake. We later ran into a party who had camped at the lake but hadn’t bothered to fish it because the biologist told them it didn’t have any fish! I think there is a lot to be said for just getting out and exploring.

The stocking records are back on the WDFW high lake pages. They must have had a technical problem.

Thanks for the heads up!! I sure hope they restore the interactive state map on the High Lakes landing page with hot links for each stocked lake’s webpage that showed the stocking history. What a fabulous trip planning tool that was!