Wyoming's begun restocking Saratoga Lake

 

LARAMIE – To close out a challenging period of work at Saratoga Lake, fisheries biologists with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department have started rebuilding the lake’s fishery. The lake had to be eradicated of all fish last year to remove illegally introduced yellow perch. On Wednesday, trout were stocked back into the lake for the first time. The lake was stocked with tiger and rainbow trout that came from the Game and Fish Wigwam Rearing Station in Ten Sleep.In 2021,                                                             Game and Fish discovered yellow perch in the southern Wyoming lake as a result of illegal stocking. The lake is managed as a trout fishery. A high abundance of stunted yellow perch can result in slower growth rates for managed sportfish due to increased competition for food. Fisheries biologists were also concerned about yellow perch escaping the lake into the upper reaches of the North Platte drainage, where they could do irreparable damage to other sport fisheries and native fish species.   Read more about the management actions taken and recent stocking efforts on the Game and Fish website.