Recfishwest is excited to announce there will be a community trout stocking event happening for the first time at the Pemberton Trout Festival on November 6 at Big Brook Dam!
This event will give mums, dads, and kids the chance to release radiant rainbow and beautiful brown trout into our picturesque South-West waterways to celebrate WA’s freshwater fisheries and try their hand at trout fishing!
2022 Pemberton Trout Festival details:
When? Sunday, November 6, 10am-1pm
Where? Big Brook Dam Foreshore & Picnic Area
Includes: Kids fishing clinic and rod hire, food trucks and refreshments, fishing stalls, fly fishing demo’s and more!
Cost? FREE!
See the highlights from our recent Troutfest 2022 stocking event in Drakesbrook Weir here
The Pemberton Trout Festival is being run in partnership with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), Pemberton Freshwater Research Centre (PFRC), Daiwa, Healthway, Pemberton Visitor Centre and the Shire of Manjimup to celebrate 50 years of Fisheries Department (now DPIRD) management of the Pemberton trout hatchery.
This new event was initiated by local fishing clubs including the Australian Trout Foundation (ATF), Southern Forest Freshwater Angling Club (SFFAC) and Western Australian Trout and Freshwater Angling Association (WATFAA).
Showcasing the Pemberton regions’ great trout and freshwater fishery and history, this new family-friendly stocking event is free and no registration is required.
Just like our recent Troutfest event at Drakesbrook Weir on October 15, the Pemberton Trout Festival will see many large yearlings and ex-broodstock rainbow and brown trout released into Big Brook Dam.
More numbers of larger fish being released means a higher survival rate and critically, more fish grabbing anglers’ lures, flies and baits!
The Pemberton Trout Festival celebrates the fantastic freshwater fishery in the State’s South, with a growing number of about 10,000 freshwater licence holders fishing the South-West regions’ freshwater waterways.
“We are delighted to be able to help run this inaugural community trout stocking event in Pemberton this year. Pemberton is the birthplace and ‘spiritual home’ of the South-West freshwater fishery, so it is great to be able to celebrate that history in this way,” said Recfishwest CEO Dr Andrew Rowland.
“DPIRD already does a wonderful job with its Pemberton-based trout hatchery and it is fitting to celebrate their 50th anniversary of running this fantastic program.
“Anglers visiting South-West freshwater dams, streams and rivers help inject more than $20 million annually into the regional economy, but there is immense potential for growing the fishery and boosting that economic injection even further.
“We want to work closely with the Government to create more places for people to fish for freshwater species, where they can catch fish in safe, accessible, and family-oriented fishing locations.”
Each year, trout are stocked at various popular freshwater fishing rivers and dams, including Drakesbrook Weir, Harvey Dam, Waroona Dam, Collie River and Brunswick River. The released trout are bred at DPIRD’s Pemberton-based trout hatchery through the trout stocking program.
Recfishwest, through its Freshwater Fisheries Reference Group, offers advice to DPIRD on where to stock each year’s stock of bred trout in the South-West. Along with the community having the chance to hand-release trout into these waterways.
Similar to our recent Troutfest event that took place earlier this month at Drakesbrook Weir in Waroona, the Pemberton Trout Festival will feature free rod hire, free fly-casting tuitions, fly-tying demonstrations and trout tips from the Australian Trout Federation. Food and drink will also be on sale.
