Indiana still doesn't rear brown trout in either of its hatcheries, but Indiana waters have been getting regular brown trout stockings for several years now. In return for allowing Illinois licensed anglers to fish in the Indiana waters of Calumet Harbor, the state of Illinois has been delivering a truck load of brown trout fingerlings to Indiana each year -- anywhere from 25,000 to 40,000 fingerlings per load. One year, the 5-inch hatchlings are planted at Michigan City; the next year, the plant goes into Lake County waters.

The results have been spectacular! Creel survey results have shown a marked increase in the number of browns being caught. Avid private boat skippers and charter boat skippers have noted a big jump in the numbers of brown trout caught from their boats, as well.

Captain Mike Evano of Lakeside Charters told me an interesting fact. "We only get stockings here in Lake County every other year. Most of the browns we catch are the ones stocked two years ago and they usually weigh about 4 pounds. The next older year- class of browns, stocked four years ago, weighs twice as much or more. Call them 8- to 10-pound fish on average. The ones still in the lake from the stocking six years ago are brutes! You don't get one of those every day, but the ones you get are 18 to 20 pounds!"

Evano also said the browns have extended the "nearshore" season well into May and early June. Once the water warms past the middle 50-degree range, which happens in early to mid-May, cohos (the mainstay of the spring fishery) will vacate the shallows. Anglers wanting to stay on the salmon have to follow them offshore several miles.

That's not a problem on good weather days, but when the wind kicks up, there's no protection offshore. Close to shore, there are plenty of places where harbor walls and shoreline features make boating and fishing safe, even on windy days. Since brown trout prefer warmer water than cohos, they don't go by the same timetable as the salmon. They remain in the shallows. Offshore "blow" days can be transformed into a nearshore brown trout outing.

STEELHEAD TROUT
Anyone who can accurately and consistently predict how good a steelhead season is going to be is psychic and would be better off predicting winning lotto numbers or solving serious crimes. Stocking numbers have little to do with it, though stocking numbers from Indiana's hatcheries are stable, so if that factor counts, things should be fine.

The uncertainty is more weather related than anything else. Hot, dry summers produce one sort of run. Cool, wet summers produce another. Last summer was hot but with frequent rainstorms. That produced yet another result.