Alabama’s only year-round rainbow trout fishing found at the Sipsey Fork

SMITH LAKE, Ala. (WSFA) – The only place you can fish for Rainbow Trout year-round in Alabama is at the Sipsey Fork. The Sipsey Fork sits just below Smith Lake.

“We stock trout once a month and currently we’re stocking big trout,” Chris Mckee District 3 fishery supervisor said. “So they will average about a pound, pound and a half a piece.”

The WSFA team was invited to check out what happens on the Sipsey Fork every third Thursday of each month.

“So the truck comes,” Mckee said. “They have a pipe on the truck which goes down into the Sipsey Fork and they just raise the barrier and the trout slides down the pipe into the river and then they’re here.”

“The rainbow trout that are stocked here are put here for fisherman to come and feed themselves and feed their family,” Marianne Gauldin of the Alabama Department of Conservation & Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife & Freshwater Fishery said.

The trout come from either the Dale Hollow Hatchery in Tennessee or a private stocking facility where the fish are purchased with funding from the US Fish & Wildlife Service and Alabama Power.

“Rainbow trout are not native to this part of the country so anywhere in this part of the country where you are fishing for trout, they have been placed there for fisherman to utilize,” Gauldin said. “It’s unique that this spot stocks them every month… So you can have year-round fishing for trout.”

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