The American state of Utah is a place of extremes. You can find large areas of desert and also high snow-capped mountain ranges and lakes. It’s a beautiful place and people from all over the world travel there every year to enjoy the wide variety of activities and sports it has to offer.

Of the 647 lakes in Utah, 200 of them can be found high in the mountains. Many are filled with fish. Nothing can compare to hiking up a mountain with your tent and fishing rod before catching your supper. As you sit there waiting for your first fish to bite, you may ask yourself the question, ‘How do the fish get to these lakes, so high in the mountains?’

Whilst it is no real secret how the fish get there, not many people know. And if we were to tell you that the fish fly there, you may think we are visitors from another planet. The fact is, they really do arrive by plane.

Because so many hikers visit and fish in these high lakes, they have to be restocked regularly. Otherwise, they would be fishless. For many years, fish have been specially bred in fish farms and carried up the mountains to restock the lakes. Until the mid-1950s, they were carried by horses in large cans of water. It was a long process sometimes taking many days. The trips could also easily end in disaster because of the rough terrain.

In 1956, small planes began to deliver the fish to the remote lakes. This is how they are delivered to this day. The planes are fitted with small compartments at the bottom that can carry 30 kilogrammes of fish. When the aircraft approaches the lake, the pilot flies low over the treetops before skimming just a few metres above the water. Then the fish are dropped. One aeroplane can make up to seven drops of fish in one single flight.

Before the flight takes place, the fish are counted and weighed. The fish species is also checked to make sure that the right species is dropped into each lake. The fish have been raised in water that has the same temperature as the lake they will be dropped into, and they have been sterilised before being dropped into the lake. They are unable to breed with the fish that are already there. This prevents damage to the ecosystem.

The big question is: how do the fish survive the drop? Because the fish are quite small – no bigger than seven centimetres – and they are dropped from a minimum height, the air between the aeroplane and the lake slows their fall. Research has shown that about 95 per cent of the fish survive.

Fish drops take place in June, July and September each year. It’s an amazing sight and certainly an extreme way to deliver fish to lakes high in the mountains.

Very special thanks to Matt McKell, Regional Cutthroat Biologist at the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources for his help in providing Typhoon Club with information and photographs. Please visit https://www.facebook.com/UtahDWR/

Question:

Watch the fish being dropped out of aeroplanes into mountain lakes

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