The road out to Johnson Lake in Kasilof was lined with yellow school buses Wednesday. Hundreds of elementary schoolers milled around the campground, moving from activity to activity. And at the edge of the lake, there’s was different yellow truck, carrying more than 1,000 juvenile rainbow trout.
“This is the 22nd annual Salmon Celebration,” said Jenny Gates with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game Division of Sportfish, the organizer of the event. “It’s our final field trip for classes in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District that are participating in our Salmon in the Classroom program.”
The program starts with raising salmon eggs in the classroom in October, and culminates in this celebration, designed to teach students about salmon, healthy environments and stewardship of Alaska resources.
“Additionally, we send an invitation to every elementary school, home school and private school here on the Kenai Peninsula, from the head of Kachemak Bay to Seward to North Kenai and everywhere in between,” she said.
There are no campers at Johnson Lake yet, this early in the season. Instead, campsites filled with 31 booths, drawing in students with games about the salmon life cycle, fishing simulations, and wheels they can spin for prizes. They were run by local groups like the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association, the Kenai Watershed Forum and the Kenai River Professional Guide Association.
Fourteen booths were staffed by fifth and sixth grade students from Sterling Elementary, who teach their fellow students about salmon science.
And, amid all the booths was the highlight of the event: an opportunity for each of the 950 students in attendance to deliver a rainbow trout into Johnson Lake, to stock it for summer anglers.
Summer Woods, a fish stocking coordinator, helped load a fish into a bucket for each kid. The fish come from the William Jack Fernandez Sport Fish Hatchery, in Anchorage.
“We need you guys to help us get the fish to the lake,” she told a group of students. “These buckets are a little flimsy, and once the fish is in there they’re gonna be big and splashy and squiggly, so you’re gonna need to hold on tight. And then, once you get to the lake, you gently pour the fish into the water, you don’t just chuck ’em out there.”
The trout are about a year old, and range from 7 to 12 inches long. Students wait eagerly to get a clear plastic tub with their own trout, then transport the fish carefully — or not so carefully — to the lake, about 100 feet away.
Some of the young trout thrashed about in the containers, while others stayed still. One student named Chance found time on the two-minute walk to name his fish Charlene, which he said is also the name of his ChromeBook. Charlene made it safely to the water, but lingered close to the shore for a minute before jetting off for deeper waters.
A Fish and Game staff member at the water's edge explained that the trout are discombobulated from the drive, and stick in the warmer, shallow waters for a bit to get their bearings.
The 900-something fish added to the lake Wednesday are just a small part of the state’s stocking effort, which will put 11,000 trout into Johnson Lake before the summer.
Normally, Fish and Game would stock 100% of the trout today. But an unusually long winter means most of the lake is still frozen over, and the lake’s oxygen levels aren’t yet ideal for trout.
The late winter, Gates said, is affecting the event in other ways, too. Fish and Game spent two and a half days plowing the campground, and attempted to break the ice on the lake before relocating the stocking site to a different part of the lake.
“This is the first time I’ve seen this much ice on the lake,” she said. “I had to bring stuffed ducks out for eye-spy waterfowl so that children would have something to look at through binoculars. They’re having fun nonetheless.”
Some of the kids may even be back once the lake is thawed with fishing rods in hand.
