Delaware Trout Stocking Schedule 2026

Every sentence here comes from the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), and each section names its sources. Updated .

DNREC's trout program is put-and-take. Trout stamp money buys rainbow, brown and brook trout from commercial hatcheries, and they go into seven streams in northern New Castle County and two ponds downstate, Tidbury Pond in Kent County and Newton Pond near Greenwood. Delaware's streams are marginal for trout in summer and no reproduction has been seen, so the fish are meant to be kept. A change of supplier made 2026 a rainbows-only year: about half the fish 10 to 12 inches and half 14 to 17, with trophy trout of 3 pounds or more among them.

From DNREC: Freshwater Trout Fishing and DNREC: Upstate Trout Season to Open in New Castle County Streams (March 12, 2026).

The DNREC trout stocking schedule

The planned stocking dates for each stream and pond, from before the season through April 30 and once more in mid-October. It is a page of the 2026 Delaware Fishing Guide, and DNREC's trout page lists the dates that have changed since. Find the water's row and read which dates it is marked for; the stockings before the season include trophy rainbows of 14 inches or more at every water. Then check the trout page, which moved the April 13 and 16 stockings to April 15 and April 23 to April 22.

Open the 2026 Tentative Trout Stocking Schedule
  • Freshwater Trout Fishing: DNREC's trout page: the stocked stretch of each stream, the ponds, the rules, and each change to the tentative schedule.

From DNREC: 2026 Tentative Trout Stocking Schedule (PDF) and DNREC: Freshwater Trout Fishing.

When Delaware stocks trout

Downstate ponds, late February to mid-March

Tidbury and Newton ponds are stocked in the cold months, when trout can survive in them, before the pond season opens on the first Saturday in March and usually again in mid-month. In 2025 the ponds closed from February 15 to 28 for stocking, with a second stocking in mid-March. In 2026 all of the trout went in on March 5, ahead of the March 7 opener: more than 300 pounds of 10- to 12-inch rainbows and more than 300 pounds of 14- to 17-inch ones in each pond.

Upstate streams, late March through April

The seven streams get thousands of rainbows in the two weeks before the season opens on the first weekend of April, and are closed to all fishing while it happens: March 21 to April 3 in 2026. Anglers under 16 have the opening Saturday, April 4 in 2026, and everyone else starts the next day. Stocking goes on through April, weekly on White Clay Creek and now and then on the other streams. The 2026 schedule planned dates from April 6 to April 30.

White Clay Creek in October

White Clay Creek gets a fall stocking every year, for fishing through the fall and winter: about 1,000 pounds of 12- to 13-inch rainbows from near the Pennsylvania line down to Newark, on October 22 in 2025 and October 30 in 2024. The 2026 schedule plans it for mid-October.

From DNREC: Freshwater Trout Fishing, DNREC: Spring Pond Trout Season to Open (February 12, 2025), DNREC: Spring Pond Trout Season to Open (February 19, 2026), DNREC: Upstate Trout Season to Open in New Castle County Streams (March 12, 2026), DNREC: 2026 Tentative Trout Stocking Schedule (PDF), DNREC: Trout Stocked in White Clay Creek (October 22, 2025) and DNREC: With Annual Fall Trout Stocking in White Clay Creek (October 30, 2024).

Rules on stocked water

  • Residents 16 and older and not over 65 need a fishing license ($8.50), and a trout stamp ($4.20) to fish a designated trout stream from the first Saturday in April to June 30 and from the first Saturday in October to November 30. Residents 12 to 15 need a young angler trout stamp ($2.10), and residents 65 and older need no stamp. Nonresidents 16 and older need a license, $20 a year or $12.50 for seven days, and from age 12 a trout stamp ($6.20). On the ponds the stamp is needed through April 1. An angler exempt from the license still needs a FIN number.
  • The limit is six trout a day with no minimum size, and an angler holding six may not fish a designated trout stream for the rest of that day. The fly-fishing-only stretches of White Clay and Red Clay creeks allow a fly rod and flies only, one single-pointed hook each and no more than two on the line, and a limit of four; no one may hold more than four trout within 50 feet of them, but catch-and-release fishing may go on.
  • On youth opening day trout fishing starts at 7 a.m.; on other days it starts half an hour before sunrise, and it ends half an hour after sunset on designated streams and ponds.

From DNREC: Freshwater Trout Fishing, DNREC: Hunting and Fishing Licenses, DNREC: Spring Pond Trout Season to Open (February 19, 2026), DNREC: Trout Stocked in White Clay Creek (October 22, 2025) and DNREC: Upstate Trout Season to Open in New Castle County Streams (March 12, 2026).

How to hear about a stocking

  • DNREC announces each opener in a news release, in February for the ponds and in March for the streams, and announces the fall White Clay Creek stocking on the day it is done. Changes to the schedule go on the trout page.

From DNREC: Spring Pond Trout Season to Open (February 19, 2026), DNREC: Upstate Trout Season to Open in New Castle County Streams (March 12, 2026), DNREC: Trout Stocked in White Clay Creek (October 22, 2025) and DNREC: Freshwater Trout Fishing.

Worth knowing before you go looking

  • Stocked water closes before each opener. No one may fish a designated trout stream in the two weeks before the spring season opens, and in 2026 the ponds were closed from February 21 to March 6.
  • Ice can hold up stocking and fishing on the ponds.
  • Most access to the stocked streams is across private property, which DNREC asks anglers to respect.

From DNREC: Freshwater Trout Fishing and DNREC: Spring Pond Trout Season to Open (February 19, 2026).

Which day to fish it

The schedule says where the fish went in. Which day to go is a different question: the forecast scores each day of the week for trout at the water you pick, from its water temperature, the wind and the weather.

See the week for rainbow trout

Species guides: Rainbow Trout · Brown Trout · Brook Trout

Sources

Every sentence above was read on one of these pages, and a check re-reads each quoted line against the page it came from.

Spotted something out of date or plain wrong here? Tell us and we will check it.