Ohio Trout Stocking Schedule 2026

Every sentence here comes from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife (ODNR), and each section names its sources. Updated .

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Wildlife releases about 80,000 rainbow trout in public lakes and ponds every spring, March through May in 2026, and its Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates page lists every water with its release date. The fish are raised in state hatcheries and run 10 to 13 inches. In the fall, Ohio trout fishing turns to steelhead, stocked young in seven Lake Erie tributaries in April and May and running back up them from fall through spring. ODNR also stocks brown trout in the Mad River and the upper Clear Fork of the Mohican, in October according to its fishing tips page, and raises a smaller number of catchable rainbows for fall fishing in central and southern Ohio.

From ODNR: Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates, ODNR Division of Wildlife: Ohio’s Steelhead Program (PDF, January 2025), ODNR Division of Wildlife: London State Fish Hatchery fact sheet (PDF, January 2025) and ODNR: Fishing Tips by Species.

The ODNR trout stocking schedule

The spring list: every public lake and pond getting catchable rainbow trout, with its county, ODNR district and release date, and whether a special angler event is held that day. Waters new for 2026 are highlighted in yellow. Below the table the page gives directions to each water, district by district, with any rules of its own. On the day of a special angler event, fishing for everyone else may be restricted for a while.

Open the Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates
  • Fish Stocking Database: Every fish ODNR has stocked in public water since 1970, by water, species and life stage, with a map of the lakes and ponds. New stockings are added every week. Open the Visualize tab, set the range of years (it opens on the latest five), and choose a location, species and life stage. Rivers and streams are in the table but have no dot on the map.
  • Ohio Steelhead Stockings 2021-2025: Each year of steelhead stocking from 2021 through 2025, tributary by tributary, with the dates, the number, the average length and the strains, and the target for each tributary in 2026.

From ODNR: Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates, ODNR: Fish Stocking Records and ODNR Division of Wildlife: Ohio’s Lake Erie Steelhead Trout Stocking Summary, 2021-2025 (PDF).

When Ohio stocks trout

Spring rainbow trout in lakes and ponds

The spring releases run from mid-March to mid-May, wherever the water is free of ice and anglers can reach it. In 2026 the first went into Barnesville Reservoir #4 on March 11 and the last into the Ohio and Erie Canal in Cuyahoga County on May 16. These are put-and-take fish, stocked to be caught and kept. Most of the fishing happens at once: ODNR surveys found angler effort peaks on the day of a release and falls to nothing within about 10 days, and the trout rarely survive the warm water of late spring. In 2022 ODNR set out to move these trout to small water near where people live: mostly lakes under 25 acres with most of the shoreline open, shared among counties by population, because catches run much higher on small lakes and ponds. In all of 2025, ODNR stocked 103,296 catchable rainbow trout.

Steelhead in the Lake Erie tributaries

ODNR stocks about 450,000 young steelhead a year, 7 to 9 inches long, in April and May, in the Vermilion, Rocky, Cuyahoga, Chagrin, Grand and Ashtabula rivers and Conneaut Creek. In 2025 that was 464,538. The young fish leave for the lake within weeks and come back up the rivers two or three years later. They can be caught in the tributaries from fall through spring and out in Lake Erie from May through September. In the fall, look for them along the nearshore breakwalls, gathering to run upriver.

Brown trout in the Mad River and the Clear Fork

The London State Fish Hatchery raises yearling brown trout for the Mad River and the upper Clear Fork of the Mohican River, 23,233 of them in 2024, and ODNR’s fishing tips page puts the brown trout stocking in October. Unlike the spring rainbows, these are stocked small to last, and are expected to live a number of years in the river. ODNR names its coldwater streams by trout: the Mad River and the Clear Fork of the Mohican above Pleasant Hill Lake for brown trout, and the Clear Fork below the lake and Clear Creek for rainbows.

Fall rainbow trout in central and southern Ohio

The London hatchery also raises catchable rainbow trout to stock public water in central and southern Ohio for fall fishing, a small program beside the spring one: 2,648 fish in 2024.

From ODNR: Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates, ODNR Division of Wildlife: Fish Stocking in Ohio Waters (PDF), ODNR Division of Wildlife: Adjustments to the Catchable Rainbow Trout Stocking Program (PDF, March 2022), ODNR: ODNR Stocks Ohio’s Waterways with 36M Fish in 2025 (21 January 2026), ODNR Division of Wildlife: Ohio’s Steelhead Program (PDF, January 2025), ODNR Division of Wildlife: London State Fish Hatchery fact sheet (PDF, January 2025), ODNR: Fishing Tips by Species and ODNR: Fishing Inland Streams and Rivers.

Rules on stocked water

  • Anglers 16 and older need an Ohio fishing license on all public waters; under 16, none is needed. For 2026-27 a resident pays $25 for a year ($10 at 65 and older) or $14 for a day, and a nonresident pays $76.96 for a year or $52 for three days.
  • Wherever no special rule applies, you may keep 5 trout a day, any species, with no minimum size.
  • The trout streams carry their own limit of 2 a day: at least 12 inches on the Mad River and its tributaries and on the Clear Fork in Richland County, and any size on the Clear Fork in Ashland County and on Clear Creek from the first Fairfield County Road 69 bridge to the US 33 bridge in Hocking County.
  • In Lake Erie and the whole length of its tributaries, trout and salmon together are limited to 2 a day from March 1 to May 15 and from September 1 through February, and 5 a day from May 16 to August 31, all at least 12 inches.
  • Brook trout may not be kept from the Ashtabula, Chagrin, Conneaut or Grand rivers or their tributaries.
  • Snagging any fish is illegal from September 1 to April 30 in most of the steelhead rivers: the Ashtabula, Chagrin, Grand, Rocky and Vermilion, Conneaut Creek, and six smaller Lake Erie creeks.
  • A water marked *** on the spring list is a State Parks youth-only pond: youth only for a week after it is stocked, then open to anglers of every age through April 30, 2026, before it goes back to youth only.

From ODNR: ODNR Stocks Ohio’s Waterways with 36M Fish in 2025 (21 January 2026), ODNR Division of Wildlife: Ohio Fishing Regulations 2026-27 (PDF) and ODNR: Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates.

How to hear about a stocking

  • The spring list goes up on the Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates page, with the year’s new waters highlighted in yellow.
  • The Fish Stocking Database takes new stockings every week, so it is the place to see what a water actually got.
  • ODNR totals the year’s stocking in a news release in January: 103,296 catchable rainbows, 19,913 brown trout and 464,538 steelhead in 2025.

From ODNR: Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates, ODNR: Fish Stocking Records and ODNR: ODNR Stocks Ohio’s Waterways with 36M Fish in 2025 (21 January 2026).

Worth knowing before you go looking

  • The bed of an Ohio stream is often private even where the water is not. Floating over private land is legal, but wading or otherwise touching a private bed to fish takes the landowner’s written permission; in a public park it does not.
  • Many spring releases double as special angler events, often for children, and some waters are open only to children for part of that day. The directions under the table say which.

From ODNR: Fishing Inland Streams and Rivers and ODNR: Rainbow Trout Stocking Dates.

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

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.