An Iowa Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist says Iowa’s trout streams and the fish in them are mostly unaffected by the record summer heat wave. Biologist Dan Kirby works at the Manchester Trout Hatchery. He says trout streams get their water from underground.
“They’re not entirely dependent on recent rainfall, they’re actually are dependent on rainfall over the last several months or even maybe over the course of a longer period, and also the water temperatures are going to be somewhere in the high 50’s to the low 60’s,” Kirby says.
Kirby says it will become a concern for trout if the dry conditions stretch into the fall. “We’ll see a reduction in trout range in Iowa because they do require cold water, it’s just that we have had a very wet period over the last ten years or more and so we do good spring flows that have been decreasing here recently, but they’re still okay,” Kirby explains.
Kirby says nearly all of Iowa’s trout streams have been thriving due to improving habitat and better farming practices.