There are a lot more trout in Eleven Mile Reservoir.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) just released 16,000 trout into the water. CPW posted video to YouTube of the winter stocking of the reservoir.
Officials cut a hole in the ice then placed an aluminum tube through the hole.
The tube is connected to the large tank holding 1,000 pounds of fish and 400 pounds of water.
Once they open the tank - the fish shoot right out.
"When you pop a gate - there's just a gate valve at the back of the tank and when you pop that gate it's pretty much just a slush out the back and right down," said Brandon White, CPW's Assistant Chief of Hatcheries.
Each year the agency stocks up to 140,000 fish in the Eleven Mile and Spinney mountain reservoirs.
It's part of a winter stocking program that began in 2007.
"What that allows us to do is it creates an opportunity and room in a hatchery when we normally wouldn't be stocking fish, but we've got this void where we can raise fish and stock them at a given time," said White.
Since the program began, more than 740,000 trout have been released in Eleven Mile and Spinney.
It also benefits the anglers when Spring rolls around.
"A catchable trout in Colorado is generally a 10-inch fish and by the spring those fish are 13 to 14 inches," White said.
