The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is stocking in the neighborhood of 80 tons of its “jumbo” hatchery trout in lakes and ponds across Washington during 2026.
Unlike the millions of other trout WDFW stocks annually, these special trout weigh at least a pound each, while some range up to 3 pounds and a smaller number of brood trout can be massive.
You can catch these trout using the same techniques as their more common pan-sized kin, but you might want to bump up your line strength and leave the ultralight rod in the truck.
You can catch jumbo-sized trout with natural and artificial baits, casting or trolling various types of lures, and by fly fishing.
Check out our separate free, comprehensive guide to trout fishing.
I will list the lakes that get the largest numbers of these fish in just a moment.
First, a little math to explain myself to any skeptics I might have reading this article.
WDFW plans to stock (exactly?) 157,716 trout they categorize as “jumbo” fish, which are mostly rainbows with a smattering of cutthroat trout in the mix.
The ton used most often in the U.S. is the short ton, weighing 2,000 pounds even.
WDFW describes these jumbo fish as averaging 1 pound or more, often in about the 14-inch range, in various documents including sources for this article.
Those 157,000+ trout would put the stocking weight just shy of 79 tons if they all weighed exactly a pound. However, WDFW also tends to stock healthy numbers of trout up to 17 and 18 inches, especially in the fall for Black Friday fishing events, and those longer and fatter fish often hit 2 to 3 pounds each, along with some absolute monster brood trout.
All that to say, I’m confident that estimating the annual stocking at 80 tons probably undercounts the actual plants.
These trout are stocked in over 150 lakes and ponds in all but a handful of Washington’s counties.
Below I will list out all the bodies of water that are scheduled to receive at least 2,000 of these larger trout this year. In other words, they will have a “ton” (or more) of trout to catch in 2026. That list stretches to 24 lakes and ponds, but there are still far more than 100 spots that plenty of these big fish.
For sheer numbers of these brutes, look at Mason County at the southern end of Puget Sound, where two lakes are due to receive more than 10,000 jumbos apiece, and several others will get 4,000 to over 5,000 big trout.
Several other counties also have multiple lakes stocked with good numbers of larger fish, with the greatest concentrations in the more heavily populated areas including around Puget Sound, the I-5 corridor, and near Spokane.
To help you find your next big fish, the following list is organized alphabetically by county and includes the approximate stocking number and time(s) of year the stocking will occur.
See the link at the bottom of this article to find all spots around Washington that get some of these trout. It takes a bit of looking, which is why I’ve broken out the lakes that get the most big fish.
The stocked trout are rainbows unless otherwise noted. Clicking the lakes that are linked will take you to more in-depth articles about that location.
Benton County: Columbia Park Pond, 4,200, March-April.
Clark County: Battle Ground Lake, 2,100, November-December; and Klineline Pond, 2,100, April, November-December.
Cowlitz County: Kress Lake, 2,000, November.
Island County: Cranberry Lake, 4,000, November.
Jefferson County: Leland Lake, 3,200, October, plus 150 large cutthroat in March.
King County: Beaver Lake (Sammamish), 2,500, November; Green Lake, 4,500, November.
Kitsap County: Kitsap Lake, 8,588, March and October.
Klickitat County: Rowland Lake, 2,275, February and November.
Lewis County: Fort Borst Park Pond, 2,000, November; South Lewis County Park Pond, 2,000, May and November.
Mason County: Island Lake, 4,280, March and November; Kokanee Lake, 10,400, February, May, July, September; Lost Lake, 5,320, March, May, October, plus 150 big cutthroat in February; Nahwatzel Lake, 10,960, March-April, October; Spencer Lake, 4,940, March, October, and 520 big cutthroat in February.
Pierce County: American Lake, 2,000, November.
Snohomish County: Ballinger Lake, 2,500, November; Blackmans Lake, 2,000, November; Silver Lake, 2,500, November; Tye Lake, 2,000, November.
Thurston County: Black Lake, 3,100, April, November.
Yakima County: I-82 Pond #4, 2,000, November.
Here are some additional articles of interest:
Best Trout Fishing in Washington
Best Fly Fishing Rivers in Washington
The data used for this article primarily comes from WDFW’s 2026 Statewide Trout and Kokanee Stocking Plan.