Each year DEC releases approximately 900,000 pounds of fish into more than 1,200 public streams, rivers, lakes and ponds across the state. These fish are stocked for two main purposes: to enhance recreational fishing and to restore native species to waters they formerly occupied. The DEC runs 12 fish hatcheries, each specializing in raising one or more species of fish, including brook trout, brown trout, rainbow trout, lake trout, steelhead, chinook salmon, coho salmon, landlocked salmon, walleye, muskellunge and tiger muskellunge. All hatcheries are open to the public from spring through fall, and several are open year-round. The Fish Stocking Lists are updated approximately mid-May the year following the actual stocking. The number of stocked fish is an estimate, not an actual count.

DEC stocks close to 2 million catchable-size brook, brown, and rainbow trout in over 309 lakes and ponds and roughly 2,900 miles of streams across the state each spring. This dataset represents the planned stocking numbers, species and time of spring for those waters for the current fishing season. The current stocking data is updated annually in mid-March.

The Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative has been attempting to restore landlocked Atlantic salmon to the Lake Champlain basin since the 1970s. As part of this effort, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, have coordinated the stocking of age-0 Atlantic salmon fry into several headwater tributaries within the Boquet and Ausable River watersheds. Understanding the habitat use, survival, dispersal, and ecological impacts of Atlantic salmon fry in these headwater reaches will inform important management actions related to the restoration of landlocked Atlantic salmon in the Lake Champlain basin. This electrofishing assessment is a critical step in evaluating the success of these stocking efforts. The USFWS Lake Champlain FWCO ha conducted annual fry stocking electrofishing assessments in Boquet River and Ausable River tributaries since 2021. The project has been funded by the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission.

,