Photo by Terry W. Sheely.

Nothing heals the bite of a long wet winter like the lightning strike of a shimmering trout, followed by the hot sizzle of cornmeal-coated fillets dancing in a campfire’s frying pan.

The challenging mix of rainbows, cutthroat, goldens, browns, brookies, mackinaw and tiger trout (a cross between brown trout and brook trout) still makes for the most popular fishing in Washington. That’s amazing, considering the statewide diversity of nearly 50 varieties of freshwater fish and roughly as many saltwater species, including bass, panfish and the much celebrated Northwest salmon and steelhead fisheries.

This year’s lowland lake prospects are being bolstered by another round in the Fish and Wildlife Department’s fledgling trophy-trout program -- a project that’s pumping fresh excitement into a trout-fishing program that had been sliding into a short, lackluster put-and-take fishery.

Under the trophy program, dozens of the most popular trout lakes across the state are stocked with big and fast-growing triploid rainbows whose weights reach into the double-digit range. Anglers also get a secondary shot of better-than-1-pound trout that biologists call “ jumbos.”

By pumping up lakes with triploid and jumbo bragging-size fish, on top of the normal spring and fall fry plants, the state has delivered an electrifying jolt to spring trout angling. This welcome shock is revitalizing the popularity of lowland lake fishing and is stretching the opportunity to catch big trout deeper into summer.

The trophy-trout stocking supplements, but doesn’t replace, the state’s long-standing program of stocking 4.1 million 7- to 10-inch put-and-take catchables -- plus planting another 18 million fry and fingerlings that grow to skillet-size catchables by the April opener. Most lakes on the west side of the state have planted catchables. Most of the fry plants are made in fertile central and eastern Washington lakes that enjoy long growing seasons. Just before the opener, almost all of the fry-planted lakes also get a good dose of catchable-size trout. Many also receive slab-sided triploids or jumbos.

More than 100 lakes throughout Washington are now stocked with the fast-growing, aggressive triploid trout that weigh between 3/4 and 1 1/2 pounds, along with a sampling of super trophies -- those 5- to 15-pound fish that earn headlines in local newspapers.

The WDFW buys triploids from Trout Lodge, a private international fish grower. These game fish are rainbows that have been sterilized while in the egg stage by heat or air pressure. Hatched without reproductive systems, triploids channel their energies into eating and growing. That’s a super combination for sport fishermen.

“ Trips” are voracious feeders. If not harvested the first year, they have the potential to grow to trophy size, as long as their lake offers good forage. After a couple of years of trip plants, most lakes have a fair number of survivors that have grown into the 5- to 10-pound range.

Most of the state’s inventory of triploid rainbows is planted within weeks of the traditional lowland lakes fishing season opener the last Saturday in April. In May, though, another sixty-plus lakes are stocked with trips, including higher-elevation lakes that were snowbound in April. Most years, including this 2008, more than 100,000 of lunker trout will be stocked.