NORWAY – The fall fish stocking program is under way on Maine lakes and ponds with carry-on or public boat access.

Not all of the ponds are accessible to the big hatchery trucks, however.

That’s where planes come in. Small planes with specially designed pontoons with fish tanks on top are being used. When the pilot gets in position several hundred feet above the pond, he opens a hatch on the tanks, and the fish plummet unceremoniously into the water.

Employees of the hatchery division of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife used the Norway Lake boat landing Friday as a loading and take-off site to stock brook trout into some of the more inaccessible ponds and lakes in Oxford County.

Carleton Bryant and Jesse Coleman, fish culturists from the Gray fish hatchery, used five-gallon buckets to transfer the brookies from the truck to the holding tanks of the pontoon boat. Each tank holds about 90 of the “fall fingerlings,” as the 6- to 8-inch brookies are called.

Fisheries pilot Dan Dufault made several trips ferrying the fish to Abbott Pond in Woodstock, Trout Pond in Mason Township, Round Pond in Albany Township, Forest Lake in Canton, and Little Concord Pond in Woodstock and Cushman Pond in Sumner.

“It’s really expensive to do it this way, but with some of these ponds we don’t have any choice,” said Bryant.

Some of the fish stocked were eight to 10 inches long to support ice fishing, but most were of the smaller variety.

Bryant said the recent bond issue to upgrade the state’s hatchery system is helping immensely to support recreational fishing in Maine.

The state stocks about 1.2 million fish into Maine’s lakes and ponds annually. About half are stocked in the fall, the other half in the spring.