Originally Posted By: Cat&Sloane

Again, the only reason I will need a permit is because fish stocked in my pond could theoretically make it downstream to a public lake.


Given a large enough flood, fish could likely make it into public waters from a large percentage of ponds in the entire country. To me, the permitting doesn't make a lot of sense, other than to enrich state coffers.
My ponds are on a slight hillside, but I bet some of my BG fingerlings made it the 560 feet or so from the spillways to the small creek on my property, then the next 1/4 mile to the White River in the big flood we had a couple of months ago.