SALISBURY — Now that the holidays are over, people need new ways to spend their weekends.

Luckily, Salisbury has plenty of options. Among the latest: the city has teamed up with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to stock City Park Lake and Community Park Lake with trout for anyone thinking of fishing — without a long drive.

This is the third year that Salisbury has stocked the lakes. It didn’t happen last year due to flooding. When the Wildlife Resource Commission and the hatchery have extra trout, they donate it for use in cities’ lakes and ponds, so 2,000 trout were placed in the Community Park lake and 1,000 in City Lake. The varieties included brown, brook and rainbow trout.

“I imagine it’ll be caught out in the next couple months.” predicted Michael Hanna, Public Works administrative services manager.

Hanna said many people were ready to fish at both lakes when the initial stockings took place. A fishing license is required, but otherwise there are no other restrictions to enjoy the fun.

“People love to fish locally and us being the stormwater department, we like to encourage people to interact with our waters and engage with our waters because it gives them a better sense of appreciation for our waters to help protect them and keep them clean,” Hanna said.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the hatchery will have “extras” next year, so it is important to take advantage of the fishing while it is around.

The Wildlife Resource Commission plan is to work on repairs to the hatchery, “So, it looks like the next year or two may be down and they won’t have any extras. As soon as the hatchery repairs are done, then yeah, we’ll start the program back again,” Hanna said.