The four are the concessionaires at San Pablo and Lafayette reservoirs in the East Bay hills, and at Lake Amador and Collins Lake in the foothills east of the Sacramento Valley. The Department of Fish and Game was forced to halt trout stocks abruptly two weeks ago at all four of these lakes as part of a legal settlement to stop plants at 175 lakes and streams, mostly in Northern California.

"What a bunch of bull," said Bruce Lockhart, the manager of Lake Amador, the No. 1 trout lake in the Sacramento Valley foothills. "I don't see how planting trout hurts anything."

Planting trout at lakes could put the lake managers at risk of lawsuit, just as Fish and Game found itself.