POWELL (AP) - Thanks to Trout Unlimited, thousands of fish were rescued from ebbing irrigation canals, to be placed back where they belong: The Shoshone River.

On a recent beautiful Friday morning, a generous sun erased memories of a chilly night, while Heart Mountain eyed Trout Unlimited members and high school Future Farmers of America students as they "fished" the Willwood Canal.

Sloshing forward, the anglers pushed an electronic device into the knee-deep water that herds the trout and makes net retrieval much easier.

"There's one!"

A student slipped the net under a big trout and slid it into a five-gallon bucket. When the bucket was full, it was dumped into a big, oxygen-fed fish tank. During the net-packing anglers' lunch break, the trout were released in the river.

It was a mission of mercy. Once water flow to the canals is cut, the trouts' days are numbered.

"Another two weeks and all the fish in here would be dead," said Trout Unlimited member Dave Crowther.

Bob Capron, East Yellowstone chapter president of Trout Unlimited, said food becomes meager, but what kills trout is lack of oxygen in the shallow water.

The trout, whitefish and suckers range from fingerlings to whoppers.

The biggest caught up to then was a 29-inch brown from the Garland Canal, Capron said.

Micah Stockberger, 14, an FFA member from Cody, supervised the tank loading with Tanner Rosenbaum, 9, and Trout Unlimited member Lorna Anderson.

"Whoosh." A bucket load of squirming trout were eased into the tank.

"Once your eyes adjust, you can see them," Stockberger said.

Indeed, like fish in a barrel, the trout swam sluggishly about in the murky tank that filled the cargo bed of a pickup.

Anderson said the group had 149 fish by about 10 a.m.

A couple of days before, they captured 869 fish just up the canal from their present location, Capron said.

Last year, Capron said they caught 3,800 fish in the Cody, Garland and Lake View (South Fork) canals.

Capron appreciates community involvement and support, the youth who pitch in, the irrigation districts and the landowners who allow the little netting expedition convoy to cross their land.

It may have been a humanitarian endeavor, but it also yielded a fruitful influence on fishing.

Many of the trout were large - the type of fish any angler would love to set his/her hook in. And those big fish were spawners - they will spark the next generation of trout. The spawners are native to waters of the Shoshone; they know how to find food and are acclimated to the water's temperature, Capron said.

With an irksome ring like a relentless tuning fork, the electronic device preceded the anglers, armed with nets, as they slogged through the muddy current. Like cattle, the fish were herded, then caught for eventual transport to the river.

It was hard work. The power pack for the electronic wand weighed 40 pounds and the hunters walked five or six miles a day, Capron said.

For their efforts here and elsewhere, the East Yellowstone Trout Unlimited chapter received the Silver Trout Award, making it one of the top three chapters in the country.

An avid fly fisherman, Capron launched the unique catch-and-release program 20 years ago.

He enjoys offering his unparalleled brand of repayment to a sport he has loved since he was a boy.

"I've been fishing all my life and I hate to see a resource go to waste," Capron said.