As David Whitmer carefully maneuvered a heavy tanker truck along a lakeside road, a fisherman lifted a single digit to greet him.

His thumb.

A truck loaded with hatchery trout is often a welcome site to anglers.

It was no different Monday when Whitmer arrived at Deception Pass State Park, backed up to the boat launch and dumped about 3,200 rainbow trout into Cranberry Lake.

It was the second installment of trout at the lake, following a deposit of 6,531 fish Oct. 13, with more trips scheduled for later in the week.

When the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is done with its fall release in November, Cranberry Lake will have received 28,500 fish — more than four times what it got last year.

As the lake’s surface boiled with fish rolling on the surface after their release Monday, the sight even got two park rangers to step out of their truck and watch the spectacle.

“It’s fun to watch,” Bryce Watkinson said. “I haven’t seen this before.”

“It’s exciting,” John Whittet said. “At the end of the season, things kind of slow down. It’s nice to see people coming out and enjoying it.”

Only a handful of anglers were out early Monday to chase the trout, but the weekend activity, especially from the dock, was as busy as Watkinson has seen it.

Part of the lure is the trout are larger than usual and anglers can catch more.

Cranberry is one of 10 lakes in Western Washington where fishers can keep 10 trout per day through Feb. 13.

The normal trout limit is four.

“The first question I heard yesterday was, ‘Is it true that the limit’s 10?’ ” Whittet said.

The abundant fall fishery is the result of a legal settlement last spring that stopped the release of early winter hatchery steelhead into most Puget Sound rivers in 2014.

More than 300,000 of those steelhead, an ocean-bound form of rainbow trout, instead were designated for release into 47 lakes in Western Washington. Cranberry Lake is the only one in Island County.

“They had to do something with them,” said Ed Nance, who was fishing from the roadside on Monday.

Nance caught six trout Monday, one as large as 14 inches.

The fish that were released range from 11 to 14 inches, larger than the typical hatchery trout planted in lakes before opening day in April.

Nance, who is retired from the Navy, said he’s fished Cranberry Lake for at least 30 years and said that it’s typically slow this time of year at the lake, which is open year-round to fishing.

He was having success using two fishing poles and gobs of orange Power Bait. He purchased an endorsement to use two rods instead of one.

“I just had another one on the bank a second ago,” he said, “but he flipped back into the water.”

“I’ll get him again.”

Whitmer made the trip from the Whitehorse Pond Hatchery near Darrington and was expected back Tuesday with a batch of thousands of more fish.

After this week, the lake isn’t expected to receive anymore new trout until the first week of November.

Anglers who fish at Cranberry need a current Washington freshwater license.

To access Deception Pass State Park, visitors must have a Discovery Pass on display in their vehicles.