Syracuse.com - DEC stocking less brown trout in state's waters this year

[HuntingNY-News]

Meanwhile, the county run Carpenter's Brook fish hatchery in Elbridge will meet all its stocking goals, making Onondaga County's waterways possibly the best stocked in the state. Watch video

Travis Stanek, who works at Carpenter's Brook fish hatchery in Elbridge, loads trout last year into a water tank on a truck bound to stock local Onondaga County streams. Dick Blume | [email protected]

With the opening of the trout fishing season a little more than three weeks away, state Department of Conservation officials said this past week that the numbers of brown trout yearlings stocked state-wide will be down 15 percent this fishing season compared to last year.

Meanwhile, Onondaga County waters, which get their brown, rainbow and brook trout from the county-run Carpenter’s Brook Fish Hatchery in Elbridge, will continue to get the usual numbers of fish. The end result is that Onondaga County this year will probably have the best-stocked trout streams in the entire state.

“I’m not sure about anywhere else in the state, but I can say that we’ll be at 100 percent levels and actually will have more larger brown trout than usual in the 13-15 inch range (compared to previous years),” said Bill Lansley, county parks commissioner.

The DEC’s stocking reductions will amount to about 320,000 less fish, the result of fish diseases that killed mostly young brown trout fry at the DEC’s Rome Hatchery last year.

“We should be at about 73 percent (of our stocking goals) for brown trout,” said David Lemon, regional fisheries manager for the DEC’s Region 7. Lemon was speaking at Thursday evening’s “State of Lake Ontario” meeting held at the DEC training facility in Pulaski on the Salmon River

The DEC’s brown stocking decrease does not actually work out to a 27 percent reduction, Lemon explained. Last year, the DEC ended up reaching 88.7 percent of its stocking goals.

Brown trout are a favorite of anglers because of how big they can get, along with their wariness and scrappiness when hooked.

The DEC’s stocking cutback will only involve the stocking of yearlings (9-11 inch fish). The stocking level of two-year-old fish (12-15 inches) will remain the same, Lemon said.

The Rome hatchery’s woes are connected to two outbreaks of fish disease last year. Among those that died or that had to be killed to protect the hatchery’s healthy fish were 175,000 fingerling brown trout brought in from a Virginia hatchery.

“Furunculosis (a bacterial disease) was the main culprit, but a parasite called Ich contributed to the mortality,” said Lori Severino, a DEC spokeswoman.

DEC has since drafted a “hatchery mitigation plan” to address the fish disease problem at the Rome hatchery. That plan includes restrictions and safeguards concerning bringing other fish in from outside sources, biosecurity measures, and a new testing procedure to help hatchery staff determine whether the remaining fish are disease-free or not, according to a story in N.Y. Outdoors News.

“That plan has been submitted and is under review,” Severino said.

Volunteer Steve Stone of East Syracuse helps stock brown trout and brook trout from Carpenter's Brook fish hatchery into Limestone Creek in this 2010 photo.

Jim Commentucci | [email protected]

Both the DEC and Onondaga County staff and volunteers will begin stocking later this month, weather permitting.

The Carpenter’s Brook hatchery in Elbridge will be stocking county streams, rivers, ponds and several lakes with 70,000 fish. The county hatchery’s stocking has for years equaled, and often exceeded recommended DEC stocking recommendations for local waterways.

Lansley said the county hatchery this spring will stock more larger-sized trout in local waterways — specifically, two-year-old brown trout. In the past, the county has annually stocked about 17,000 fish that size each year.

The county hatchery usually stocks some yearling trout after the season ends each year. Last fall it didn’t, Lansley said. Those fish that didn’t get stocked are now two-year-olds. The end result is that some 20,000 of the 70,000 fish to be stocked this spring will be two-year-olds.

“We’ll be in an enviable position on opening day,” he said.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog