Syracuse.com - Onondaga County waterways stocked with nearly 20,000 trout for opening day

[HuntingNY-News]

The stocking will continue well into May. This year, the county intends to stock a total of 74,000 trout. Watch video

Eric Stanczyk admits to feeling a bit like Santa Claus this time of year.

The superintendent of the Carpenter’s Brook Fish Hatchery oversees and directly participates in the stocking of 20 Onondaga County streams and several lakes and ponds

It’s an endeavor he knows will bring fun, joy and good will from local anglers – particularly those planning to get out Monday for the opening day of trout fishing season. Stanczyk said the county’s waterways have been stocked so far with nearly 20,000 brown, rainbow and brook trout from the hatchery

The stocking will continue well into May. This year, he said, the county intends to stock a total of 74,000 trout.

.

“This is the fun part of the job,” Stanczyk said. “It’s as close to fishing as I can get at work.”

 

Stanczyk said local streams “look fantastic for opening day.” He said the water is up and clear. Stream temperatures vary from 37 to 42 degrees.

“The snow has been melting slowly, which is a good thing,” he said.

Hatchery staff began this spring’s stocking efforts on March 18, assisted by volunteers who show up at the hatchery in the morning on stocking days.

The fish – one- and two-year-old browns, one-year-old rainbows and brook trout -- are netted in the hatchery’s circular and rectangular-shaped cement ponds and then emptied into 300-gallon water tanks on the back of two trucks driven by Stanczyk and Travis Stanek, the hatchery’s operations supervisor.

Wednesday morning, volunteers included Kelsey West and Scott Austin, both SUNY ESF student, along with their teaching assistant, Alex Kulakowsi. Others helping out were Pat Ryder, of Syracuse, and Jerry Brown, of Mottville.

The two hatchery staffers then drove the trucks to Limestone Creek and Pool’s Brook. Volunteers followed Stanek. Stanczyk went alone, netting brook trout from the tank himself into a five-gallon bucket and then dumping into Pool’s Brook at various public access points, usually near bridges.

“C’mom boys, swim, swim,” Stanczyk shouted out as he dumped a pail full of fish into the brook.

At one point, Stanczyk pointed to an area near a submerged log where a friend pulled out a 20-inch brown trout a couple of years back.

“A trout that’s 20 inches on a small stream like this, that’s winning the lottery.” he said.

Onondaga County waterways this year will most likely be the best stocked in the state.

Stanczyk said the county-run hatchery aims to hit 100 percent of its stocking goals.

The goals are set by the state Department of Environmental Conservation using angler surveys to determine fishing pressure, along with biological analysis of food naturally available to figure out how many fish each stream can support.

Surrounding Central New York counties – such as Oswego, Madison, Cortland and Cayuga counties – get their fish from state-run hatcheries.

The DEC this year recently announced it was cutting back its stocking goals of yearling brown trout (averaging 8-10 inches) across the state by 15 percent as a result of disease problems that killed fish at its Rome hatchery last year. Last year, the state hit on the average 87 percent of its own stocking goals, according to a DEC spokeswoman.

Stanczyk said each year the state gives Onondaga County some 60,000 brown trout fingerlings in the fall to stock in county streams the following spring. This year, the county got 12,000 less.

“We’re making up for that by stocking extra brook trout,” he said.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog

[growalot]

Mr B and our son went out the night before last to scout some streams for Monday...they said they saw some real beauties from the banks of a few places ......now if they were just far enough off the beaten path....lol