Plan aims to preserve Adirondack brook trout fisheries

Public invited to weigh in on plan, which calls for streamlining, expanding baitfish restrictions

By Zachary Matson 

State fisheries managers aim to grow Adirondack brook trout angling opportunities and preserve the state fish in the coming decades — even in the face of threats from climate change and non-native warm water species — under the Department of Environmental Conservation’s latest draft management plan.

The new draft Adirondack Brook Trout Pond Management Plan outlines the department’s strategy for preserving and expanding brook trout waters inside the Adirondack Park through 2040. It would mark the first overhaul of the state’s management strategy since 1979, incorporating the latest in fisheries science, angler expectations and environmental threats.

The Adirondack Park’s pond-dwelling brook trout populations, in many ways synonymous with Adirondack angling, are rare in the contiguous United States; only Maine also houses ponded brook trout communities.

“It’s a precious resource,” said Steve Hurst, chief of the bureau of fisheries at DEC. “We need to say this is rare, and we need to preserve it.”

Baitfish restrictions

The management strategy targets the introduction of harmful batifish to brook trout waters, suggesting the release of live bait by anglers is a “primary vector” of polluting brook trout lakes with harmful non-native fish species. Despite awareness efforts dating to as early as the 1940s, still more than half of anglers surveyed by DEC said the impact of baitfish introductions were a minor or nonexistent problem.

To clarify and streamline baitfish prohibitions in the Adirondacks, the proposed plan would reverse the existing presumption of where baitfish are allowed. Currently baitfish are allowed by default, except in specific waterbodies or certain land management areas, totaling over 1,000 lakes and ponds with the special prohibition. The new approach would bar baitfish as the default, while allowing it in 143 specific lakes, primarily those with established warm water fisheries and easily accessed by the public.

The change to baitfish restrictions would need to be adopted through new regulations, a separate process that would include public notice and comments. A timeline included in the plan envisions advancing the baitfish regulations in 2026.

The management plan itself is open for public comments through June 13. Hurst said he expected a final management plan to follow within a couple of months of the public comment period.

Long time coming for a long-range plan

The plan has been in the works for over two years, with a series of public meetings held last spring to gather input from anglers. An earlier draft signaled the agency’s plan to expand baitfish restrictions in an effort to simplify the rule. 

Jackie Bowen, conservation director of the Adirondack Council, served on a focus group that offered input into the plan’s development. Bowen credited the planning process, noting that interested parties were engaged from the outset.  

“It shows the long-running planning and intentionality we want to see from DEC,” Bowen said. 

Bowen also highlighted the agency’s continued emphasis on the importance of preserving genetic diversity and longstanding heritage brook trout strains the hail from particular waterbodies. She said the plan marks a shift toward a more even balancing of recreational interests and conservation interests.

“DEC, in an interesting way, is starting to say biodiversity is just as important as recreation,” she said.

Threats abound

The plan paints a sobering portrait of the challenges facing Adirondack brook trout and those who want to see them thrive. Scientists at Cornell and elsewhere have documented how the combination of warming water temperatures and deoxygenation is squeezing suitable brook trout habitat in many lakes. 

The mix of high temperatures and low oxygen also increases brook trout vulnerability to the non-native species that now proliferate the Adirondacks and pose the greatest threat. The healthiest brook trout populations exist in lakes where they are the only species or they cohabitate with round whitefish and lake trout, other native species.

Brook trout cannot coexist with so-called incompatible species like yellow perch, black crappie, largemouth and smallmouth bass, walleye, northern pike and pickerel, according to the DEC plan. Detrimental species, including brown and rainbow trout, brown bullhead, chubs, smelt and alewife, limit the success of a brook trout population.   

“Unfortunately, many once self-sustaining waters have been and continue to be lost due to the introduction of detrimental and incompatible species, some irretrievably,” according to the draft plan.

The Adirondacks include 412 publicly accessible lakes and ponds with known brook trout populations. Anglers have documented brookies over 16 inches long in about one third of those lakes.

The plan refers to reclamation as the “only effective tool” for restoring brook trout waters. The process includes using a piscicide called Rotenone to kill all the fish in a lake before restocking it with brook trout.  

State fisheries managers have conducted 234 reclamations since 1950, though the pace of reclamations has slowed in recent years, and state officials expressed concern about the ongoing availability of the chemical used in the process. Some ponds that once housed brook trout may never return to their native status, because they are ill-suited for reclamation.. 

“Without reclamation only a fraction of our current ponded brook trout waters would continue to exist,” according to the plan. Constraints in size, wetlands extent and groundwater inflows make it impossible to conduct reclamations in many waterbodies. 

Enlisting citizen scientists

The plan also seeks to engage experienced anglers in monitoring the status of ponds and lakes state officials can rarely visit. Many lakes thought to contain brook trout populations have not been assessed by DEC staff in decades. If experienced anglers trained by DEC to conduct small surveys of the lake, they can visit to help expand the state’s broader monitoring efforts.

Referred to as the Brook Trout Surveillance Team, the plan calls for establishing a group of 20 volunteers who would meet annually and get assigned lakes based on DEC’s lake assessment strategy. The volunteers could help determine whether brook trout are present, whether the lake has been invaded by harmful fish and offer insight into new candidates for reclamation.

“There’s only so much we can do and we want to work efficiently and effectively,” Hurst said. “Sending these guys in ahead of us really paints the picture that things look good here, but don’t look so good there.”

The effort to garner greater angler engagement and involve them in more structured monitoring of brook trout waters will take a step this weekend. DEC is working with conservation and angling groups to visit ponds across the region to install “Trek for Trout” signs. The signs will include QR codes that link to short surveys for anglers to notify fisheries managers about their experience and what fish they hooked. The signs will also remind visitors that baitfish are not allowed.