State considers new strategies for Adirondack brook trout management; another input session to be held virtually March 28
By Zachary Matson
State fisheries managers are developing a new approach to manage the special lake-dwelling brook trout that populate hundreds of Adirondack water bodies.
The emerging strategy will continue to shift focus to maintaining and establishing naturally-reproducing fish populations, while also providing anglers a mix of fishing opportunities.
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A new management plan, which officials said will be released for public comment this year, may also be followed by new brook trout regulations, including expanded prohibitions on the use of baitfish in most brook trout waters.
Steve Hurst, chief of the bureau of fisheries at the Department of Environmental Conservation, during a presentation in Warrensburg on Saturday emphasized the rarity of New York’s ponded brook trout populations. Maine is the only other state in the region that sustains brook trout who spend their lifetimes in lake and pond ecosystems.
“It’s damn important, so we need a good plan to make sure we take care of it,” Hurst said.
Proposed regulations and the future of bait use
Hurst outlined the threat posed to brook trout ponds by “incompatible and detrimental” perch, bass, walleye, smelt and other fish that proliferate around the region. Some are introduced as baitfish, which currently is prohibited in over 1,000 water bodies in the park through a hodgepodge of special restrictions.
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Use of baitfish is allowed across the park, outside the numerous special restrictions. The fisheries managers want to flip that, prohibiting baitfish parkwide while allowing it on a few larger lakes.
Baitfish would be prohibited on all lakes and ponds less than 50 acres, while allowed on around 140 larger lakes that are stocked with other species, serve as popular ice fishing spots and are close to major roads. The baitfish prohibition would undergo a formal regulatory process if pursued by DEC.
Updating the management plan
The new management plan once final will replace a 1979 brook trout plan that has shaped the agency’s approach for nearly 45 years.
DEC in 2020 released a new trout stream management plan and had proposed limiting the number of large ponded brook trout anglers could take on a trip. In response to blowback, the state tabled any changes to fishing regulations in brook trout ponds and prioritized work on a new management plan specific to those populations.
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Around 75 anglers turned out to each of two information sessions the fisheries staff hosted the past two weekends in Old Forge and Warrensburg. DEC scheduled a third session to be conducted online on March 28 from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. During the presentations, Hurst, alongside fisheries biologists and managers, outlined their new strategy and answered questions.
Anglers appeared largely supportive of proposals but called for more work to “reclaim” ponds by killing off unwanted fish species that harm trout populations.
Bringing anglers in to the conversations
The state hopes to enlist some of those anglers in a new citizen science effort to assess the fisheries of numerous lakes that could sustain brook trout but haven’t been surveyed by state biologists in decades.
The fisheries staff is seeking around 20 volunteers to work on a new team that will assign anglers to determine whether or not brook trout are present in remote waterbodies and collect water samples.
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“These [anglers] are very interested in the data and science,” said Jackie Lendrum, director of the DEC division of fish and wildlife. “It’s not about trophy fish, it’s about healthy ecosystems. If we aren’t careful, we will lose it.”
The new plan will also focus on spreading genetic diversity throughout the park and girding the brook trout population against the threats of climate change, which scientists say will squeeze cold-water fish habitat by warming surface waters and depleting oxygen in deeper waters.
Jim Daley, head of the DEC’s fish hatchery program, said the department plans to raise more native brook trout strains for stocking in ponds where they hope to restore trout populations.
Balancing angling and ecology
The department also wants to establish its own stock of the brook trout species suited to hatchery conditions and widely used in the state’s stocking program. The state now relies on a private hatchery for about 350,000 trout eggs per year. That’s too many eggs in one hatchery, according to officials.
Genetic analysis in recent years has demonstrated the complexity of brook trout strains in the Adirondacks, with some strains in peril while others demonstrating more diversity than previously understood. The new plan calls for continuing to study brook trout genetics, including ongoing research into what strains will be most resilient in the face of climate change.
“So we are not spreading out the same strain of fish all over the Adirondacks, we would like to retain more of that diversity,” Daley said.
The state has identified 398 publicly-accessible brook trout ponds in the Adirondacks: 84 sustain wild populations, 51 are stocked with heritage strains, 250 are stocked with a hatchery strain. Also, in 13 fisheries, managers have put stocking on hold to examine whether they can sustain themselves.
The new plan will continue the brook trout season from April 1 to Oct. 15 and retain a rule allowing anglers to keep up to five brook trout of any size.
Some anglers at the Warrensburg meeting urged less stocking in remote backcountry ponds, so that fish already there would face less competition and more likely reach a larger size. Others asked if the state could increase the numbers of lakes reclaimed each year, but DEC staff said they are limited by time and resources to maybe one reclamation a year.
Ponds are reclaimed by killing off the current fish population before restoring them with brook trout that will hopefully establish a self-sustaining community free of other harmful species.
Frank Shaw has fished for Adirondack brook trout for around 30 years, visiting his 100th trout pond last year. He said he has attempted to adopt an angling style less stressful to the fish, using a fly rod on lakes and releasing most everything he catches.
“I like the direction they are headed in, it’s a precious resource,” said Shaw, who lives in Chestertown. “Brook trout ponds are the Adirondacks. It’s part of the fabric of our region and goes back to the last ice age.”
Top photo: Around 75 anglers turned out for an information session on the state’s new strategy to manage Adirondack brook trout.
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Well written article Zachary… very interesting.
I told Jim Odato in a previous article on Mercury in our fisheries in the northeast about my experiences in native Brook Trout fishing in the high elevation watersheds of the Green Mountains in central Vermont in Addison County since 1957. This year has been wone of the best in some time. I believe that is do to the high volume of water from last summer downpours creating more oxygen and great spawning conditions last fall. This year theirs an abundance of brookies in the 3 to 5 inch range, a good percentage in the 6 to 8 inch range. I never keep any fish over 8 inches and fish primarily with earth worms with a barbless hook. Theirs a science in handling these wild trout so they will survive as I have learned in my 67 years of fishing these very delicate fish.
The best native Brook Trout fishing that I ever observed and partook in was from 1975 to 1990 after extensive clear-cutting in many of these watersheds as it created greater volumes of water and a higher density of insects. I never realized this until I meet and talked with Mariko Yamasaki research specialist and coauthor of New England Wildlife.