Longstanding practice aims to restore brook trout
By Zachary Matson
The fish beneath the ice covering Echo Pond near Fish Creek Pond Campground may have one last summer before everything changes.
State fisheries managers plan to reclaim the 16-acre pond in October, using the fish-killing chemical rotenone to kill the lake’s inhabitants – dominated by brown bullhead – in order to make way for a revival of stocked brook trout.
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Pond reclamation, as it’s called, is a fishery management strategy to clear water bodies of invasive or otherwise undesirable fish outcompeting native brook trout. Used in the Adirondacks for decades, the pace of reclamations has slowed in recent years, with officials splitting fisheries staff between reclamations and invasive lamprey control in the fall.
“Reclamation is the last tool in our toolbox,” said Rob Fiorentino, fisheries manager for DEC Region 5. “It’s a reset button.”
What’s being planned
The agency is seeking an Adirondack Park Agency permit to carry out the reclamation in October, after the campground has closed and the pond has mixed into more consistent temperatures. APA is accepting public comments on the DEC proposal until Feb. 27.
The proposal calls for using nearly 1,200 pounds of powdered rotenone to maintain concentrations of 1.5 parts per billion throughout the pond, a lethal dose designed to kill off all the fish in the lake. The following fall, DEC will stock the pond with around 500 fall fingerling brook trout, returning for at least the next few years to do the same. After three or four years of stocking the pond, fisheries managers will assess whether the new brook trout are reproducing, a sign they can phase out stocking. The goal of managers, as outlined in a draft new brook trout management plan, is to establish brook trout ponds that can sustain themselves without annual stocking.
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A second time for Echo Pond
Rotenone has been used to reclaim Adirondack ponds since the 1950s, and Echo Pond was reclaimed in 1998 after anglers reported catching largemouth bass and noted a decline in brook trout. But that previous reclamation was undone within two decades. A 2019 survey turned up 26 brown bullheads, a catfish-like species native to the region but new to Echo Pond.
The unwanted bullheads at Echo Pond were likely introduced as baitfish brought in by anglers, Fiorentino said. Baitfish is prohibited at the pond and many others across the park, but officials hope to improve compliance with baitfish restrictions by streamlining prohibitions in its proposed management plan.
Related reading: DEC mulls baitfish restrictions to protect brook trout habitat
Subsequent surveys documented declining growth rates and catch rates of brook trout, leading managers to eye the pond as a good candidate for reclamation.
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Echo Pond makes for a relatively simple reclamation site. It’s small and as a seepage pond without an inlet or outlet stream, there is limited access for fish from outside the pond to recolonize it. Ponds with large wetlands are poor candidates for reclamation.
“The vast majority of waters in the Adirondacks are not capable of being reclaimed,” Fiorentino said.
Past efforts in other Adirondack waters
Fisheries managers reclaimed Rhododendron Pond near Keene in 2023 and Murphy Lake in Hamilton County in 2023. Fiorentino said the agency is also exploring a reclamation project at Little Green Pond near the Adirondack Fish Hatchery. If that pond is reset, Fiorentino said, managers hope to restock it to use as a broodstock for brook trout and round whitefish raised in the nearby hatchery.
Fiorentino said some anglers, especially the “diehards,” pay close attention to what ponds are reclaimed. The reclaimed ponds certainly don’t make good fishing the following year, before brook trout are restocked. But in three or four years, after the latest pioneers of a newly-emptied lake have had a chance to grow unimpeded by competition, the ponds typically house some trophy specimens.
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“They can produce some really good fish,” Fiorentino said.
You call it a pond and a lake, which is it? My guess is a pond.
Bullhead being carried in as a baitfish? Is that even a thing?
It is assumed some anglers “trap” their own bait elsewhere, then end up dumping them in the pond before leaving. Almost any form of aquatic life can be introduced this way. Tackle-shop bait is likely more select. But fish-eating birds have been implicated as well.
I know plenty of anglers and haven’t seen anyone trapping their bait in years. Back when it was a thing folks would just keep the shiners and minnows. Birds are a more likely culprit.
I agree.
And to others, any fish under a couple inches is a “minnow” and don’t pay that much attention to species. While most retail sales of live bait is “scrutinized” fairly well, but doesn’t mean it is perfect.
WRT birds, we know bullheads are notoriously hard to kill. A heron or duck that eats one (or several) small bullhead has ingested a wriggling irritant with stiff spines on its pectorals. The crop should crush them eventually, but if the bird flies off rather quickly and regurgitates the “irritant” over another body of water or at its nest, it can certainly explain transport to “wild” waters.
I never heard of anyone using bullheads as bait fish
Just a thought, Any way of harvesting the bullhead and using them to feed people? Killing them off seems like a waste of a great tasting fish.
Fishing, netting, electro-shocking, etc. are all methods of “harvesting” bullheads or any fish. Problem is, they are not particularly selective and they can not remove them entirely from the water body. And increased harvesting of fish will also effect the species we are trying to help by collateral injury/mortality.
FYI – Little Green Pond was reclaimed in 1991. Here’s the report from our newsletter…
On August 22, 1991 several people were arrested for riding inflatable toy whales and alligators in Little Green Pond (adjacent to the fish hatchery at Little Clear Pond) in an attempt to prevent DEC from poisoning the lake with Rotenone. EnCon proceeded to “reclaim” the lake 2 days later. Perch had been accidentally introduced into Little Green Pond and threatened to damage the landlocked salmon population in both Little Green and Little Clear Ponds.
Rotenone is an organic poison occurring in the derris root. It is more toxic to humans when inhaled than when ingested. Symptoms of poisoning include numbness of oral mucosa, nausea, muscle tremors, rapid breathing, convulsions and death due to respiratory paralysis.
Rotenone is used as an insecticide, but in EnCon’s hands it is used to kill all gill-breathing animals. This includes fish, crayfish, and insect larvae. After the pond is sterilized, it is restocked with desirable fish species. There is no good research available that tells how this type of pond “reclamation” affects the rest of the ecosystem. For instance, what happens to the birds that eat or feed their young poisoned fish? What happens to every animal that depends on the fish in a lake for its food when the fish are removed?