Please attend this important Public Hearing on Wednesday March 12th, 2008

When trying to improve our wild trout resources in the area and state we live in, there will perhaps be no more important meeting to attend and show your support for than the Winooski spawning tributary closure meeting at the Waterbury Complex in the Skylight Conference Room of the Agency of Natural Resources, at 6:00 p.m. on March 12th.

You may be asking yourself, "what makes this meeting any more important than the rest of the "yawners" I've been to in the past? After-all, nothing ever gets done in Vermont to protect wild trout..." Well, most of us would not argue with the latter point, our state does not have a very good track record of protecting our wild trout populations; high limits, lack of "effective" special regulation stretches, little funding for habitat projects, exploitation of vulnerable spawning trout in small, exploitable waters. But wait, to be fair doesn't Vermont protect a number of spawning areas for rainbows on the Black and Willoughby rivers to the north? And don't they have some protected spawning waters to the south on the White river? And isn't one of the recommendations for the recovery of our famous Battenkill to have one of it's major spawning tributaries closed in the fall? The answers to all three of those questions is actually YES! In most cases, it's a matter of learning from our mistakes and recognizing the importance of these particular resources that gets regulations protecting spawning runs in vulnerable smaller waters. But here's the "catch"....our most utilized trout stream in Vermont does not get the protection for it's wild rainbow populations during the important spawning period of opening day thru May. The Winooski below Bolton Dam is the most fished piece of trout water in the state. And it's rainbow population is all WILD, thats right, no stocking of rainbows since 1991. The best way to ensure a stable baseline population of wild trout is to ensure you have a stable baseline of spawning adult trout. For many years folks have been catching and removing these rainbows from small tributaries of the Winooski, and 20-30 years ago (and prior to 1961, Vermont's opening day was May 1, which helped protect a sizable portion of the spawning adults during spawning), with the lack of fishing pressure and angler interest in fishing for wild, stream-born trout, this removal of a portion of the adult spawning trout population may not have seemed a big deal to the fishery and the angler. The problem is, times have indeed changed; Vermont has obviously had a large population increase in 30+years, mostly in nearby Chittenden County, and we as anglers have seen the the incredible increase in the types of gear that makes catching fish easier...various egg patterns, fluorocarbon, spiderwire, ultra-light spinning gear, more sensitive rods of all types,books and magazine articles and other educational tools, the list goes on. All of this makes a spawning trout have to dodge a number of bullets to spawn successfully before getting caught and removed. According to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Departments own electro-shocking information, populations of YOY (young of the year), and yearling trout in the Winooski Tributaries have dropped anywhere from 30-70% since 1998. We know that factors like drought, floods and governments doing shoddy dam repairs (ahem Waterbury reservoir!) all can effect trout populations in the Winooski, but those are things we can't control folks. What we can control, is how much protection we can give our wild trout populations by limiting our impact on them while they're spawning. Floods and droughts aside (remember we can't really control those), a higher number of successful spawning adults drops more eggs and potentially produces more YOY, and if they make it to the yearling stage, a wild trout is in a much better position to survive to adulthood, and then complete the cycle and spawn again. There is an overabundance of "adult" trout habitat in the Winooski below Bolton Dam, but many times an area will be devoid of any rainbows or only have a 1-2 yearlings and two year olds (7-10") in a rather large stretch of water. Wouldn't it be nice to have a few more wild bows potentially in the 10-20" category in the main-stem? Wouldn't it be a comforting feeling as sportsmen and women to know that despite that big flood or bad summer drought we could look at those tributaries and think "well mother nature is operating at her natural potential, none of us took out the adults this spring, so all those fish left are real survivors and their numbers are as high as mother nature provided". Please attend the public input meeting on this proposal to close Ridley, Joiner, Preston and Pinneo brooks in their rainbow spawning reaches until 5/31 to all types of fishing, it'll be the single best thing you could do protect and potentially add to the wild rainbow trout population on the lower Winooski!!!

For more details, read on...

Posted on behalf of the Mad Dog Chapter of Trout Unlimited.