Fishing troubled waters

By Matt Crawford

April 13, 2008
Two years ago in Tenney Brook, a tiny brook trout stream that flows toward Rutland after spilling out of the mountains in central Vermont, state fisheries biologists discovered something unexpected.

Whirling disease.

Caused by a microscopic parasite, whirling disease is named for the characteristic swimming behavior that results as the parasite multiplies in the head and spinal cartilage of infected fish.

Found in the famous southwestern Vermont river the Battenkill in 2002, there's really but one plausible explanation how deadly whirling disease came to infect a small, often-overlooked stream: human beings.

"It's this narrow little stream with brook trout in it that doesn't get a whole lot of fishing pressure," said Shawn Good, a fisheries biologist with Vermont Fish and Wildlife. "About the only way whirling disease could get there was if somebody had boots on that were harboring whirling disease spores. Maybe they had fished in the Battenkill that day and then stopped over to Tenney Brook. That's how this stuff is spread."

Good, a fisherman himself, said he hopes the thousands of Vermont trout anglers who headed out on Saturday, the opening day of the 2008 trout season, heeded the message found in the dire tale of Tenney Brook.

"It's an example of how we all have to change the way we do things, " Good said.

Going trout fishing used to seem so simple. A rod, some hooks and sinkers, a pair of boots and a dozen worms. But in the last few years, the role anglers play in the fight against invasive aquatic species like whirling disease, Eurasian milfoil and alewives has come into sharper focus.

This year, with more invasive species on the radar and the threat of viral hemorrhagic septicemia, a fish-killing virus that's hit the Great Lakes perhaps coming to Lake Champlain, too, simply going fishing requires increased vigilance.

"It's better understood that everything we do could have an impact," said Good.

That point was hammered home last summer when didymo, also called "rock snot," was discovered in the upper Connecticut River. Didymo is a freshwater alga that moves from river to river on the clothing and equipment of people who come in contact with even microscopic quantities. It's nasty stuff that threatens to alter the aquatic environment of every waterbody it infects.

"It's a function of the fact that the world has changed so dramatically," said Joe Starinchak, who serves as the Washington, D.C.-based outreach coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's invasive species office.

"Everything we do creates an impact whether that's flipping on a light in your house, taking a prescription medication or going fishing. We're lucky to live in a country with an incredibly high quality of life, a place where you go fishing with your friends and family on a Saturday. But that lifestyle comes at remarkably high cost."

Vermonters tend to pride themselves in their environmental ethic, and anglers are starting to realize they're on the front lines of the fight against invasive species.

"One thing we've noticed is that there's a real interest in new wading shoes made up of materials that don't absorb and hold water like felt-soled boots do," said Roger Ranz, owner of the Classic Outfitters tackle shop in South Burlington. "People seem a little more concerned."

It's that same sort of concern that pushed Vermont into banning the sale and use of small lead sinkers. Although they work wonders for fishing, the sinkers have been implicated in lead poisoning of common loons.

Starinchak said for the most part anglers have a pretty decent grasp of the dangers aquatic invasive species pose and are willing to stop the spread of organisms that could destroy fishing and recreation opportunities.

"Changing individual behavior is part of the solution," Starinchak said. "It's not the only answer but it's a step in the right direction."

Contact Matt Crawford at mattoutdoors@comcast.net