The case against hatchery trout in the Upper East Branch.

 The New York State hatchery system has come a long way in improving the trout they stock. Fifty years ago when the limit statewide was ten fish a day and everybody's goal was to keep ten, the state stocked hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of battleship gray yearling trout between 6 and 8 inches long. They were the prey and everything and everybody caught and ate them.

Two major improvements to the hatchery trout stocking program came with the decisions to keep some of the trout in the hatcheries for two years and to add something to their diet to enhance  the color of their skin. The first efforts at holding fish for two years produced fish about 12 inches long. Since that time the size of the released hatchery fish has grown to about 15 inches.

The stocking of the larger, well colored hatchery fish into streams that do not support a wild trout population gives anglers a chance to fish for big heavy trout that are, initially anyway, very easy to catch.  It results in a lot of happy anglers and sells more licenses.

When you stock the same fish in a stream with a viable wild trout population, however, disaster occurs. The Upper East Branch has been stocked for years. The two year old wild trout in the UEB are about 10 inches long and are no match for the15 inch long hatchery trout. The wild yearling trout at 7 inches are a meal for the 15 inch hatchery fish. 

I have fished a riff/run/pool on the UEB for many years.  Yearling wild trout were always abundant, there was also a mix of older wild trout with 18 inch fish always present. One of the places where hatchery fish were dumped into the UEB was this pool.  Two and three years ago an unusually large number of the 15 inch fish were stocked there and they have survived. Fished it last year and caught six large hatchery fish all 16 to 19 inches long. They have become hard to fool and are tough to catch. This year I fished it again with almost the same results (hooked 6 but lost one). Both last year and this year the only fish I saw in the entire area were the hatchery fish.  Never saw a single wild fish. The large hatchery fish have either eaten or driven out the wild trout. The UEB is no longer being stocked but brown trout can live a long time.  If wild trout are to make a rapid comeback in this pool and others where the big hatchery fish have established dominance perhaps the DEC should consider relocating the hatchery fish to streams where there are no wild trout. Or, anglers might consider taking one home for dinner. You'll know when you hook one, they fight like a heavy woolen hunting sock full of water.   

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