Yet another 90,000 trout to be euthanized....

[acabtp]

will there be any fall or winter stockings this year or are those fish all gone too?

[SaltLife1980]

Sucks big time.. Hope it does not affect the fall stocking

[Michael82929]

Too early to tell about the fall.

I would have to think it will have some impact...

You would have to think they need to give the 2.5 yr old fish (16 - 18 inch trout) time to mature to the 4 yr old (4 - 10 pds) size and allot a portion of the one yr old fish time to get to 2.5 yrs old.

One yr old fish is 10-11 inches / 1/2 pd. Once I hear something Ill let you know

[Tightlines74]

This is terrible, hopefully they come up with a long term solution so future generations like my 14 year old can enjoy trout fishing in the future as we have in the past

[EJS]

Originally Posted by acabtp

will there be any fall or winter stockings this year or are those fish all gone too?

My best guess is the Fall 2014 stocking will be cancelled. I will verify tonight/tomorrow for sure. I was told the 90,000+ rainbows that were sent to fish heaven were being held for fall stocking, pending the outcome of the latest round of treatment.

Holding out hope for a NJ fall stocking is only going to be a huge let down. The hatchery needs to empty the concrete raceways and decontaminate. They also need to put a roof over head.

[NJ Dave]

If this disease was from birds dont you think this disease already exists in the wild?
I'm sure there are diseased trout in the river from nature and i doubt all the fish that were spring stocked were all disease free.
NJ always had a great stream trout fishery but I see that comming to an end for a few years until the state gets a hand on this problem.

[Doug Vitale]

In light of all the bad news this year with the State's stocking program, and the possibility of cancelled/reduced stockings in the coming years, I think it's time that the NJDF&W looked into the possibility of acquiring trout from other states' hatcheries, such as PA and NY. I am sure that most trout NJ fishermen would be willing to accept a temporary increase in the price of trout stamps to cover the cost of purchasing out-of-state trout to be stocked in our streams.

[Tightlines74]

Originally Posted by Doug Vitale

In light of all the bad news this year with the State's stocking program, and the possibility of cancelled/reduced stockings in the coming years, I think it's time that the NJDF&W looked into the possibility of acquiring trout from other states' hatcheries, such as PA and NY. I am sure that most trout NJ fishermen would be willing to accept a temporary increase in the price of trout stamps to cover the cost of purchasing out-of-state trout to be stocked in our streams.

I would be more the willing to drop more cash on trout stamps every year if that means a permanent solution is found, even purchase stamps for other species as someone else here mentioned to help with the cost. Acquiring from PA or NY is a decent short term answer but what if those states have issues as NJ has this year?

[acabtp]

this late in the year, i doubt that any other state has many surplus stocker sized trout ready to go; we would have had to put our order in a year ago.

it seems to me that the biggest factor in this problem is our "all the eggs in one basket" approach to rearing the brook, brown and rainbow trout at the pequest hatchery and only at the pequest hatchery.

by comparison, vermont (the other state where i do a lot of trout fishing) also stocks a similar amount of fish to NJ: 600,000 yearling trout and salmon and 15,000 2+ year old trophy trout every year. but they do it with five coldwater fish culture stations instead of just one. this is for a state with a population fifteen times smaller than new jersey (so much much less money from taxes to do it with). they don't do trout stamps up there either, it's included with your license.

if NJ had a second coldwater hatchery, it bears to reason that this furunculosis outbreak at pequest would have had much less of an impact than it did where our one and only trout production center basically lost everything.

i don't blame anybody at pequest, i am sure they were working as hard as they could to make sure this didn't happen. this kind of things just happens when you are raising a lot of animals in high density conditions. nobody notices when a barn full of chickens gets sick and dies because there are so many other barns full of chickens. but when our one and only trout hatchery gets wiped out... well, we are noticing.

[Michael82929]

Originally Posted by EJS

My best guess is the Fall 2014 stocking will be cancelled. I will verify tonight/tomorrow for sure. I was told the 90,000+ rainbows that were sent to fish heaven were being held for fall stocking, pending the outcome of the latest round of treatment.

Holding out hope for a NJ fall stocking is only going to be a huge let down. The hatchery needs to empty the concrete raceways and decontaminate. They also need to put a roof over head.

That information is not correct. As for the fall, they have no real idea. Week by week is hard enough to keep contained.

a - Rainbow trout are resistant to Furunculosis therefore you see an uptick in production in the future. The fish that have been destroyed have been brown and brook trout.

b - I doubt you will see a roof go over the raceways, too expensive and if by chance it breaks you will have bigger problems with the trout that sit underneath it.