Restoring Deep Brook & Pootatuck Fisheries

• Over the past couple of years, there has been increased concern about the health and well-being of Newtown's irreplaceable Class 1 Wild Trout Management Area at the confluence of Deep Brook and the Pootatuck River below Commerce Park. The need to preserve this resource has spurred a two-part restoration and monitoring program that is now well underway.
• Phase One completed this past weekend was the reshaping and stabilization of two sections of stream bank to restore habitat and prevent erosion. Volunteers planted between 70 to 100 trees for shade. Coconut fiber mesh as stapled into the sloping banks to curtail erosion. Phase Two will be a two year macro-invertebrate study of stream life.
• The Pootatuck River, which is one of eight such areas in the state where trout breed naturally. The Pootatuck River contains native brook trout, wild brown trout, rainbow trout, blacknose dace, common shiners, tessellated darters, and white suckers.
• Although the state stocks the Pootatuck River with adult brook, brown, and rainbow trout, the state has stopped its river stocking in the section of the river near the development site because trout reproduce naturally there. That one-mile-long river reach, lying both north and south of Deep Brook's confluence with the Pootatuck River, supports an abundant, wild, self-sustaining trout population, which provides high quality wild trout fishing. Fishing is allowed year-round. Anglers are required to release their catch.