Readying a Spring Rite: Time to Stock Streams (Litchfield County Times )

• Close to 2,000 trout found a new home in the East Aspetuck River where New Milford meets New Preston Tuesday, as the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) continued to prepare for the April 21 opening of fishing season, by which time the DEP will have stocked 400,000 trout throughout the state.
• "There's a stocking run today," confirmed fisheries' biologist Mike Humphries early Tuesday as he prepared to leave his office in Litchfield to stock the stream that ultimately joins the Housatonic River. On Monday, Mr. Humphries stocked the Morrisey Brook in Sherman, with Candlewood Lake scheduled for stocking next week. In New Milford, the stocking runs will also move along the Housatonic River, with the southernmost point to be stocked in Gaylordsville.
• "I could give you the number of trout," said Mr. Humphries, putting the precise number of brook, brown and rainbow trout arriving by hatchery truck at the East Aspetuck River from Burlington, where many of the inland fish are grown, at 1,950. "Most of them are approaching two years old," he said, noting that the group includes 30 large fish, some of which weigh as much as five to six pounds.
• "Candlewood Lake receives a lot of fish. Candlewood has different runs," he said, noting that the first two truckloads of fish will arrive there April 10.
• The adult fish the DEP grows for the state's anglers cost $2.50 each to produce, but the small fry-younger fish whose production takes much less time and hatchery space-cost, according to Mr. Humphries, on the order of pennies, about 4 cents each.
• "There's a big difference in the cost of raising the fish to adulthood," he said. "If we can get even a small percentage of four-cent fish to adult size-brightly colored, pink fish-we can produce a high quality product."
• Toward that end, Mr. Humphries dedicates much of his year to the DEP's wild trout management program, scouring the state's streams for areas where certain types of fish will grow.
• "My main project is the new wild trout management program," he said, noting that two crews have sampled every stream in the state. "We identified our best wild trout population," he said, adding that, in the northwestern part of the state there are still species, such as the wild brown trout that originated in Europe, that are reproducing. He and other biologists identified 35 streams throughout the state with public access where the fish will reproduce.
• "They're more desirable," he said of the populations he tracks, noting that the so-called "wild" fish have a brighter color that comes from eating a solid diet of fish and insects. He said some people actually think the fish, which have firmer flesh, taste better, and that he puts himself among them.
• "My project has been to assess these populations," he said, noting that, for his sampler program, he uses electrofishing backpacks with battery-powered transformers that release a current into the water. That, he said, knocks the fish out so that he can count them and return them to the water. He also surveys fishermen.
• Among the areas where is he tracking the "wild" trout is the East Aspetuck River, where, he noted, the stream has "pretty good" water. The run on Tuesday stocked the stream with adult-sized fish, but the waters there receive brown trout that are fry as well. "Those fish will grow for a year or two before people find them desirable," he said.
• "It depends on the weather," he said of the time the smaller fish will go in. "Sometimes in the next two weeks."
• "If we can find streams where little fish grow that's a bonus for us. We don't have to take care of them for two years. When I stock fry there I'm trying to target areas where these fish will grow," he said, noting that, although cold temperatures do not disturb the fish, he is looking for good physical structure, natural cover, pools and public access. "Once these fish do grow, they're enough areas along the stream where people can enjoy fishing."
• Stocking begins in the winter, when Mr. Humphries said six ponds receive large fish from a state hatchery. "Once the large brook stock are spawned, a lot of the larger fish are very desirable for fishermen. "In the wintertime, it doesn't make sense to put them in rivers. They're all iced up. They're put in some of the larger ponds," he said.
• Stocking peaks preseason, with runs to replenish the fish continuing through June.
• A native of Sherman, Mr. Humphries said he has fished all his life, with his largest catch a brown trout 22 inches in length. He declined to say where he caught it, putting the location only within a 10-mile radius of New Milford.