Anglers trolling stocking trucks...

[rrich]

As a member of TU, our club along with some school children, as a school project did  help the DEC float stock a local trout stream. What was incredible was that the spots we stocked would be filled with adults even before we got there on the exact day of the scheduled releases. And of course, the guys would catch there limits. They also offered to dump some fish in front of themselves to help the stocking effort! NO LIE!
I suggest the NYSDEC use the rule that used to be in effect in New Jersey,and still may be,  where a stream is closed two weeks prior to the opening day of trout season. Closing the streams in NY for two weeks in late March is not a big sacrifice!Always  catch and release!

[Dark Cloud]

rrich - Here in NY most of our streams close in oct or nov(cant recall). Most are stocked in the end of march for the april 1st opener. The inseason stocking are the ones where ya get hoards of people following the truck. NYS started a program a few years ago to up the quality of these fish. They keep a percentage for another years that they stock as two year olds. These fish are real nice and run 12-16 inches. Whereas most fish are stocked as yearlings and run 8-10 inches. I really wish they would put some of those two year old in preseason so they could acclimate, spread out, and smarten up....
This whole stocking program is meant to be a put and take fishery...

[rrich]

Dard Cloud, I agree with your comments. My remarks referred to a NY  stream that has no closed season and the stocking is done in late March ; stocking two year old fish as well as the yearlings. Aditionally, we helped to stock after April.
Regardless of when we stocked, there were guys there to catch the fish as soon as they hit the water!One reason they changed the regulation on creel limit and fish size  is to allow more people to maybe catch a bigger fish.

[Dark Cloud]

rrich - Are you from the southern tier? I know of a couple streams that are open year round west of here(endicott).

[waterdawg14622]

Theyve had good Luck stocking from the barges....They take the fish offshore in deep water and stock them.  I worked for the DEC doing the creel census and there was a good indication that barge stocked fish did well by the number of fin-clip fish that were harvested by anglers in years to follow.(If I can remember correctly it was the left ventral and adipose fins on browns)    There were less predators out in the deep water at that time of year.  For example, alot of Charter Captains that fished walleye in Oswego Harbor were finding stockers in the bellies of these walleye.   Also, Cormorants were feasting on them as  well as the casual fisherman.

[rrich]

rrich - Are you from the southern tier? I know of a couple streams that are open year round west of here(endicott).

Dark Cloud, No I am from Irondequoit on Lake Ontario nxt to Rochester.

[missfishylicious]

Yeah darkcloud he's from irondiquoit you don't know anything   


it's to bad about the cormorants but they did kill quite a few last year to help aleiviate the problem in lake ontario.unfortionatley the birds do eat a lot of fish.there is a lake up in the adirondacks were the state stocked some 2 year old brookies we went up and caught them two at a time on fly rods for a few weeks (catch and release by choice ).what i'm getting at is you could find the school of trout by looking for the loons. these were 12" fish and the loons were snacking on them daily ,till they finally spread out, or were all eaten. who knows for sure.