Connecticut Hatcheries in the Crosshairs

Editor's note: Time and time again, Connecticut's state fish hatcheries have been threatened with ill-advised cuts or closures. It's time for anglers to stand up and fight once more. The following letter, written by Aaron Swanson, a good friend and field editor for The Fisherman, explains why we should reach out to Governor Lamont and our state legislators to put a stop to the latest plan to cut hatchery funding. 

Governor Lamont’s proposed FY 2026-2027 Biennial Budget includes a $500,000 cut to state fish hatcheries. This cut, while it may seem small, will ultimately do more harm than good to Connecticut residents, small businesses and executive branch agency staff. Connecticut’s fish hatcheries provide its residents with a reason to get outside and take advantage of a range of diverse angling opportunities. These fishing trips in turn drive positive economic impacts across a variety of businesses. Please join me in urging the governor and his staff to reconsider, the trout stocking program is worth a lot more to the businesses and residents of Connecticut than saving $500K in their yearly budget.

Here are some bullet points…

Cutting hatchery funding sends a negative message to anglers and undercuts trust in executive branch agency staff.

For better or worse, many anglers do not believe their license fees and trout stamp funds are returned directly to fisheries resources here in Connecticut. Despite DEEP’s clear communications that 100% of these dollars are used for their programs, many anglers remain skeptical of this claim. While money from fishing licenses and trout stamps may not be tied directly to the funds that are being cut, the message these cuts send to the folks who are skeptical of how these funds are programmed is clear. Cuts to the hatchery budget will be interpreted as vindication that the state and DEEP mislead anglers about how money generated from licensing – and more importantly, trout and salmon stamps – is used. This, in turn, breeds mistrust in messaging shared by our hard-working executive branch agency staff who often work directly with anglers, advocacy groups and sporting associations. In short, cuts to hatchery funding hurt fisheries staff.

Our state hatcheries and fisheries staff provide opportunities to anglers and get people outdoors year-round.

Our state fish hatcheries provide Connecticut residents with plentiful and diverse reasons to get outside. Examples of the wide variety these opportunities include everything from the survivor program that stocks big healthy trout into the Farmington River, to expanded urban fishing areas giving residents, especially children, opportunities to fish for trout where they live. Fisheries staff have used our state hatcheries to provide unique opportunities to residents regardless of the season. For example, this year we had a cold winter that froze many of our lakes and ponds. Fisheries staff recognized this as an opportunity to provide enhanced ice fishing options to anglers. They stocked 10,000 brook trout into lakes and ponds across the state giving anglers even more incentive to get out and fish.

Connecticut hatcheries are unique and create fisheries not available in other places that are an economic driver for small businesses. 

Connecticut state fish hatcheries are unique and part of the diverse environmental culture that sets Connecticut apart from other states. These unique opportunities that our hatcheries provide, directly affect small businesses. Connecticut’s hatcheries are some of the oldest in the nation and produce species of trout and salmon that other states do not. Specifically, Connecticut hatcheries produce a strain of fast-growing, beautiful brown trout known as the Seeforellen strain. These fish are popular among anglers. Talk to any Connecticut tackle shop that’s open year-round and they will tell you that there is a corresponding spike in sales that comes right after DEEP posts Seeforellen stocking updates online.

Eliminating funding to our hatcheries will ultimately lead to the loss of programs that drive economic benefit, and not just to tackle shops. The upper West Branch of the Farmington River is a well known blue-ribbon trout stream and destination for anglers not just from Connecticut but across the region. If you need proof, just take a ride along the river – any time of year – and you’ll see vehicles tucked into pull-offs along the way with plates from all over the Northeast, who have come to experience this top-tier river fishing experience. This fishery relies on our hatcheries to bring out-of-state tourism revenue into Connecticut. Cuts to hatchery funding could negatively impact this resource that drives positive economic impact to a diverse group of businesses.

I often encounter DEEP fisheries staff conducting “creel surveys” at various locations across the state. Part of the survey questionnaire includes a question about how much I spent on the day’s trip. My answer is always the same – $100. That answer is truthful, if not overly conservative when I take into account food, gas, gear, bait and more. Loss of hatchery funding leads to less diverse fishing opportunities, which ultimately, may lead to fewer fishing trips and less money spent at businesses along the way.

Contact Info for Governor Ned Lamont

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Seefer Madness (revisted)

January 2023...

Once in a while I find myself revisiting old posts buried in this blog. I thought this one, even eight years later, still rings true. 

Connecticut's current state record brown trout was caught about two weeks before I originally wrote this and it was certified shortly after. It was 33-inches long and weighed 19-pounds, taken from West Hill Pond just days after it was stocked from Kensington Hatchery. Not more than four months later, another beast, likely even heavier, was caught on a spinnerbait in Highland Lake, but the bass angler released the trout without pursuing the record.

I am still in firm belief that CT DEEP should not have stocked fish of record size without creating a way to recognize them for what they are. I would have liked these fish tagged or fin-clipped and, if and when they were caught and broke the record, placed in a subcategory under the state record brown trout listing.

It is highly doubtful any of those 400 monster seeforellens from the December 2014 stocking are still roaming today. Unless CT DEEP stocks more record-size brown trout, the next one to break the current Connecticut record will have to surpass 19-pounds by having spent some real time in a lake, feeding on something other than hatchery pellets. I hope I live long enough to see that day happen...

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January 2015...

Up until a few weeks ago, “seeforellen” was a rather unfamiliar term in Connecticut, spoken only within pockets of ardent trout anglers and inland fisheries staff. Now, after a series of recent trout stockings and a little public relations, it has become a household name overnight, one that even carries a bit of controversy along with it. 

In the month of December, CT DEEP stocked over 400 surplus broodstock seeforellen brown trout in eight lakes throughout the Nutmeg State. These five-year-old fish were born and raised in Kensington Hatchery and averaged 15-pounds, with some well over the mind-boggling 20-pound mark. This created an unprecedented and incredible opportunity for Connecticut anglers, but it also sparked much debate due to the fact that several brown trout surpassing the current state record were released.

Reared in our hatchery system since 1992, seeforellens have a storied history in Connecticut. In a recent radio interview, Tim Barry, the supervising cold water fisheries biologist for CT DEEP, shed a little light on why these fish are so unique. “We are the only state in New England to have this strain of brown trout,” Barry said. “It’s originally a lake-dwelling strain that comes from Germany, and it’s known to be a late-maturing fish and because of that fact they tend to grow very large and live quite a long time, usually longer and bigger than most other strains of brown trout. We use them in a variety of different applications, but primarily in our lakes to try and promote holdover brown trout and bigger brown trout.”

One of the over 400 recently stocked broodstock seeforellen (photo courtesy of CT DEEP)

Since the early 90’s, countless seeforellens have been stocked in Connecticut waters in all different sizes from fry to adults, but releasing broodstock this large is not common protocol. According to a CT DEEP FAQ, “normally, these fish would be stocked at age two or age three, however, due to an issue with a disease several years ago, the hatchery staff needed to retain a large number of the disease–free fish to restart the strain. Now several years later they are much larger than we need or can handle. At this size, they are too large to be kept at the hatchery and are past their prime (their productivity is decreasing). In order to make room for the younger, more productive broodstock, we decided to make the most of these fish by giving a once in a lifetime opportunity to our angling community.”

Before I go any further, let me be clear in stating that I commend CT DEEP for providing us with yet another unique and entertaining angling opportunity. I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t be a blast hooking into one of these things, especially on a jigging rod through the ice. And if a youngster connects with a 15-pound anything, let alone a beautiful brown trout, forget about it, they will be hooked for life. However, hindsight is 20/20 and I think a few things could have been done differently in this whole process.

First, I believe the real-time promotion of the stockings via social media was a mistake. This allowed anglers to be at the precise stocking sites literally within minutes after the seeforellens were released. I get it; these fish were meant to be caught—it’s great publicity, especially in a day and age with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But with trout still milling around at the boat launches, there were cases of anglers throwing rocks to break ice to get at them and, much worse, there were multiple reports of unsportsmanlike snagging. Holding back on sharing the stocking locations by a few weeks could have allowed the trout to acclimate to their new surroundings a little. And though time consuming, stocking by boat several hundred feet from the launch would have given the seeforellens more of a fighting chance.

Another example of a recently stocked seeforellen (photo courtesy of CT DEEP)

It didn't come as much of a surprise when a photo recently popped up on Facebook of an angler hoisting a 19-pound seef just a matter of days after the initial stockings. It's most likely the first of a handful of "pending state record" brown trout we'll hear about in the coming months. While not everyone cares about angling records, for those that do, therein lies the hot button issue with all of this. In June 2011, Tony Urbanowicz broke a 31-year-old Connecticut brown trout record with an 18-pound five-ounce behemoth from the Saugatuck Reservoir. Yes, it too was a hatchery fish, most Connecticut trout are, but his seeforellen was stocked when it was six to nine-inches and survived years in the wild before eventually reaching its massive 32.5-inch length and 21-inch girth.

Maybe I was naïve in thinking Tony’s record brown trout was going to stand for a long time, especially since the previous record of 16-pounds 14-ounces from East Twin Lake lasted for over three decades. With the exception of a few deep lakes, Connecticut currently doesn’t boast many places that could produce a holdover trout of that caliber. And most of the bodies of water that can have certain restrictions (read: no boat fishing, no ice fishing or both) that make the feat even harder to accomplish.

Tony Urbaowicz with the current state record brown trout caught in 2011 (photo courtesy of Fisherman's World)

Regardless of what happens, I’m in the camp that’s not too keen on seeing a new state record that was stocked at record size. Perhaps any seeforellens stocked larger than the current state record should have been marked in a certain way, like with an elastomer tag or a tail clip, to denote as much. Maybe there could be a separate category for them in the records section of the Angler’s Guide or maybe there should be a steroid-era asterisk next to the new record like plenty of anglers have joked about.

However things shake out, the amount of buzz that has been created surrounding these giant trout is admirable. I believe the surplus broodstock seeforellen have provided a very cool recreational fishing opportunity, particularly for the next generation of Connecticut anglers. And while I may disagree with the stocking of state record-sized fish, the bottom line is that CT DEEP deserves to be applauded for the incredible overall job they do managing our freshwater fisheries, especially considering their limited staff and resources—the seeforellen program is another fine example of that. 

Homecoming

Ever been so consumed by a tradition that you couldn’t imagine going without it? For me that comes in the form of an unmissable camping trip each spring. Most of my life, the third Saturday of April has marked the start of Connecticut’s trout season. Our small group, made up of family and a few like family, have established a four-day holiday around what we call Opening Day, and have been observing it religiously for decades. Even after the official season opener was moved up by a week in 2015, we have stayed true to the traditional weekend. Whether acknowledging it or not, all along the annual trip has been more of a reunion and celebration than it ever was about fishing.

I used to joke that it would take the birth of a child to keep me from Opening Day Weekend. In reality it was a global pandemic that put a temporary pause on our longstanding rituals. A missed camping trip is a grain of salt compared to what many others lost to COVID, yet that didn’t change the fact that it felt damn good to be back together for the first time in two years. It felt like a homecoming.

When you participate in an annual excursion long enough, you are bound to encounter all types of weather, especially in New England. This year was one of those years that our gear and grit were tested right out of the gate. Conditions were cold with downpours—far from ideal for setting camp. Accepting the challenge, we took pride in making camp as comfortable as possible. Pop-up shelters and a borrowed propane heater were the real MVPs of the weekend.

As tends to happen with this crew, food and drink took center stage throughout our stay. The usual staples were there but new to the mix, and highlight by far, was slow-roasting a large piece of beef over the fire. It was my good friend Aaron’s brainchild. He’d done his homework (a.k.a. watching BBQ Pit Boys videos) and with help from my Uncle Derrick, they fashioned a spit with an old motor to rotate a six-pound-plus ribeye roast over hardwood coals for hours. The meat, cooked to perfection, blew our doors off and a new tradition within a tradition was born.

While not practiced as much as it once was, fishing is the common thread that originally tied this crew together. And, by the last full day in camp, a few fish were actually caught. My cousin Max landed the lone holdover—a handsome male brown fooled by a classic Woolly Bugger. I have DEEP fisheries staff to thank for a fresh batch of Survivor strain brown trout that were just stocked the day prior. A handful of the football-shaped thoroughbreds fell to a jig streamer from our pals at Farmington Flies. Though not too bright when I caught them, over time these ‘survivors’ smarten up and start looking and acting like the wild and holdover trout they are the progeny of.

When Sunday rolls around, it’s time to break camp as the reality of things on hold back home inch closer from the periphery. Throwing one last log on the fire helps stave off the feeling, as does downing a final hotdog before hitting the road. Like it or not, it’s back to work on Monday and, God willing, another 361 days until the next homecoming on that cherished patch of land. 

Soak it in, boys.

Origins

Over the years, they have become the fish I target most through the ice. For one, the chance is always there to pull something really special up through the hole, but also because they fight well and the water they inhibit here is some of the first to freeze and last to thaw. They are gorgeous fish in their own right and formidable predators with a mouth full of sharp teeth. My style of ice fishing for them is primitive, which is a nice change of pace from the more technical fishing I do for other species. Without a doubt, northern pike are impressive and enjoyable creatures.

Esox lucius are not native to Connecticut. Like many species, they were introduced at some point in time and have thrived ever since. Wherever pike roam in the Nutmeg State, they are indeed the apex predator of that body of water and can grow into giants. The current Connecticut state record stands at 29-pounds, taken from Lake Lillinonah in 1980. Just to our north and east, the records in Massachusetts and Rhode Island are both 35-pounds respectively. It’s no wonder why targeting trophy pike in open water and through the ice has become so popular in the Northeast.

Northern pike are predators that eat almost anything and everything they desire. 

Starting in the 1980s, fisheries biologists from CT DEEP have done an outstanding job with the state’s northern pike management program, building it to the point where significant natural reproduction is happening in the marsh systems of a few of our more popular pike fisheries. After graduating college, I was able to witness the success of the program firsthand by taking a seasonal position within DEEP’s inland fisheries division. It remains the most interesting job I’ve ever held. One of the more fun responsibilities it entailed was helping capture and stock northern pike fingerlings.

The capturing part took place on a DEEP-managed marsh along the Connecticut River. When it floods, northern pike (and other fish) make their way into this marsh and a culvert pipe, their only exit back to the main river, is blocked off. While inside, some of the adult pike spawn successfully and the marsh is drained months later after their offspring reach the desired fingerling size, about four to six inches. It was one of my tasks to sit on the river side of the culvert and catch these fingerlings in a large net as they exited the pipe. There was no knowing when or what was coming through. Sometimes large pike would shoot out like rockets—a startling experience on a good day, even more so with a hangover—and I would have to wrangle them from the net and release them back into the river. The fingerlings, however, would be carefully counted, sometimes fin-clipped, and placed in tanks on stocking trucks and driven to various pike management lakes around the state.

On one evening that summer, I remember releasing some of these little guys in the shallows of a favorite northern pike fishery—it must have been like ringing the dinner bell because immediately a larger fish (my money is on largemouth bass) blasted a few unlucky ones hanging out just below the surface. A bunch of these fingerlings, I’m confident, survived the odds and grew up to be trophy-class fish.

Aaron Swanson with a trophy CT northern pike.

Fast forward 15 years to the subpar Connecticut winter we are experiencing now. A recent catch, it turns out my final of the short ice season, got me thinking again about the origins of the pike swimming in our waters. As soon as it came topside, I knew this fish was a little different—it had a pattern unlike any pike I’d seen to that point. I immediately thought it was a cross between a pike and a pickerel because of the chainlike markings along its lower flanks. It wasn’t a very large fish, but it was healthy as a horse and surely unique. Looking for clarity if it was a hybrid or not, I later sent a photo to biologists involved in DEEP’s pike management program. I am glad I did because they shared some interesting info I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

The biologists acknowledged its unusual markings, yet could not make a definitive call on whether it was a hybrid or not without an up-close look at its opercle, the plate-like bone also known as the gill cover. It turns out that scales are present on the upper half of a pike’s gill cover, but are absent on the lower half. On pickerel, however, the opercle is fully covered with scales. And on hybrids, scales cover exactly three-quarters of it. The biologists added that in the 30 or so years that DEEP actively trap-netted adult pike for broodstock, a pike/pickerel hybrid was captured almost every year, sometimes up to two or three of them were netted. I found the possibility of catching my first hybrid pretty cool, but the story doesn’t quite end there.

My final fish of the 2019-2020 ice season and an interesting one at that.

One of biologists circled back with an interesting twist. He had seen pike with similar markings before while collecting fingerlings from Connecticut marshes and believed my catch stemmed from a past stocking of fish from New Jersey. “For a number of years, we’ve been receiving free pike fry from New Jersey that we’ve raised in our marshes, or at Burlington hatchery, to fingerling size and have then stocked in a couple of our pike management lakes,” he said. The neat part, I thought, was that they could tell exactly what body of water in New Jersey the pike originated from.

The biologists had sent my photo to their counterparts in New Jersey’s Division of Fish & Wildlife, who recognized it straight away. Evidently, there is one reservoir down there where the pike exhibit similar chainlike markings. Several of the adult pike from that reservoir were used as broodstock back in 2016. Fingerlings that were raised from the New Jersey fry were later stocked in the very lake I caught my fish in, which made sense because, based on its size, was thought to be in the range of three to four-years-old.

This is not groundbreaking stuff, but it was cool to learn the backstory of my catch. It’s not often we, as anglers, get that sort of insight or closure on the fish we spend so much time and effort perusing. This exercise reinforced my appreciation for the work of our inland fisheries staff and furthered my understanding of the gamefish I am fortunate to target each winter. With the growing respect for the species within the angling community and increasing use of proper catch and release methods, Connecticut’s northern pike management program has a bright future ahead. And hopefully I run into another 2016-year class Jersey fish down the road. 

Another example of a 2016-class pike that originated from broodstock from the same New Jersey reservoir.

A Call for Action (again)

Connecticut anglers have been down this road before and it's time to make some noise again. Governor Malloy's new budget includes a proposal to close the Kensington State Fish Hatchery in Berlin to save $196,000 a year. The argument against this is simple: the recreational revenue generated from fishing throughout Connecticut is significant and the value from fish stockings and unique programs that the Kensington Hatchery supports far outweighs the cost of keeping it open and fully staffed.

Kensington Hatchery is unique because it is responsible for all of Connecticut's seeforellen brown trout, a special strain of trout that grow exceptionally large. In fact, a 19-pound seeforellen trout raised in the Kensington Hatchery was recently caught in Connecticut’s West Hill Pond and is now the new brown trout state record. These fish are extremely popular and it just so happens that Kensington Hatchery has the only disease-free stock of seeforellens left in the nation. Shutting it down would mean losing the seeforellen strain in Connecticut waters and tossing years of hard work out the window. 

Kensington Hatchery employees stocking huge seeforellen brown trout (photo credit: CT DEEP).

Altogether the Kensington Hatchery produces approximately 50,000 catchable size trout and 700 surplus broodstock trout annually that are stocked in our most important trout waters. In addition, 250,000 of its trout fry and parr are used annually in programs to enhance sea run trout and wild trout populations. 

But this is not just about trout. Approximately 2,000 broodstock Atlantic salmon are produced at Kensington Hatchery and stocked annually into the Naugatuck and Shetucket Rivers, as well as a handful of lakes and ponds. Connecticut’s broodstock salmon fishery is quite popular and attracts anglers from around the Northeast. In fact, it is estimated that Connecticut's Atlantic salmon fishery is responsible for 5,000 – 7,000 trips per year and those anglers spend a combined $500,000 doing so. If Kensington closes there will be no more broodstock salmon stocked in Connecticut waterways!

What it's all about! A young angler with a salmon raised at Kensignton Hatchery (photo credit: Bill Smyrnow)

Furthermore, more than 500 student classrooms throughout the state are currently part of either Salmon in the Classroom or Trout in the Classroom programs. These are highly educational and beneficial programs that are run and funded through volunteer cooperation, teachers and students, and CT DEEP, which provides eggs for these programs from the Kensington Hatchery. Educational programs such as these should be encouraged and increased rather than eliminated.

The figures below speak for themselves:

•  251,000 state residents take 5.4 million fishing trips and spend $198 million per year.
•  51,000 non-residents take 457,000 fishing trips and spend $45 million per year in CT.
•   Recreational fishing supports over 4,400 jobs in CT. 
• Trout are the most sought after gamefish species in Connecticut attracting approximately 2.1 million fishing trips per year and generating ~$50 million per year in annual expenditures having a net economic impact of $67.5 million per year. 
•  Approximately $2.8 million in annual license revenue is generated by trout anglers in Connecticut.
•  Approximately 100 lakes and ponds and over 200 rivers and streams are stocked annually with trout.
•  The overall benefit to cost ratio for Connecticut’s Trout Program is 25 to 1. 

If you are a Connecticut resident that purchases a fishing license each year and supports seeforellen brown trout, broodstock salmon or the Trout/Salmon in the Classroom program, please consider calling and/or emailing Governor Malloy, your state reps, state senator, and the Appropriations Committee about keeping the Kensington State Fish Hatchery up and running. Thank you. 

• Governor Malloy's contact info 

• Find your Connecticut legislators

• The Appropriations Committee

A beautiful seeforellen brown trout raised at Kensington Hatchery (photo credit: CT DEEP)

Shock & Awe 2012

My buddy Cole and I recently carved out some time and drove up to the West Branch Farmington River. Fly rods were packed, but fishing wasn't the main draw of this particular trip. For a few days each September, employees of CT DEEP's Inland Fisheries Division gather on the upper Farmington to sample trout populations, as well as to bolster a unique stocking program. Our plan was to tag along for a couple hours before trying to drum up a trout or two of our own.

It was Cole's first time witnessing the art of 'electrofishing' and I hadn't since 2010. If you've never been a spectator for this it's quite an experience, especially if you like to see how many trout actually live in a healthy river. When fishing blue-ribbon water like the Farmington, you're only observing a tiny fraction of the camouflaged trout right at your feet. Yet when the biologists turn on those generators and the electricity starts flowing, it's amazing at the amount of life you truly begin to see.

The fun part for us was when the wooden carts trailing behind were full of trout and the crews took a break from shocking to identify, measure and count them, as well as cherry-pick the best candidates for successful spawning back at the hatchery. Anyone who has spent a significant time on the Farmington has tied into one of her beautiful holdover or wild brown trout before, but to see this many all together is nothing short of awesome. It really underlines how lucky we are to have this wonderful resource in Connecticut and to have the caring folks in the Inland Fisheries Division watching over it.

While we only visited for a little while, the crews went at this for three straight days, wading miles of stream and sampling over 1,200 trout, which were made up of 92% brown trout, 7% rainbow trout, 1% brook trout!  One of the highlights were the 193 young-of-year wild brown trout counted, which indicates that Farmington browns got off a great spawn last autumn despite the effects of Tropical Storm Irene. Also noteworthy was the abundance of slimy sculpins, which are an indicator fish of excellent water quality.

After a photo shoot and some politickin' with fisheries biologists, Cole and I downed sandwiches and headed upstream to find cooler water temperatures and a few willing trout. The water levels were extremely low due to the lack of rain and the fact they needed to be for sampling purposes. As beautiful as the setting was, the river just didn't look as appealing to me as she does in winter or springtime. I rarely target trout in the heat of summer or early fall, so I'll admit that I felt a little out of place.

 

Not far from the Goodwin Dam, we pulled over along a stretch of stream filled with fishy-looking pocket water. Cole and I opted to go small with three-weight fly rods and dropped tiny nymphs behind bushy dry flies. It was really cool to have a couple native brook trout smack our nymph patterns, especially when they made up just 1% of the entire sample a couple miles downstream. The bend in our rods rounded out a day well spent on the Farmington River and got me stoked for some colored-up brown trout in my net later this fall.

Cole hitting some pocket water with a classic bamboo rod.