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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Ancient Past

On a walk in the rain yesterday, I found my first artifact of 2025. Half buried in the mud, the notch in the side of this quartz projectile point is what caught my eye. The typology is Lomoka, which were made and used for a long time in the Late Archaic through Middle Woodland periods. If on the earlier side, it means who ever held it last may have lost it around 5,500-4,500 years ago. Either way, this stone point predates the bow and arrow. Instead it was the tip of a spear or dart that was launched from a handheld device called an atlatl. This was a great find for me. 

Next was a real heartbreaker, yet still a good pickup. This Orient Fishtail must have been quite impressive when it was fully intact. I think the mottled brown-gray lithic type is Onondaga Chert, which was likely quarried in what is now New York and made its way here via trade. The Fishtail-type points were made in the Transitional Archaic through Early Woodland periods, which means it could be more than 3,000 years old. 

Re-Cover

The number of false alarms was starting to remind me of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. The flag on one of my Heritage Lakers kept going up with nothing to show for it. There was zero wind to speak of that day, and my bait was the large and dead variety. Something was messing with me. Still, sooner or later, I just knew I was going to walk up to a spinning spool. I made a small adjustment by lowering the bait, laying it directly on the silty bottom. The next flag was the one. It turned out to be the largest northern pike I had ever landed, through the ice or otherwise. 

That series of events took place one mild afternoon in January 2017. Fast forward eight years and a photograph of me releasing the fish, taken by Aaron Swanson, now graces the cover of The Fisherman magazine. The new cover of an old catch has been a fun walk down memory lane. It's good timing, too, considering the Northeast is finally experiencing a winter like the old days. Unlike the last two years, there is no shortage of ice fishing opportunities. I'm trying to get out as much as I can, revisiting old haunts and even getting my girls on the ice with me. If not now, when? 

Tight lines and stay safe out there!

Legend of the Surf

Editor's Note: 

Back in 2012, I had the opportunity to interview a living legend of surf fishing. By that point in time, though he’s too humble to acknowledge it, Pat Abate had long earned a reputation throughout the Northeast as a bonified surf sharpie; a member of the old guard with a knack for sniffing out big striped bass. It was also a time when Pat owned River's End in Old Saybrook, one of the more premier fishing outfitters in southern New England. For someone like me, who was at the pinnacle of my surf fishing effort and interest, it was an awesome experience to hear some of Pat's insights and stories. He eventually sold River's End and retired, allowing for more time on the water instead of behind the counter. It should come as a surprise to no one that Pat is not only an awesome angler, but also a salt of the earth kind of guy who is still plugging away in the surf. 

One of the walls in River's End is adorned with hundreds of lures that would make any striped bass fisherman drool. Above the ones for sale however, hang special, battle-worn plugs—each with their own story to tell. Pat pointed to a cracked green needlefish and said he found it one day at Southwest Point on Block Island. With a black Sharpie, Pat added some mackerel markings and took it with him fishing later that night. In Dories Cove, in a howling northwesterly wind, the newly found needlefish accounted for eight giant striped bass up to 55-pounds! The magic finally ended when the lure's side cracked open after hitting a rock on a fateful backcast. Pat said it lost its “mojo” and he retired it as one hell of a conversation piece.

Sitting in his office, I asked Pat about a blown-up surf casting photo hanging on the wall. As the story goes, years ago while napping on Nauset Beach, a crew from Sperry shoes knocked on the window of Pat's beach buggy and asked him to take part in a photo shoot. Next thing he knew, Pat was being photographed casting a needlefish in the suds while wearing Sperry shoes two sizes too small. They must have forgotten they also outfitted him with a mic and Pat could only laugh while hearing the crew second guessing that "he's too old for this” and "we'd better shoot from the rear.” In the end, Pat became “Mr. March” in a Sperry sports calendar and his life-size poster hung for a while at the Kittery outlet store. It turns out that Pat can now add modeling to his impressive resume. 

KB: Who got you into fishing and how old were you?

PA: I was about 12 or 13 and living in Brooklyn at the time. I had an uncle who as an avid fisherman. I had fished for sunfish in Prospect Park and things like that, but he took me out fluke and porgy fishing and I got hooked. New York City isn’t the ideal place for saltwater fishing, though you’d be surprised how many people travel the subway with 10-foot rods to the beaches or party boats in Sheepshead Bay. At that time, you couldn’t drive until you were 18, so you really had to depend on public transportation or someone over 18 to take you.

KB: Do you remember the first big striped bass that got you hooked into surfcasting?

PA: Well I was hooked into surfcasting years and years before I ever caught a big striper. I fished the Rockaways and places like that and, to us at that time, a 10 or 12-pound striper was about as big as we’d seen. It wasn’t until a trip to Nantucket in ’67 when I caught what I considered to be a big bass, a 29-pounder. I think I got it on a Rabbit plug, similar to what today you would call a Robert’s Ranger. At that time they were made of wood. A friend of mind had made some that he saw in a Saltwater Sportsman article. That was my first big bass; breaking the ice was the hardest part. But there weren’t a lot of big bass around then. The only guys that I knew who caught big bass were the guys that fished the jetties. Those were the idols to a surfcaster at that time, the Al Bensten’s and those guys.

A younger Pat with a nice bass from the rocks.

KB: When and what made you get into the tackle shop business?

PA: I sold some tackle mail-order back in the early 80’s; odds and ends, droppers and stuff like that. Then I got into River’s End in ’86. I was going to be a silent partner and then I turned into an unsilent partner [laughs]. My job was transferred from Connecticut to New York and I struggled to get into this lifestyle of commuting to the City. I tried it for one week, didn’t like it and quit. Been here since then...

KB: Were you always in this location?

PA: I started out with a partner named Sherwood Lincoln and we had an 800-sq. foot shop down the  street. It was an un-insulated building with a woodstove to heat it. You couldn’t leave the shop for more than 12 hours unattended because the pipes would freeze. So we basically never closed [laughs]. This is River’s End’s 27 th year in business. We kind of grew by drips and drabs. When this building became available, it took about eight months to renovate it. Now we have just under 4,000-sq. feet.

KB: After all this time behind the counter, what’s your favorite part about the business?

PA: Being behind the counter [laughs]. I hate the paperwork and I had no idea when I got into retail. All I thought was that you had to sell stuff. I had no idea that you had to buy the stuff to sell it and you had to pay for it. But there’s an awful lot of behind the scenes stuff that you never see. Like any small business, you’ve a lot of paperwork and it takes a lot of time to buy the right stuff at the right place, and keep the shelves stocked.

KB: If you could travel anywhere in the world for fishing, where would you go and what would you fish for?

PA: My favorite fishing is bonefishing. The only time I fly-fish is for bonefish. It’s the most exciting fishing that I do. There are probably other things, but it’s accessible. Certainly I don’t have to invest in a couple hundred thousand dollar boat to get out to the canyons to tuna fish. You can go with the simplest of gear, walk the flats on your own, be by yourself, on foot, wading, and it’s 70% hunting, 30% fishing. You are in the middle of this ecosystem as well – there are predators, there’s prey, there’s bait; I find there are slow times, but every hour’s exciting whether you’re catching fish or not. You’re hunting when you’re not fishing, so you’re always actively doing something. I try to go to Acklins Island in the Bahamas at least once a year. It’s a very primitive island, very few inhabitants and almost all the flats are accessible by car.

KB: If you could only surf fish one state for the rest of your days, which would it be?

PA: If I had to pick a state it would be Rhode Island for the access. Rhode Island not only has the beaches, breachways and ponds, but there are a lot of different things going on in RI—basically a year-round fishery if you want to pursue it. I probably do most of my fishing within a five mile radius of the shop; it’s not necessarily the best waters, but it’s probably what I know best and what I have the best access to and, as far as time goes, the most time I can spend. It would be nice to be on Cuttyhunk or Block all the time, but you have to have the access, the time and everything else that goes with it.

KB: If you could use one lure for the rest of your fishing what would it be?

PA: Is a rigged eel a lure? [laughs]

KB: That’s a good answer! What direction do you see surfcasting headed? Is wetsuit fishing just a fad?

PA: I think what surfcasting has become is extreme fishing. It’s very much a younger man’s game; more aggressive fishermen do a lot better at it. I think wader fishermen are going to be in the minority. I think there are some really good fishermen now – if these fishermen were around when the bass were around, boy would they’ve hammered fish. But a lot of times people concentrate more on getting to a rock and falling off that rock and getting on that one rock. But when you really survey the situation, the best spot to be may be the rock inside of that that is reaching fishable water. I think a lot of people that are new to it seem to be more obsessed with getting out on a rock than getting to the right location. Tim Coleman, who I fished with for a long, long time, rarely even wore waders.

KB: Thanks so much for the opportunity, Pat.

Best In Show

Tomorrow is the first day of winter and it will feel like it. With the solstice comes the coldest air of the season so far. Nighttime lows in the single digits could make some good ice up north when the wind lays down. But thanks to the seesawing temps of late, I'm trying my darndest to temper excitement. Still, the old Jet Sled is packed with gear by the basement door, ready to go at a moment's notice. 

Waiting for ice strong enough to walk on takes time. Time to reflect on favorite catches of the year as 2024 winds down. I couldn't pick just one. It had to be two favorites, each a personal best of their respective species. One caught in the spring, one in the fall. One caught from shore, one in a kayak. Both with native names derived from the Algonquian language.

The PB tautog story has been told here before, and I'm fortunate to have captured it on video. The PB squeteague story, while much less documented, was nonetheless memorable...

When I was young, my late grandfather told me there used to be so many weakfish in Long Island Sound that you could walk across their backs. Hyperbole yes, but his point was clear. I'll never witness squeteague runs like he did, yet I'm thankful there remains spots they can be found each spring if you put in the time and effort. Earlier this year, while waist-deep in a May outgoing tide, I hooked, landed, and released the biggest weakfish of my life. Though not giant, she was from a bigger size class than any I had previously come across, and from a place that holds special meaning. A beautiful and impressive specimen that set a new bar; a bar I will be aiming to raise again next May.