[Lard Almighty]

Two things:

1. I used to be against stocking trout in the park ponds, but over time I’ve come to accept it. The main reason is that the Pequest produces ~600,000 trout every year. This means that, even if every stocked trout was caught and killed or died naturally over the course of a year, there would be just as many trout going back in next year. That results in as many opportunities for fishermen to catch trout as in years past, whether you fish Little Flat Brook, the Musky, RV, or a 2-acre goose-sh1t pond. Personally, I would rather go to a scenic, gurgling freestone stream to catch trout, but I’m not going to begrudge anyone for not wanting to travel and instead fish for trout in the park 5 minutes from their house.

2. The rearing of only rainbows at the Pequest seems like a band-aid as opposed to a solution. Hopefully it is just a temporary measure until the hatchery can figure out new strategies for safeguarding the trout from diseases being brought in. As mentioned before, now it will only take one outbreak of a disease that favors rainbow trout (whirling disease comes to mind immediately) to wipe out the entire hatchery. Also, IMO the variety of the three species is actually a nice perk of the program, as each species has its own behaviors and bait preferences. I actually missed catching brookies last year.