2014 H'town Hatchery fish stocking summary

[buzzbaiter]

http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/pdf...tockings14.pdf

Why are we sending out nearly 90,000 pike to other states? Please tell me its not money. I'd rather see those "extra' pike be stocked here in the garden state.

I'm also not sure why so many places keep getting pike when catch rates are
so low or non-existent. Maybe I'm spoiled by how well the Passaic fishes. Are they suppose to be that hard to catch??? I think Mark B even told us of no known reports of ANY pike caught in the Millstone - like ever.

[ScowardNJ]

Towards the bottom of the page.

http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/arthackbrd14.htm

"In addition to meeting New Jersey's fish culture needs the Hackettstown Hatchery also assists coolwater program needs of other states. For the 7th straight season the hatchery has provided the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's South Otselic Fish Hatchery with 120,000 tiger muskellunge fry. In early April, NY hatchery personnel picked up the 120,000 female muskellunge x male northern pike cross tigers.
Over the winter we also received requests from the Connecticut DEEP Bureau of Natural Resources for 50,000 northern pike fry and from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife for any surplus northern pike fingerlings we might have.

On April 25th, Ed Mihofsky, a Connecticut fisheries biologist, made the trip to Hackettstown and left with 50,000 northern pike fry to be stocked in a production marsh to see how they would grow. On May 5th, two Massachusetts fisheries biologists made the trip down and picked up 23,494 two-and-a-half-inch fingerling northern pike to be stocked in a large inland lake.

The Hackettstown Hatchery also supplied the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission with 57,000 swimup tiger muskellunge fry and 150,000 muskie fry.

All of these fish are provided at no charge to our neighbors and are part of an ongoing multi-state fish trade that has gone on for many years. Most of New Jersey's cool and warm water stocking programs started with eggs and fry supplied from Pennsylvania and New York hatcheries. New Jersey has been receiving 2,000 fingerling landlocked Atlantic salmon from the State of Massachusetts since 2006. State pathologists sample all of these fish before transport to insure they are free of disease."

[buzzbaiter]

I say send pike 'surplus' to Florida for some Florida-strain bass fingerlings! That's a good trade

All kidding aside, I'm not sure I get the surplus part of this. Not enough room to raise them to stocking size perhaps? Why not just chuck them into a few lakes and see what happens? If your not gaining anything giving them away I say stock them here.