F&G Council meeting November:

[AndyS]

License sales this year and compared to last year, everything is down except for a few things. Fishing is down 4.9%, hunting is down 3.3%

Freshwater Fisheries:
Chief Lisa Barno reported that Largemouth Bass Virus was documented at our Hackettstown facility at the very end of September into October. We had largemouth in six different ponds and staff noticed some reddened fins. Jan Lovy was on site and thought it to be a bacterial infection which is fairly common, so the fish were distributed. With additional and more intensive testing a subsample of the fish taken tested positive for Largemouth Bass Virus. At that point we had two ponds left and we ceased stocking. Jan retested the fish and they were confirmed positive. There were about 3,000 fish left and they were all destroyed. The ponds have been drained and we are trying to dry them out and if we can get them dry that will kill off the virus. Because some of the fish that were stocked will be carriers of this virus, the actual impact is really difficult to say. Largemouth Bass Virus is a stress-related disease; we may see some mortality related with spawning stress in two years. If the summers are exceptionally hot, we may see issues in a couple of the smaller ponds that were stocked. Considering most of the waters that were stocked have already seen Largemouth Bass Virus we are not anticipating a significant impact to the fishery, but it is something we should monitor. We will be doing additional testing next year and the year after to document what the current status of the virus is in New Jersey waters.




A-1923 was substituted by S-1093 and passed to ban the use of elephants and other wild/exotic animals acts.

Councilman Robinson addressed the fall/winter trout stocking in Union County. He would like to see Echo Lake stocked.

[ALS Mako]

bring back brook trout!

[AndyS]

They will never EVER stock Brook Trout again in NJ. I would be happy with a few Brown Trout at least for now.

[Lard Almighty]

I submitted this suggestion to F&W earlier this year:

In order to preserve the native population of brook trout in New Jersey, it is my belief that a certain number of water bodies with native brook trout populations must be closed to all fishing. The decision of which bodies of water to close should be left to F&W and state biologists, however, biasing the closures to bodies of water with low angler interest will likely minimize complaints from the angling public. Closing these bodies of water will result in F&W being able to utilize them for population studies that are uninfluenced by angler impact (potentially as a “control”). Also, should F&W elect to resume production of brook trout in the Pequest hatchery, these bodies of water with stable populations can be used for the harvesting of brook trout for brood stock. Such a strategy would have the added benefit of ensuring that brook trout raised from native brood stock would have the same genetics as native fish, eliminating fears of diluting the genetic purity of New Jersey’s brook trout through stocking. A similar strategy for New Jersey’s wild brown trout population may also be worth pursuing.

[thmyorke1]

Originally Posted by Lard Almighty

I submitted this suggestion to F&W earlier this year:

I figure they wanna see how well brook trout can thrive on their own by only removing brown trout and other stream restorations.

I think they fear even stocking NJ's own native strain of brookies may tamper with the wild populations, maybe because many headwaters have their own unique strains. Just my guess.

Also I think closing a place to fishing would just encourage more people to sneak in and fish for giant brookies

Angling pressure is already pretty low in the streams in mind, and anglers coming along to fish and reporting their day could help out f&w monitor it.

[AndyS]

I can easily see why freshwater fishing license sales would be down.
Get to the spot all nice and quiet then 50 people come down with grills, water toys etc. and set up on the river banks blasting loud music and completely trashing the place before they leave. It's either that or you get there and people are dragging seine nets up and down the river taking bucket loads of fish. If people were on the fence about continuing fishing in NJ this would be enough to push them over the edge and just throw in the towel.