Disease hits Pequest Hatchery Runway

[Dave B.]

As was stated in the press release the hatchery does indeed carry adequate surplus fish to offset this loss. If you check the numbers you'll find that the Div. regularly stocks over 1,000 fish above the 20,000 quota for the fall, and generally somewhere between 25 and 50 thousand fish above the baseline allocation each spring, this including a surplus of excess broodstock. In light of this there should be very little if any impact on the fall and winter stockings excepting perhaps not getting the usual bonus fish. As well we should expect to see no noticable difference in the spring fishing either except for the loss of the extra fish during the last few stockings when they would normally be distributed. Given the excellent job that Jeff Mathews and crew do at Pequest I seriously doubt anyone will notice a difference in either size or numbers.