Stocked Trout Survey

[Drossi]

Originally Posted by NJSquatch

During the spring trout meeting they indicated that fish feed costs alone have gone up 500%! Add in all the other "inflationary" increases (fuel, salary, benefits, etc) and without raising license fees they are going to have to cut somewhere.

They have repeatedly said they will never stock brook trout in NJ ever again.

Re Browns: given the very small raceways and density of fish at the hatchery they are terrified of another Furunculosis outbreak. Rainbows are much more resilient against it. They are looking at possibly stocking Palomino (albino) rainbows. Browns may come back if they get the raceways covered. my guess is that money will get reallocated.

100% that money will be used to plug other budgetary gaps so no covers and no browns for the foreseeable future. That not withstanding they probably need to increase the license $5-$10 to start paring down the gap as well.