Stocked Trout Survey

[NJSquatch]

FW wants to hear from you!!! survey takes 5 minutes to complete.

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In order to ensure you have a positive trout fishing experience, NJDEP Fish & Wildlife will be sending out a series of short surveys asking for your feedback and input on those experiences. The information collected will be used to inform future trout stocking, management, and regulation decisions.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M6RPWYF

[bigfishy]

Done....thx for posting!!

[nutleysigns]

DONE ... now bring back browns and my favorite ... the brook trout

[thmyorke1]

Brown trout! hope every survey shows that lol

[Godrew1972]

Did survey, NJ does great job with trout spring/fall/winter. I agree with brown n brookies would be great to get back in the mix, but I’m still happy with NJ fishing.

[AndyS]

You will NEVER EVER see Brook Trout stocked again in NJ and that's coming from the top.

[Doug Vitale]

I was disappointed that the topic of Pequest's "rainbows only" policy was not mentioned at all in the survey.

The advice I provided was to make the spring and fall stockings a little more even in terms of the quantity of trout stocked. Currently it's 570,000 trout in the spring vs. 20,000 trout in the fall, and about 3,700 of those fall trout are stocked in lakes and ponds.

[Drossi]

Looks like the subtle aim of the survey is to see if they can cut costs by going to a 5 week stocking schedule and possibly pairing down some of the stocked waters (hence the usage question by water body) without causing anglers to riot.

IMHO we'll NEVER see brook trout or brown trout stocked again by the state.

[NJSquatch]

Originally Posted by Drossi

Looks like the subtle aim of the survey is to see if they can cut costs by going to a 5 week stocking schedule and possibly pairing down some of the stocked waters (hence the usage question by water body) without causing anglers to riot.

IMHO we'll NEVER see brook trout or brown trout stocked again by the state.

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.

[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.