Threat to strand trout-fishing season washed away by storms

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- Throughout New England, capricious spring weather threatened to turn trout-fishing season into the proverbial "one that got away."

But officials are discovering that late-season storms could instead offer a boom, far from the potential bust that had many anglers concerned.

Heavy rains and flooding pushed some trout out of main river channels and into reservoirs, downstream ponds, and streams. That could have harmed the supply, especially if large numbers of confused trout were stranded where food was limited and they were vulnerable to birds or more aggressive fish.

But when the rains stopped, the fish had a chance to settle into their new surroundings.

That should make for good pickings in many nontraditional fishing spots, while trout in the main rivers will be easier to catch as high water recede in the next several days.

"It's almost be like getting two opening days in one season," said Bill Hyatt, director of inland fisheries for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

Other New England states also are preparing, delivering huge tanks full of hatchery- grown trout to streams, ponds, and rivers.

In Massachusetts, about 626,000 trout have been stocked statewide. And in New Hampshire, where trout ponds open for fishing on April 28, almost 446,000 Eastern trout yearlings are being deposited in their new homes.

On Friday, Connecticut fisheries specialists finished six weeks of stocking about 400,000 trout in preparation for the opening of trout season this weekend.

It is occurring at a good time for state officials, whose new "No Child Left Inside" campaign promotes fishing as a family-friendly activity, particularly in the state's cities.

But the storms could have threatened its success if weather problems had curtailed the trout-stocking activities or if large numbers of the trout were washed away in flood waters.

Officials had expressed concern that first-time anglers would give up the activity if they cast their lines and caught nothing. Now, those concerns are allayed.

"Nobody's really concerned. This is part of a natural cycle that the fish have been through before, and they'll come through it fine," Hyatt said.

Although some of the newly stocked trout were washed into flooded fields and yards during last weekend's storms, most probably were unaffected, officials said. Those trout had time to settle in deep pools, crevices inside river banks, or shielded spots behind rocks and logs, where they can feed on worms and larvae.

"Our hope is that every fish we've put in will eventually get caught, taken home, and eaten," Bob Orciari, a fisheries supervisor, said Thursday while crews stocked a tributary of the Pequonnock River passing through Bridgeport's Beardsley Zoo.

Orciari said the trout could live up to seven years.

Trout fishing in Connecticut without the $20 state license carries a $77 fine during the season, $154 during the off-season.

Pablo Padillo of East Haven caught his first fish when he was 6 years old near the spot where Orciari's crew had stocked trout Thursday.

Yesterday morning, Padillo and his son, Marc Vargas, 11, planned to be among the first to arrive with their fishing poles and buckets of minnows. Like the fish, they, too, benefited from the recent storms.

"A good thing about the rain was that we got the worms right out of our backyard . . . They were everywhere," Padillo said.