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| A DEC employee gets ready. Protective gloves are on and the battery is being checked. |
On July 17, a team from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) fisheries division fanned out across the North Branch in Willsboro with heavy packs and long poled "nets." These flat nets looked like miniature trampolines and were electrified by the batteries stored in the backpacks. Fish, evidently attracted to the anodes, are scooped from the water as they are stunned. No doubt, some were aware of the phalanx of armed personnel marching purposefully side by side up the river and escaped upstream.
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| The NYSDEC electro-fishing team in the North Branch. Les Saltsman, Fish & Wildlife Technician III from Warrensburg and leader of electro-fishing surveys, is in the foreground. Les examined a few places on the Main Stem of the Boquet a year or two ago. Because of his height, he is usually the one to navigate the deep pool areas. |
Once caught on the pole net, the stunned fish were transferred to another person walking behind holding a real dip net. Dip nets were emptied into buckets; buckets later
were emptied into a wire cage in the river. The electro-survey had to go swiftly to identify, measure and count the caught fish before they regained their senses.
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| Les Saltsman empties his electrified round pole net into a dip net. Stunned fish in the dip net get put into the bucket, and then into a wire cage placed in the river. |
The DEC team was more than shocking and counting fish. They collected data on width and depth of the North Branch reach, its habitat diversity, size of substrate, and took a qualitative look at the abundance and diversity of invertebrates. Their primary interest, however, was on the number and age of trout. All the data was put into their CROTS model (that stands for "Catch Rate Orientated Trout Stocking") and will help DEC update their stocking policy.
"It hasn't been done on the Boquet River in decades," said Bill Schoch, Biology Specialist (Aquatics) for the Region 5 DEC. "We get complaints all the time. ‘Where do all the trout go?' We stock fish--there is fry stocking just upstream --but no one sees them and no one catches any." Results from the survey were provided BRASS by phone, and were pretty much the species combinations that DEC expects to find in a cold water Adirondack stream, except for one surprise. Their count amazingly included a burbot fish; it is usually found in the depths of Lake Champlain.
Otherwise, twelve species were found, as printed below with the largest size of the surveyed sport fish:
Most of the salmon found were ones DEC had stocked as yearlings. (If fins are "eroded" you know it was hatchery raised, as opposed to fins with crisp definition.) This, too, was a bit surprising. Normally, DEC expects most salmon yearlings to be in Lake Champlain by mid-July.
There were not as many trout as hoped for, but DEC believes there was not as much cover, meaning sediments have filled in beside rocks and there was little overhanging vegetation on the streambanks.
With information on the fish, DEC personnel will now complete the CROTS evaluation, looking at fertility, habitat forage, and the number of wild fish. Then, they'll begin an evaluation of stocking.