Danbury News Times

1. Startling developments should concern anglers this season Until the weather setback forecast for today, it looked like we were well on our way to serious spring fishing conditions. With open water beginning to appear on the smaller lakes and ponds and the trout opener just over a month away, area anglers should be getting excited. Should be. But so many things have gone on this winter that give me real concern over the near future of our sport, and my anticipation for the upcoming season has been tempered.
2. It looks like we'll be looking at user fees on Candlewood at some point down the road. I'm not anxious to add another expense to my fishing, but anything that might reduce the amount of traffic on the big lake by even a few boats can't be all bad. Unfortunately, once we see it on Candlewood, how long will it be before other major lakes in the area join the "pay to play" club?
3. We've previously mentioned the planned increases in sporting licenses and the implementation of a marine (salt water) license, along with eliminating the free license for seniors. Again, I don't really mind paying the piper to partake in my chosen sport.
   A fill up in the boat is going to leave a lasting impression on the wallet this year. I'm glad I have a tin boat with a 50 horse, and I suspect I'll be hosting friends who drive big, glass boats with triple digit sized outboards a lot this year. Again, I don't mind paying the piper. But there are limits, and sooner or later, we're going to run into them.
4. The most disconcerting development though, is the recent dredging and dumping in the tidal Housatonic River. Rick Zucca from Bridgewater is just one of the area anglers who called to express concern over the situation this week. Rick told me about a 50 fish day in the Housy the day before the dumping started, followed by a "couple bite" outing the next day. "The fish were just gone from where they had been," Rick told me, adding that the fish had been holding in the holes that the dredge material had been dumped into the previous evening.
5. The over-wintering striper population in the river was minimal not too many years ago, but the last few seasons it's increased tremendously, and the cold water fishing has been nothing short of phenomenal. Now they are dumping contaminated soil dredged from a private marina farther down river in Milford, directly into the deep holes these fish winter in. They started while the fish were still in the holes!
6. For me anyway, what started as outrage concerning this situation has throttled back to concern. The direct effect on the fish this year may have cut their time in those winter holes a bit short, but odds are, at least some of the fish were starting to disperse around the river already, and most of the rest were very close to being ready to do so. According to my good friend Marty Wencek, formerly of Newtown, who is a striper expert as well as a fisheries biologist and an official in the Rhode Department of Environmental Management, the fish were about due to start heading for the mouth of the river to intercept the herring that will be entering on their spawning runs soon.
7. "Timing-wise, a couple weeks later would have been better," Wencek told me, "But the whole project seems very questionable in the first place." Wencek was especially surprised by the DEP's rationale that the soil being dumped isn't quite as contaminated as the soil being covered up, so this is somehow a good thing. What really concerns me more than the effect on these specific fish right now, is that the operation is all above board, legally speaking. The necessary permits are applied for and received, which to me indicates that there's some serious problems with the permit process. When the DEP moved the dump site a few hundred yards in response to the public outcry that arose when it became known that they would be dumping in the cove behind the Baird gravel operation, DEP spokesperson Brian Thompson said they had been unaware that there was a winter population of stripers in the river. If that's the case, then there should be heads rolling at the DEP. It's someone's job to know exactly that. And it's the job of those in charge of issuing these permits to know where to ask. This week it's the winter striper population in the Housy. But where will the next environmental compromise with potentially negative effects on fishing take place? And will the permit process be any tougher than this one was?
8. Maybe I'm too cynical, but if commercial interests can get their way without regard to the impact on the environment (and more specifically on the fisheries), and the whole thing can slide through without anyone noticing until the 11th hour has already passed, I can help but think that we as outdoor sports aficionados need to really start getting a lot more politically active. (Rich Zaleski, News-Times)