Starting Jan. 1, anglers in Connecticut can keep brook trout only 9 inches or longer, while the number of locations where absolutely no brook trout harvest will be allowed is increasing from 20 to 22.
It’s the first update to a minimum state-wide length since 1953.
The changes will essentially protect more than 95% of the wild brook trout population in Connecticut, said Brian Eltz, a state fisheries biologist.
The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the new regulations are in response to the continuing decline of the native species’ population.
"There was a greater than 50% decrease in densities compared to 30 plus years ago,” Eltz said. “So not only were we seeing a decrease in occurrence statewide, we're seeing a decrease in densities."
Eltz said wild brook trout populations are in decline from Connecticut to Maryland – and that’s likely due to a variety of man-made factors, one being warming rivers.
“We are finding that some of these streams that supported brook trout 30-plus years ago are just too warm now to support brook trout," he said.
The native fish needs really cold water to thrive.
“We start getting above 20 or 22 degrees Celsius,” – that’s 68 to 71 degrees Fahrenheit – “they [brook trout] can start to stress at those temperatures,” Eltz said. “What happens as the temperature increases, their metabolism increases, and their food consumption, their caloric intake, can't overtake that metabolic rate.”
Climate change is warming the state’s rivers, but Eltz said that localized man-made activity, such as cutting down forested habitat, can also increase a waterway’s temperature.
“Every time you increase the impervious cover in a watershed, it can negatively affect a coldwater stream,” he said.
Culverts can also block trout from moving up and down a stream or river, making it impossible for them to seek out cooler waters.
In addition to the new regulations, state biologists are transferring wild brook trout to waterways where they have disappeared in the hopes they can jump start the population. So when someone does catch a brook trout longer than 9 nine inches, it is more than likely one that was reared in the state's hatcheries and released.
Eltz said the annual trout restocking program is “more for sport fishing opportunities, not for restoration opportunities or to support a wild population.”
