CTFishTalk.com: End Of The Atlantic Salmon Program - Connecticut General Topics ( CT General Topics ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

knowfish · Joined: 06 Jun 2011 Posts: 123 Location: Meriden

It looks like the end of the atlantic salmon program after years of effort and failure. There's an editorial in the Hartford Courant reporting that the federally funded program will end in a short time due to failure to reap salmon returns and damage done to the federal salmon hatchery in Vermont from flooding after hurricaine Irene. This will bring an end to the fall stocking of Broodstock Salmon in the Naugatuck and Shetucket rivers. I treid to enter the URL for the article in this post but it wouldn't go. The story is entitled After 45 years of trying , the salmon never made it back.
I wish they'd consider other species to stock , like maybe steelhead.

NorthEastFisherman · Joined: 27 May 2012 Posts: 582

Ive never been to these rivers but ive seen pictures of huge salmon from there. What size were they when they were stocked because the pictures show pretty big fish id say 4lbs+.
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SeaDog1 · Joined: 21 Dec 2009 Posts: 2629

Hi,

It's about time !

That Atlantic Salmon Restoration program was a big farce and never going happen, and a total waste of tax payers money to even try bring them back.

Salmon need cold pristine flowing water to survive and reproduce.
The Southern New England waters will never ever be that again.
Waters get to warm, too much polution, and loss of spawning areas.

Best would be to propogate a "Sea Run Brown Trout" run.
They grow very large, super hard fighters, and can tolerate the now water conditions that salmon cannot.

Massachusetts did this with great success! Thumbs Up

SeaDog1

knowfish · Joined: 06 Jun 2011 Posts: 123 Location: Meriden

I fully agree Sea Dog and have been saying they should have ended this experiment many years ago and consider other species more adapted to less than ideal water conditions. Pacific salmon from Pulaski are an example . Water condions in the great lakes and Salmon River were far less than perfect when they were first stocked . NY has done an excellent job in improving the water and creating a super fishery.
NEFisherman, the brood stock salmon stocked in the Naugy , Shetucket and a few CT lakes were between 3 and 20 lbs. Some came from the Kensington Hatchery and some from the Federal hatchery in Vermont.