A public meeting is planned later this month to provide information on, and get input from anglers regarding, the state of Lake Champlain’s fisheries.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Vermont Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will host a meeting to provide an update on restoration, research and assessment of the state of Lake Champlain’s fish populations and get input from anglers next week.
New York State DEC Region 5 Fisheries Manager Rob Fiorentino notes the state and Vermont are part of the Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative.
“The charge of the cooperative is to simply manage the fish and wildlife resources because it’s an inter-jurisdictional water and even an international water. And over the years we’ve had requests from the public to share the information that we learned and have an opportunity to speak directly with the researchers. So that was where the State of the Lake public meeting was born out of.”
New York State DEC Region 5 fish biologist Nicole Balk says the meeting offers open discussion with the region’s anglers.
“We’ll have some presentations on specific topics like lake trout and salmon and sea lamprey and then some invasive species. After each topic and then at the end of the meeting and during the break we’ll just have open time for discussion about any and all topics and questions and hopefully exchange more information with the anglers.”
Balk adds that the meeting is geared towards the average angler.
“We do have some charter captains that like to attend the meetings and sometimes we’ll have them give like a presentation on techniques or a new fish that they think is interesting to try to target. So it varies, but I think it’s mostly for the average angler.”
Fiorentino says the input provided by those attending the meeting is a crucial element of lake research.
“Having that feedback about what they think, the anglers, of the fishery is really helpful and oftentimes some dedicated anglers are actually out there more than we are. So they can have an opportunity to see different things than what we see. And having this moment to share that information and then enter into a conversation is exactly what the meeting’s for.”
This year, the meeting will feature a discussion on Forward-Facing Sonar, a technology Balk says has been around for a few years and is being used increasingly by anglers.
“Usually it’s a device that you can mount on your boat. It scans the water column and it can show you shadows and shapes that could be viewed on a screen as fish or weeds or something. So you can figure out bigger and smaller shapes might be bigger and smaller fish and adjust where you’re putting your line, your lure. That’s one of the angler presentations. We asked someone to come and give a talk because they’re good at this, they’ve used it, they’re excited about it and they’re going to share some of their expertise and their experience, pros and cons, and things like that.”
As Forward-Facing Sonar helps anglers find more fish, more are being caught. Fiorentino says stakeholders are trying to figure out what that means for the fishery and lake ecosystem.
“It allows them to be quite effective at catching fish. So the question is from the anglers how is that going to impact the fisheries? It’s a great question and the reason we’re specifically bringing it up on our agenda and talking about it is because we’re also trying to learn. The anglers, the users of this technology, probably can teach us some things. So we’re going to hopefully have a good conversation there where we the biologists can learn from the anglers how this technology is used by them and then maybe we can better understand what the potential impact will be.”
Balk notes that another presentation will feature a University of Vermont graduate student’s project to track salmon in Lake Champlain.
“He’s been tagging salmon using acoustic telemetry tags. It’s a fancy way of tracking fish movements in the lake. We’ve got little monitoring stations all over the lake. If the fish gets within, oh I don’t know, 150 feet of one of these receivers it’ll ping and the receiver will say hey, we found this fish on this day at this time. They’re trying to see where the fish go after we stock them as little six-inch fish in the river. How long does it take them to leave the river and then where do they go? Do they go to the north, they go to the south, they go to the middle of the lake? So he’s trying to answer that question.”
The State of the Lake Fisheries public meeting will be held Saturday, March 28 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Robert Miller Community & Recreation Center in Burlington.