COLEMAN CORNER – Of the seven fish kills he has responded to in his 20 years of stream enhancement work, Dale Cameron said the loss experienced this week in the Trout River system “was definitely the most devastating, for sure.”
Cameron was involved in clean-ups this week in the Trout River and Mill River systems. There was also a fish kill in the Big Pierre Jacques River system, but a different crew was dispatched there.
From Sunday to Wednesday enhancement workers picked more than 300 dead trout – most of them of brood stock size – out of the Trout River system.
Less than 100 trout were gathered up out of the Carruthers Brook in the Mill River system.
Variation orders have been issued, closing the three streams to fishing for the remainder of the 2011 angling season. Investigations to determine the cause of the fish kills are ongoing.
It was a well-known fact, Cameron said, that Trout River had the densest brook trout population in P.E.I. People came from all over P.E.I. to fish there. Lots of 18- and 19-inch trout were hooked there this year, he said. Some anglers who arrived since the fish kill were discovered and turned away.
Cameron is encouraged that live fish can still be found in the stream. “It wasn’t a complete wipeout,” he acknowledged.
But things are not the same.
“I’m hoping, with the amount of fish that is still in the brook, and if we can do some stocking in the fall, and with the season shut down, and we don’t have anymore incidents like that, within five to 10 years the numbers should be back to where they were. If all goes well,” he said.
“It’s not going to be back overnight,” he stressed.
Because so many large trout died, “that’s thousands and thousands and thousands of eggs that won’t be in the water this fall,” he said.
As well, the thousands of smaller fish that are thought to have perished won’t get to grow into replacement brood stock.
“It’s kind of a vicious cycle,” Cameron said.
He said enhancement work is not lost because of the fish kill, though. That work will be continuing. Staff members who had been doing creel surveys will be joining them in the streams. He has a staff of a dozen for the Trout, Mill and Brae river systems.
“The work is not down the tubes, per se, because the habitat is still there,” Cameron stressed. “If it wasn’t as good of habitat as it is, the potential for it to rebound wouldn’t be as high. It’s not like the work went to waste, but it’s definitely a major setback.”
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