New Hampshire NFC Reviews and Comments on 2023 Stocking Data...
A stocked fish caught from a wild brook trout stream in New Hampshire’s White Mountain Region.
While NFC understands that trout stocking isn’t going away anytime soon, we are looking to reduce it in regard to waters that hold wild native trout wherever we can.
New Hampshire has a long history of stocking, and stocking over wild brook trout, including with nonnative rainbow and brown trout. Most frontcountry rivers and larger streams are stocked and have been for decades.
To be fair, a lot of progress has been made over the last few years in regard to stocking over wild brook trout on small streams. Driven in part by a temporary hatchery closure, NH Fish & Game has been looking at where they are stocking and if it still makes sense to do so.
NFC used this opportunity to submit a list of wild brook trout streams that do not receive a lot of pressure, or a lot of stocked fish, for stocking suspension consideration. In several cases, these waters were removed from the stocking list and have not been stocked since.
NH NFC Updated Stocking Spreadsheet.
Each year, NH NFC reviews the stocking data from the previous year. We look for waters where there was an agreement to suspend stocking, waters that have changed due to dam removals, etc., and other things that could impact wild native brook trout.
To help with our analysis, we add a few columns, including extrapolating average weight, insert comments and notes, and create individual tabs to subset the northern part of the state, questions and issues in the northern part of the state, White Mountains National Forest, and what are refered to as “Surplus” fish.
“Unfortunately, the points on the upper section of river were inadvertently added back in and as a result points we thought were removed were not. Sorry, but as a result of your review that error has now been corrected for 2025. ”
This effort has proven worthwhile as we have picked up a few mistakes that would be addressed the following year, and as the list of stocked waters gets smaller, other problems become more visible.
In one case we found a couple of stocking events that occurred on sections of water upstream of a natural barrier that support wild native brook trout which had been targeted for stocking suspensions. The problem was corrected and it will not be repeated next year.
We also requested that stocking be suspended on a small White Mountains region stream that appears to have a robust wild brook trout population based on angling. In another case we asked for further discussion in regard to a larger water that has wild native brook trout.