This article was originally written by Gary Moore for the Caledonian Record and is republished with permission.
Brook trout, the trout species that symbolize clear cold water are a favorite of many anglers who enjoy fishing small mountain brooks and other waters not overrun with anglers.
Regular readers of this column know that I love fishing remote brook trout streams, some of which are barely four feet wide. State and federal fish and wildlife agencies, Trout Unlimited and many other conservation organizations have long worked to protect and enhance brook trout habitat.
I visited one such project last month with Dana Hazen of Redstart Inc. and Ron Rhodes, Director of Programs for the Connecticut River Conservancy. The unnamed brook in the western section of Corinth is one of several brooks that were part of a strategic wood addition project implemented by Redstart. Some twelve miles of streams that are all tributaries of the Cookville Brook in Corinth which leads to the South Branch of the Waits River and then to the main stem Waits River in Bradford have been the focus of the effort.
The days when trees were simply cut and dropped in a stream are long past. Now a process guided by science and experience determines where and how the wood will be placed to create trout habitat. In the case of the Corinth projects, the National Resource Conservation Service required the wood to be placed every 100 feet and dictated the size and quantity of the wood. The locations of the projects are carefully chosen so as to not endanger, bridges, culverts or private property should high water incidents move the trees downstream.
The projects require a lot of interaction and many permits from federal and state agencies. They are also labor intensive requiring a lot of handwork to cut and winch the trees in to place without heavy equipment. I should point out that the undertaking is not cheap and has to rely on many funding sources. In the case of the projects I visited, the Connecticut River Conservancy did the grant writing and contracted with Redstart, Inc. to do the work which took place last year.
I was impressed that most, if not all, of the wood Redstart had placed did not move with the record July flooding Vermont received last summer. The pools and rifles created will certainly enhance the trout population of those steams.
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