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Historic Stump Lake, N.D. Pavillion in Danger of Being Lost to Flooding
Nelson County, N.D -(FishNLand.com)-

A 90-year-old pavilion at Stump Lake could become one of the next victims of the ongoing Devils Lake flood.

A projected 90 percent chance that the lake will rise to a record 1,451.25 feet this year means that the pavilion and cafe at Stump Lake Park would be in harm’s way.

The Nelson County Park Board learned Tuesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will not pursue a proposal to build a 5-foot high dike to protect the pavilion and cafe — a project with a preliminary price tag of about $85,000. The dike would be about 1,250 feet long.

The bathrooms at the cafe are at an elevation of 1,450 feet.

It would cost about $500,000 to move both buildings to higher ground, according to Nelson County Commission Chairman Odell Flaagen.

“I just don’t know where we’d get that kind of money,” he said.

Stump Lake Park is the county’s main economic development attraction, attracting 15,000 to 20,000 visitors a year. It’s a popular spot for walleye and northern pike fishing.

With the pavilion, a 100-unit campground, boat docks, a new fish-cleaning station and softball fields, plus a cafe and bar, it’s busy throughout the summer season, from softball tournaments to weddings, reunions, an annual polka festival and other events. It also is home to a historic village.

Devils Lake and Stump Lake have been the same elevation — essentially one lake — since the fall of 2007.

Locals estimate that erosion has devoured an estimated 10 to 15 feet of Stump Lake shoreline annually for the past couple of years.

“It’s not like losing a house to us. It’s a business,” Flaagen said. “We have to do everything we can to save it.”

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Rhode Island -(FishNLand.com)- DEM Stocks 67,000 Trout for Fishing’s Opening Day

The state Department of Environmental Management’s Division of Fish and Wildlife has begun to stock local ponds, lakes and streams with 67,000 trout in advance of opening day, Saturday, April 11 at 6 a.m.

According to Gail Mastrati of DEM, more than 20,000 anglers are expected to turn out at dawn on opening day.

Approximately 67,000 two-year-old hatchery raised brook, brown, and rainbow trout with an individual weight of one and a half pounds are being stocked by Division staff in more than 100 ponds and streams. In addition to the six regular ponds that are restricted to children 14 years of age and younger, Cass Pond in Woonsocket and Slater Park Pond in Pawtucket will be open for children only for the first two days of the fishing season.

A fishing derby for children in Woonsocket is being held at Cass Park on opening day.

Trout are being stocked at the following northern Rhode Island locations:

CUMBERLAND: Abbott Run Brook, Blackstone River, Cumberland and Lincoln; Silvy’s Brook and Silvy’s Pond.

WOONSOCKET: Cass Pond, Harris River, and Sylvester’s Pond.

SMITHFIELD & SCITUATE: Mowry A.L. Pond, Woonasquatucket River, Dexter Pond, Pawtuxet River (Hope Mill Dam).

BURRILLVILLE: Branch River, Clear River, Lapham Pond, Peck Pond, Burrillville Round Top Brook, Round Top Ponds, Tarkiln Pond, Burrillville and North Smithfield, Chepachet River, Glocester and Burrillville, and Wallum Lake.

LINCOLN: Aldrich Brook (Butterfly Pond); Blackstone River, Cumberland and Lincoln; Memorial Park Pond, Olney Pond (Lincoln Woods), Upper Rochambeau Pond.

FOSTER & GLOCESTER: Chepachet River, Glocester and Burrillville;

Dolly Cole Brook, Foster Green Acres Pond, Hopkins Mill Pond, Peeptoad Brook, and Ponaganset River. Also, Shippee Saw Mill Pond, Spring Grove Pond, and Winsor Brook.

NORTH PROVIDENCE, PAWTUCKET: Geneva Brook and Pond, North Providence, and Slater Park Pond, Pawtucket.

A 2009 fishing license is required for anglers 15 years of age and older. A Trout Conservation Stamp is also required of anyone wishing to keep or possess a trout or to fish in a catch-and-release or ‘fly-fishing only’ area.

Fishing licenses and the $5.50 Trout Conservation Stamp can be obtained at any city or town clerk’s office or authorized agent such as bait and tackle shops and Benny’s.

A list of license vendors is available on the DEM Web site, www.dem.ri.gov by clicking on “Hunting, Fishing, Boating Licenses” from the top left of the home page, and scrolling down to “Hunting/Fishing Agents.”

Licenses may also be obtained at DEM’s Boat Registration and Licensing Office at 235 Promenade St., Providence. As an added convenience, anglers may also purchase their fishing licenses online via www.ri.gov.

License fees remain at $18 for Rhode Island residents and current members of the Armed Forces, $33 for a combination hunting and fishing license, $35 for non-residents, and $16 for a tourist three-consecutive-day license. Anglers over age 65 must have a license, which for them is free, but do not need a trout stamp. The license is also free for anyone with a total disability.

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Fishing Limits Worry Charter Boat Captains

Mike Vegessi, With His Daughter Serena, in Montauk.

April, 13, 2009
(FishNLand.com)
MIKE VEGESSI, the captain of the fishing boat Lazy Bones, still remembers the newlyweds who came aboard his vessel in 1991 and spent the time with their arms wrapped around each other. Then a fish struck their line. The rod bent so much that Mr. Vegessi thought the man had hooked a shark or a manta ray. What he pulled up was an 18-pound summer flounder as big as a doormat. A fluke skeleton on Mike Vegessi’s boat slip. “You don’t see many like that,” said Mr. Vegessi, 55, whose 35-foot rig operates out of Montauk Harbor.

What worries Mr. Vegessi these days is that people will be catching fewer summer flounder, or fluke, of any size because of new regulations handed down by the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Professional fishermen say the restrictions will reduce fishing for this popular species so much it could drive some of them out of business.

The restrictions were based on data provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service to prevent overfishing and rebuild fish stocks. The fishery management plan was created by federal and state agencies and put in place by votes of their councils and commissions.

Fishermen say the restrictions are based on a faulty survey, a contention federal officials dispute.

Mr. Vegessi said the restrictions were not necessary. “There are more fish around now than ever,” he said.

Last season, New York fishermen were allowed to land fluke more than 20 ½ inches long and keep four a day. This year, the size has been increased to 21 inches with a two-fish limit. In addition, the season has been broken into two parts — from May 15 to June 15 and July 3 to Aug. 17 — with a two-and-a-half-week break.

Taken together, the changes are viewed as a disaster by charter boat captains, who usually cater to five or six passengers at a time, and owners of party boats, which can handle from several dozen to more than a hundred anglers.

“It’s going to be a killer,” said Carl Forsberg, a 27-year-old captain and fourth-generation fisherman with the Viking Fleet. “Not only for us, but for Montauk in general.”

Fishermen said that the new limits on fluke are flawed because they are linked to a Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey from 1998. The state has sued the federal government to change the numbers used in creating the quotas, contending that the fluke limits set among the states are unfair and not based on the best scientific methods available as required by law.

The fisheries statistical survey was really of anglers, not the fish population, and is only a small part of the information used to determine fluke quotas, said Teri Frady, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the fisheries service. That calculation comes from a continuing compilation of federal, state and independent studies by fishery scientists that look at things like the number of fish landed and the current population in the ocean, she said.

“Those assessments have been peer-reviewed 17 times in the last 24 years,” Ms. Frady said.

New York fishermen caught 583,000 fluke last year, exceeding the quota by 61 percent. But James J. Gilmore Jr., the Department of Environmental Conservation’s chief of marine resources, said studies in recent years indicated that the fluke population was both on the rise and moving farther north.

Fred E. Bird, 81, the captain of the Flying Cloud off Montauk, said his passengers especially like landing fluke. “They put up a good fight,” he said. “You don’t have to be an expert to catch them. It’s great fishing in the summertime.”

He said the new rules would actually hurt the fluke population because undersize fish returned to the water often die and the new size requirement ensures that more will be thrown back. Fluke more than 18 inches long usually are female.

“The bigger fish are the ones that propagate,” Mr. Bird said.

One factor that will hit the fishing industry particularly hard is the midseason shutdown, said Assemblywoman Ginny Fields, a Democrat whose district includes parts of the Towns of Brookhaven and Islip. The new rules mean that Father’s Day — the biggest day of the year for fishing and tackle sales — is now off the schedule, she said.

“It’s just another instance of fishermen getting kicked in the teeth,” she said.

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