Trout fishing quality decline topic of January meetings

The decline of trout fishing quality in Oatka and Spring creeks will be front at center at an upcoming meetings held by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Canandaigua Lake Trout Unlimited Chapter.

The DEC public forum will be led by the DEC fisheries staff and is slated to run from 7 to 9 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 11 at Caledonia-Mumford High School auditorium, 99 North St., Caledonia, Livingston County.

A second meeting, led by DEC senior wildlife biologist Matt Sanderson, will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 18 at the Building 5 Auditorium of the Canandaigua VA Medical Center in Canandaigua, Ontario County.

DEC officials received numerous reports of poor fishing in Oatka and Spring creeks, in Monroe and Livingston counties, during the spring of both 2014 and 2015. Both streams are popular with anglers and have traditionally been a prime fishery of wild brown trout. As a result, DEC staff surveyed the Veteran's section of Spring Creek the last two Novembers and Oatka Creek, near Union Street, in November . They found a significant drop in brown trout in the waterway, and among the percentage of yearlings.

The decline is likely due to predation on the trout by the common merganser, a freshwater fish-eating bird often found in wintertime on the Great Lakes and some of New York's interior lakes, according to the DEC. Trout makes up about 84 percent of the bird's diet.

DEC believe mergansers came to both creeks because larger lakes froze over in the last two winters and the spring-fed sections of Oatka and Spring creeks are typically slow to freeze.

Plans for restoration of the declining trout population, such as potentially constructing trout escape cover enhancements, will also be addressed at both meetings.

VFREILE@Gannett.com