BY GAYLE FEE
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BATTEN KILL WATERSHED ALLIANCE
For generations the
caused by landowners cutting down
the trees that held the land in place
along the riverbanks. Some wanted
to improve their views, others were
seeking more acreage for farmlands.
But the unintended consequence
was a blow to the trout fishery.
Battenkill lured anglers
from around the world
to its legendary banks
promising a trout-fishing
paradise, but some 30 years ago
the river stopped giving up large
numbers of fish, leading scientists,
anglers, and concerned citizens to
ask: What was killing the Batten-
kill?
“Trout like a river bottom with big
rocks because the insects that they
like to eat will live in all the nooks
and crannies,” Cooperman said.
When you have an eroding bank,
it’s dumping dirt into the river, and
all those nooks and crannies fill
up and the river bottom looks like
a paved road. You lose the insect
population, the fish have no food,
and so the river will support less
fish.”
“Back in the 1940s and ’50s the
Battenkill was widely regard-
ed as one of the best wild
trout fisheries in the eastern
United States,” said Michael
Cooperman of the Moore
Center for Science Conservation
International who has studied the
fishery. “Everyone from movie
stars to the hoi polloi would come
to Manchester to fish. But at some
point between the mid-1980s and
early ’90s the number of fish started
to fall and the size started to decline
and that caused a lot of concern.”
In response, the Vermont Fish &
Wildlife Department restricted
the Battenkill to catch-and-release,
meaning anglers had to return the
fish they caught back to the river.
At the same time, state, federal,
and local biologists began to study
the problem with an eye toward
bringing the river back to its glo-
ry days. There were lots of theories
about what was keeping the trout
numbers down: Disease? Water
quality? Water temperature? But
eventually, in the early 2000s
a consensus emerged: it was a
habitat issue.
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74 VERMONT
VERMONT magazine
Magazine
FALL 2019
“There were deep-pool habitats that would hold a few
big fish and ripple habitats that would hold some of
the small fingerling-size fish, but no real habitat for
the in-between stages,” said Carl Schwartz, a biologist
with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “There was a lack of
cover for the midsize fish. The little ones could hang in
the riffle, but if the medium-size ones went in the deep
pools they’d just become part of the big fish.”
Meanwhile the Battenkill was be-
coming more and more popular
with recreational users such as ca-
noers, tubers, and kayakers. To clear
a path for them, a lot of commer-
cial renters removed fallen trees,
branches, and stumps that were in
the river providing cozy little fish
condos for the trout. That eventual-
ly led to the main problem: a lack of
cover and shelter for the fish.
“Trout need places to hide from
predators, other fish, ducks, otters,
and eagles,” said Cynthia Browning,
executive director of the Batten Kill
Watershed Alliance, created in 2001
to promote good stewardship of the
river. “And they need deep pools
and shade to get away from the heat
There were numerous reasons the Battenkill’s trout in the summer. Trees overhanging
habitat declined, but the main causes were excess the banks provide shade, and the
erosion and conflicts between river users. Erosion was big rocks, trees, and stumps that fell