Conservation group marks 25 years stocking trout in Ninemile Creek by canoe

Two volunteers from the Ninemile Creek Conservation Council (NCCC), wearing hip waders and carrying long-handled nets, chased 800 brown trout around a shallow holding pen at the Carpenter’s Brook Fish Hatchery yesterday.

Eric Stanzyck, hatchery superintendent, stood on the edge of the pool shouting advice over the din of rushing water.

“Don’t let them be smarter than you!” He yelled. “Don’t double dip!”

After a two-year interruption due to Covid-19, NCCC marked its 25th year of stocking Ninemile Creek by hand, using ‘float boxes’ towed behind a flotilla of canoes. But first volunteers had to get all those trout from the holding pens into the hatchery’s transport truck—a.k.a, the ‘Big Green Trout Hauling Machine.’

Ian Coakley, 10, struggles to carry a heavy net loaded with brown trout at Carpenter's Brook Fish Hatchery in Elrbridge. Volunteers yesterday released 800 trout along a 2-mile stretch of Ninemile Creek by canoe.

Volunteers scooped up the two-year old trout by the dozens, loads heavy enough to strain the arms of the younger volunteers who carried the nets to the truck. It took about half an hour to transfer all 799 fish (one had expired).

The hatchery has already stocked trout fishing streams around the county with 64,000 rainbow, brook, and brown trout so far this year, Stanzyck said, including 19,000 in Ninemile Creek alone. Aside from a few hundred browns slated for two upcoming fishing derbies, this was the last of them.

Carpenter's Brook Fish Hatchery's 'Big Green Trout Hauling Machine' has three live tanks for transporting stocked trout from the hatchery to streams all around Onondaga County. Here, the truck delivered 800 brown trout to be released into Ninemile Creek from Munro Park in Camillus.

NCCC’s hands-on approach to trout stocking is less about dumping fish into the water than it is about encouraging community engagement with an important environmental resource, which means keeping trout anglers happy.

“People are using the stream like crazy these days,” said Chris Somerlot, NCCC president and a water resource engineer at Brown and Caldwell, an environmental engineering firm with offices in Syracuse. “It’s the most productive trout stream in the county,” he said.

The section of Ninemile Creek stocked by NCCC volunteers meanders roughly 2.25 miles from Munro Park in Camillus to Ninemile Creek Aqueduct. Although scientific data shows that most hatchery trout typically don’t live more than a year, Somerlot said, “this section maintains 25% of its population over winter.”

“That’s important,” he said. “They’re the smart ones.”

Volunteers from Ninemile Creek Conservation Council yesterday scooped up 800 brown trout at the Carpenter's Brook Fish Hatchery. Here the fish are being loaded from pens into a tank in the back of the hatchery's Big Green Trout Hauling Machine, which transported them to Ninemile Creek for release.

Maude Morris, who organized NCCC’s float-stocking event this year, likes to think the group is doing the trout a favor—giving the fish a fin up, so to speak, over the tens of thousands of other trout the county puts in the creek each year to support the trout angling community.

“I’m assuming the trout don’t care, but we’re pretending the trout care,” she said. “We dump them where they like to be, a little quiet spot.”

Hatchery chief Stanzyck takes a more practical view of NCCC’s efforts. Hand delivering the fish “does get them down into the water that we can’t reach with the truck,” he said. “From Camillus down to Amboy there’s not a whole lot of access.”

A scout from Troop 100 in Lafayette dumps a net full of brown trout into a "float box" attached to a canoe. Ninemile Creek Conservation Council volunteers yesterday released 800 fish along a 2-mile stretch of creek from Munro Park in Camillus to the Erie Canal Aqueduct.

NCCC volunteers and 10 scouts from Troop 100 in Lafayette met the Big Green Trout Hauling Machine at Munro Park in Camillus, dragging canoes, kayaks, and a dozen float boxes to the creek’s muddy bank.

Stanzyck and his colleague, Eric Appleby, unlatched the truck’s holding tanks and began offloading nets bulging with trout into the awaiting hands of volunteers, who then carried the fish down a slippery path to the trout flotilla anchored in the creek.

Soon the flotilla was underway, gliding slowly, one-by-one, over sun-dappled water reflecting the bright green leaves of budding trees overhanging the banks. Float boxes flapping with hatchery fish bobbed on ropes tied to the stern of each canoe.

Ninemile Creek Conservation Council volunteers got wet when their canoe flipped while towing a float box full of brown trout. No trout were harmed in the accident, and the volunteers were soon underway with aid from Troop 100 scouts.

Every hundred yards or so, in a shady spot where the current was just right, a volunteer dipped a net into a float box and released a few fish into their new home.

The whole operation went smoothly until one canoe bringing up the rear of the flotilla flipped in a bend of the creek with a tricky current, sending two volunteers overboard. Three scouts raced to the rescue and helped right the canoe. Presumably the the trout in tow were blissfully unaware that their freedom was delayed only by a few minutes.

Steve Featherstone covers the outdoors for The Post-Standard, syracuse.com and NYUP.com. Contact him at sfeatherstone@syracuse.com or on Twitter @featheroutdoors. You can also follow along with all of our outdoors content at newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/ or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/upstatenyoutdoors.

Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.

Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your California Privacy Rights (User Agreement updated 1/1/21. Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement updated 5/1/2021).

© 2022 Advance Local Media LLC. All rights reserved (About Us). The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local.

Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site.