Montauk C&r Question

[trizkid]

why is the last, and best in my opinion, part of the campground stretch closed to fishing during the c&r?.....i camped at site 313 and was disappointed to find this out, having been expecting to walk right out from the tent into the water and fish.

[jdmidwest]

That's just the way it has always been, no rhyme or reason, it ends at the first low water bridge. I would like to see the whole park open for C&R season. I like the campground stretch myself. Its probably a number of fish reason or feeding the fish problem. I think they feed the fish in the stream during C&R season during the week at least once. At least they put a few fish in the lake this winter and I got to fish it again. In the past few years, the lake has been void of any fish every time I go thru. They used to keep some nice ones in there.

[Gavin]

Not much rhyme or reason for it...Just a WAG but it might have something to do with spawning brown trout that run up in the winter....the ledge at the handicapped hole should keep most of them downstream. Frankly, I'd rather camp free on the river & fish the Blue Ribbon. Cheers.

[fishgypsy]

Not much rhyme or reason for it...Just a WAG but it might have something to do with spawning brown trout that run up in the winter....the ledge at the handicapped hole should keep most of them downstream. Frankly, I'd rather camp free on the river & fish the Blue Ribbon. Cheers.

I was wondering if rainbows move up from the Current in the late fall and winter to spawn there, that'd be my only guess. It's always closed to fishing, so I've never looked.

[jdmidwest]

According to MDC, trout do not successfully spawn in the Current River, so why would they close it for that reason? I think it may have to do with the stocking and control of the additional river miles. They may have to staff more people to manage it.

[bikehikefish]

It's probably not closed to protect the spawn, but to protect the spawning fish. They would bunched up and exposed to a lot of fishing pressure, kind of like the outlets at Taneycomo.

fyi - when C&R started in the 80's it was allowed only upstream from the 119 bridge in the park. I don't know exactly when the park downstream from the bridge was first opened up for winter fishing.

[fishgypsy]

According to MDC, trout do not successfully spawn in the Current River, so why would they close it for that reason? I think it may have to do with the stocking and control of the additional river miles. They may have to staff more people to manage it.

Browns don't, but rainbows do. That was the only logical reason I could think of, that rainbows move up there to spawn in the gravels and MDC doesn't want folks stressing the fish or walking on redds (I thought one of the goals of Blue-Ribbon status was to protect wild trout fisheries, it's sort of unclear from the regs whether that's a goal on larger waters though). And it wouldn't explain why the ban on fishing that section existed before the newer ribbon regulations. Ah well.