My research into the trout populations on the Batten Kill has been sadly incomplete. The Northeast boasts a number of blue-ribbon trout streams, but the Batten Kill is the only one in Vermont. Two angling shrines, the American Museum of Fly Fishing and the Orvis store and flyrod factory, sit alongside the Batten Kill in testament to its revered status. The Kill (a Dutch term for stream or creek), tumbles out of the forested slopes of the Green Mountains and the Taconics and flows through farmland and villages on its way to its confluence with the Hudson River.
In my single experience fishing it, I was impressed with two things. First, the river’s smooth gravel bottom made it terrifically easy to wade. On many rivers, with their haphazard assortments of rocks, boulders, deep holes, and submerged logs, wading can be quite an adventure, but I probably could have waded the Batten Kill blindfolded. My second observation was bad news: the trout were unfortunately few, and the ones I caught or spooked were quite small.
Enough other fishermen have had similar experiences over the last decade that fisheries biologists in Vermont and New York have become increasingly alarmed. They have made it a high priority to understand the reasons for the near collapse of brown trout populations in the Batten Kill. And it turns out that my two observations - easy wading and few fish - are more closely connected than I would have thought.
There are few trout because there is too little structure in the river, according to the working hypothesis of Vermont Fish and Wildlife biologists. What makes the Batten Kill easy to wade - and incidentally, easy for people to float down in tubes and rafts - makes it less and less hospitable for trout. The Batten Kill has inadequate refuge habitat, places in the river for trout of all ages - from fry to spawning adult - to hide from predators.
“Over the past half-dozen years, the department and other agencies have conducted numerous studies to identify likely causes for the reduced abundance of wild brown in the Batten Kill,” said Vermont fisheries biologist Ken Cox.
In the wake of the Clean Water Act, with decades of success stories of cleaning up polluted water, we tend to think of water quality in terms of pollutants, chemicals, and contaminants like e coli. So biologists tested these aspects of water quality on the Batten Kill and found conditions perfectly suitable for trout. They also tested water temperature - if too warm, trout can’t survive - and found it to be well within a healthy range for trout. So it’s not the water itself that’s the problem. Instead, it’s the river’s physical characteristics.
Ken Cox told me that the disappearance of protective structure is not unique to the Kill, that the same problem has occurred on many of our medium and larger rivers. “But it’s more evident here because we’ve had our fingers on the pulse of this river.”
How did these rivers get to this condition? Said Cox, “These habitat deficiencies have been in the making for many years, and more recently reached a critical tipping point.” A number of land use practices contribute: generations of farmers have tilled cropland or grazed animals right up to the water’s edge; logging operations have gone just as close to the river, removing mature trees. And as those former agricultural and forested lands get converted to residential use, the bank clearing can even be increased.
For homeowners, the tendency is to clear out the brush for an unobstructed view of the river from the back porch. If trees fall into the river, the impulse is to tidy up, to get that clutter out of there. Decades of farmers, loggers, and homeowners removing bankside vegetation has reduced the amount of debris in the river.
Debris sounds bad, doesn’t it? Well, it turns out it’s not as bad as it sounds, because what they are doing on the Batten Kill is bringing in debris: trees, rocks, stumps, bundles of brush. No, it’s not that they’ve turned the river into a landfill. In a 20-mile stretch, they have installed 40 structures. In some cases, it’s a whole tree, with the root wad in the river and the crown anchored to the bank. In others, it’s bundles of brush and limbs trucked in from logging jobs. None of the new structures span the entire river, so paddlers can still enjoy it unimpeded, cruising downstream over hidden piles of large slabs of slate, a quarry byproduct readily available locally.
So it’s time to put the blindfold away, replacing it with a pair of polarized glasses that help you wade around the obstacles. And if the biologists are right, that will be a small price to pay for the resurgence of a treasured trout stream.