Wallace Dam Fish Ladder "World Fish Migration Day"

DEEP and Save the Sound

 This morning i took a ride over to the fish ladder in Wallingford on the Quinnipiac River after hearing from my father that it was going to be open for viewing today only. I have recently spent a lot of time in this area and have found the amount of fish and different species to be very surprising so the idea of talking with the designers of this ladder and the DEEP officers and employees seemed like a cool idea. Right when i got there the people working the event walked up shook my hand introduced themselves and we began talking about the ladder and the river in general. We discussed the fact that many fish are not using this ladder and i explained to them the thousands of herring i had seen in the past few weeks all stacked up on the other side of the dam. They admitted that the opening of the fish ladder maybe isn't in the best spot possible but also showed me the numbers of how many fish have used the ladder this season. The viewing area has a motion sensored camera that takes a photo every time a fish passes through. Then a DEEP employee checks this camera with there laptop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and goes through all the pictures and updates there totals.  I was pretty impressed to see this but in my honest opinion the amount of herring using the ladder is maybe an 1/8 of how many have actually been up at the dam. We talked about the spike in gizzard shad which in previous years had not been seen in this river and they told me that all the ladders in CT have had big numbers off them this year.  Which is good news for stripers.

Click to enlarge:  Ladder totals

 In previous years the Quinnipiac River Association and students from Uconn have netted fish from the dam and lifted them up and over but they stopped this once the fish ladder was completed. I feel that they should continue netting these fish over and have the fish ladder. You could easily double the amount of herring making there way to spawn by going down with a big net in just one day. This is something that Save the Sound and I discussed for next season. You cant do this yourself or you will be in big trouble but with the right people this may be possible moving forward and i myself would love to volunteer and be part of it. These guys do great work and as a fisherman in this state i think in most cases they do a very good job but it can always improve and they are very willing to listen. I walked to the other side of the River to show John from Save the Sound the herring that all stack up on the other side and sure enough they were there. Most the fish have went back down river but there are still some trying to make there way up. We talked shad, herring, stripers and a whole lot of fishing and conservation and the guys could not have been nicer. It was a cool experience and with more and more fish ladders being made here in CT they were very interested in hearing some of the first hand details i had in these past few weeks. While down there a few fisherman stopped by to ask when the herring ban will be lifted and by the responses i would say it will not be any time soon.  Im glad i stopped down there to check it out and was happy to see some families bringing there children down to see it. Only problem was this whole event was about a week too late as no more fish have used the ladder in recent days. Read the fish totals and you might be surprised of the species that pass through our back yard water ways.  Very interesting stuff!

By; Joe Jacobowitz

Viewing Area (camera and window with lights)