About 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, as the glaciers receded the natives colonized Cape Cod from their refuge areas in the hills and valleys of what is now the fabled fishing grounds of Georges Bank. Crossing the salt and brackish waters, they found their new homes along spring fed streams formed in valleys carved in glacial sands by raging ice melt waters. These weren’t native American tribes such as the Wampanoag but the native brook trout populations of Cape Cod and the Plymouth area. Long thought of as freshwater fish, adult brook trout have the ability to swim in salt water like their cousins the Atlantic salmon and become “Salter Trout”. In Wamapanoag lore, one of these fish called the “great trout” carved the valley of what is now the Santuit River and to this day the smaller relatives of the great trout still inhabit the Santuit River.

During the 1800s, Cape Cod was a favorite fishing destination for Boston area anglers. The rapid development of the Boston area and the damming of coastal streams to power mills had already decimated most of wild brook trout streams near the Boston area. Traveling by stagecoach and horseback, anglers such as Daniel Webster arrived seeking the wild native brook trout of Cape Cod. They stayed at inns in Cotuit and Sandwich, spent their days casting for trout and their nights spinning fishing yarns over pints of ale. Cape Cod was a lightly settled area back then and brook trout thrived in the cold clean streams feeding into estuaries and salt marshes. With easy access to the salt water, some of these brook trout became the fabled “salters”, highly prized for their size and culinary qualities.

The onslaught of pollution from factories, sawdust clogging streams, mill dams that blocked fish passage and mill ponds and forest clearing that warmed the water spelled the end for many wild brook trout streams in southeastern Massachusetts. In the latter half of the 1800s and the early 1900s, development of streams into cranberry bogs hastened the demise of even more coldwater stream resources. One noted Cape Cod salter trout river, the Monument River, is now gone forever, having been transformed in 1914 to the Cape Cod Canal. This decline in the area’s brook trout was paralled by that occurring throughout the eastern United States and today brook trout are thought to occur in only 5% of its former historic habitats.

Due to the depletion of our native brook trout populations, after the Civil War, private trout hatcheries were developed in Plymouth, Barnstable and Sandwich. Concern over depleted fish stocks led to the formation of the Massachusetts Fish Commission, one of the first state fisheries agencies, and the direct ancestor of my employer, the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife). This agency purchased hatcheries from the private Sandwich Trout Company to replenish depleted brook trout stocks and introduced new species of trout such as rainbow trout from the Pacific Coast and brown trout from Europe. The Sandwich State Fish Hatchery on Route 6A is still functioning and providing quality fish to Cape Cod anglers. While Cape Cod has some tremendous freshwater fishing in its stocked trout ponds and sea run brown trout fishing in Scorton Creek due to its catchable trout stocking programs, some trout anglers and their allies have been toiling away protecting and restoring the remnant native trout populations of area streams.

To help protect the limited populations of wild salter brook trout, the Division of Fish and Game purchased some abandoned cranberry bogs along the Quashnet River in the early 1950s. By the 1970s, overgrowth of the bogs by a shrub called sweet gale had resulted in a braided stream channel and not much trout habitat left in the river. In 1975, a local plumber named Fran Smith with other volunteers from the Cape Cod Chapter of Trout Unlimited started to improve the habitat of the river to rebuild the brook trout populations of the river. Under Fran’s leadership, the volunteers spent tens of thousands of hours cutting back the sweet gale, rebuilding the stream banks and installing deflectors and overhead covers. This ongoing habitat restoration has received national recognition and the brook trout population has flourished.

In the 1980s, the Mashpee River was a focus of a major land protection effort to help protect its fisheries resources. The Mashpee River is one of the least disturbed rivers on Cape Cod due to the town of Mashpee’s status as the historic home for the Wampanoag tribe and its quasi reservation status until the late 1800s, a time when much of the development of the area’s rivers and streams for mill power had already peaked and started to decline. The Mashpee River was later protected as a private fishing preserve by wealthy anglers but by the 1980s was threatened by rapid development pressures. A consortium of groups including the Town of Mashpee, MassWildife, The Trustees of Reservations and the Nature Conservancy stepped in and purchased most of the land bordering the river to help protect its resources for the future.

Another historic salter brook trout river had also been protected by private parties since the 1800s. This river, known as Red Brook for its iron stained waters, was protected by the Lyman Family for over 100 years. Theodore Lyman, one of the first commissioners of the Massachusetts Fish Commission, started purchasing land along Red Brook while in the area helping set up the first state fish hatchery at Maple Springs in Wareham. In the 1990s, the family decided it was time to pass the trusteeship of the river onto the public. The family property is now managed under a cooperative management agreement between Trout Unlimited, The Trustees of Reservations and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. An ambitious restoration project to remove small dams on the river and restore fish habitat is now underway with help from the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Riverways Program, American Rivers and the A. D. Makepeace Company. Volunteers from Trout Unlimited help monitor the river along with students from Massachusetts Maritime Academy and other schools. What was once only the Lyman Family legacy and vision is now a shared and cooperative project involving state and local government agencies, private conservation groups, school, a prominent cranberry company and the public.

DNA analysis is not just being used to identify criminals it is also being used to help identify and protect our local brook trout populations. A recent study by Brendan Annett, now supervisor of the Waquoit Bay Estuarine Research Reserve, tested the hypothesis that our local wild brook trout populations were related to the existing hatchery stocks of brook trout at the Sandwich State Fish Hatchery. Brendan tested the DNA from four local wild brook trout streams, the Sandwich State Fish Hatchery strain and salter brook trout from a Long Island stream and found that the stream brook trout were very different from the hatchery strain of brook trout and each stream appeared to have a distinct population of brook trout. This may indicate that the streams still harbor their native and separate populations of trout. Thus modern research using genetic testing is confirming the careful observations of a noted angler back in the early 1800s, who was reported to be able to tell from which stream a trout came from by looking at it and noting the distinct body shapes and color patterns.

River restoration efforts are underway on the Coonamessett River in Falmouth but the efforts have developed into a major controversy in town between proponents of cranberry bogs and river restoration advocates. This controversy is nothing new for this river, echoing a battle back in the 1806 between mill dam operators and herring advocates and Dr. David Belding’s comment in the early 1900s of “the principal place where fisheries and cranberries conflict is the Coonamessett River in Falmouth”. A similar proposal to restore brook trout habitat on town owned cranberry bogs on the Eel River in Plymouth is underway without the turmoil that ensued in Falmouth.

Brook trout populations have been the subject of interest throughout the eastern United States and a major initiative called the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture has targeted a goal of restoring brook trout populations to their former range. Here in Southeastern Massachusetts, we have already made good efforts to restoring local brook populations and many areas offer historic habitats for brookies. A potential river for future brook trout restoration is the Childs River in Falmouth, once noted for its salter brook trout fishery. Recent surveys have documented no wild brook trout remaining in the river but habitat restoration and expanding brook trout populations in the Quashnet River offer potential hope for recolonization and restoration of the Childs River brook trout. Other potential areas for brook trout restoration on Cape Cod include the upper Quashnet River and the Marstons Mills River. River habitat restoration projects currently underway or planned that may benefit historic brook trout streams include dam removal projects in Town Brook in Plymouth, the Acushnet River and Third Herring Brook.

With the help of coalitions of anglers and other people concerned about our aquatic environments, Cape Cod’ scarce salter trout resource can be preserved for future generations. Anglers are encouraged to practice catch and release on the areas wild brook trout and to help on restoration efforts. While the areas wild brook trout populations are being enhanced, anglers can take advantage of the tremendous stocked trout fishery we have in the Cape Cod and Plymouth area.

Web Resources for Further Information

MassWildlife
Riverways Program
Trout Unlimited http://www.tu.org and http://www.brookie.org
Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture
The Trustees of Reservations Theodore Lyman Reserve
Mashpee River history and Santuit River History
Cape Cod Chapter of Trout Unlimited (Quashnet Project)
Southeastern Mass Chapter of Trout Unlimited (Red Brook Project)
Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve

Brook Trout in Massachusetts; A Troubled History, A Hopeful Future

Read more about Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis >>here

Read More about: Red Brook Reserve | The Quashnet | Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture | Ongoing Research