FISHING COMMITTEE

The Fishing Committee will have their next meeting on Thursday, March 26th at 7:00 at the Lake Office. All are welcome.

The state of New Jersey has completely overhauled their stillwater fishing regulations, which Lake Tamarack follows... This is what will affect us:

1).  There is no longer a closed season of any kind on lakes and ponds.  In an effort to combat predatory birds and fish from eating sizable amounts of stocked fish populations before anyone is allowed to fish for them, it has been decided that you can fish for stocked trout from the minute they are put in the water.  For anyone who has seen the army of cormorants and osprey descend on Lake Tamarack shortly after a fish stock, you can understand why these new regulations are in place.

2).  Bag limits have changed.  In an effort to keep meaningfulness around opening day (April 11th at 8am) you may now only keep a total of 2 trout from June 1st until April 11th at 8am.  From April 11th at 8am, bag limits return to the usual 6 trout per person through May 31st.

3).  Since there is no longer a closed season, there is no longer an 8am start time for opening day.  You may start fishing at any time you'd like, but you may not keep more than 2 fish until after 8am.

*Please note, these changes are just for lakes and ponds!  If you try to go to the Wallkill River during the closed preseason and take home two trout, you are going to be fined and lose your fishing license!

Obviously, this will force us to change our tagged trout contest rules.  It will still be $5 an entry, but all entries must be to Judy absolutely no later than when she leaves the office on Monday, April 6th.  We look forward to everyone joining us at Beach 1 at 330p on April 6th to help stock the trout.