TU Philosophy...We believe that trout and salmon fishing isn't just fishing for trout and salmon. It's fishing for sport rather than food, where the true enjoyment of the sport lies in the challenge, the lore, the battle of wits, not necessarily the full creel. It's the feeling of satisfaction that comes limiting your kill instead of killing your limit. It's communing with nature where the chief reward is a refreshed body and a contented soul, where a license is a permit to use not abuse, to enjoy not destroy our cold water fishery. It's subscribing to the proposition that what's good for trout and salmon is good for the fisherman and that managing trout and salmon for themselves rather than the fisherman is fundamental to the solution of our trout and salmon problems. It's appreciating our fishery resource, respecting fellow anglers and giving serious thought to tomorrow.
Welcome to the Long Island Chapter of Trout Unlimited
Fuchs Pond Initiative
Fuchs Pond is located on the North Shore, part of the Crab Meadow Wetlands in Northport, Town of Huntington NY, adjacent to
the L.I. Sound. In 2003, the Town and County jointly purchased the 20 acres of Fuchs property for $3.8 million dollars.
In April of 2009, Trout Unlimited (TU) member Bill O'Brien, brought the serious Fuchs Pond flooding and massive
tree destruction to the attention of Trout Unlimted, the Town of Huntington, and Suffolk County. Since 1970 Bill was
aware that the Pond had housed a Brook Trout population. The cause of the flooding was determined to be a collapsed Pond
outflow pipe. In February 2010, Bill presented a proposal to correct the flooding to over fourteen County, Town
and environmental representatives, including TU.
John Fischer, (also a member of Trout Unlimited) on behalf
of Bill, represented Trout Unlimited at a Huntington Town Hall meeting. As a result of a presentation prepared
by Bill, the Town of Huntington passed a resolution on April 13, 2010 appointing a committee (of which
John and Bill are members of) to advise on the protection of not only the 20 acres of Fuchs Pond, but the entire 670 acres of the
Crab Meadow Wetlands. Fuchs Pond is a primary freshwater source for the entire 670 acre Crab Meadow Wetland.
In December
2010, the County and DEC replaced the Pond's old weir and outlet pipes with an entire new system lowering the Pond level ...an
initial objective of the Fuchs Pond Reclamation Project.
Recently, the Town received a Iroquois Gas $4000 hydrology
study grant for the Crab Meadow Project, part of which will be used to purchase data loggers.
Our conservations efforts....
Oyster Bay/Cold Spring Harbor Watershed Fish Passage Assessment Project
In January 2005, the Long Island Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU) collaborated with Friends of the Bay and Environmental Defense in
applying for a grant under the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Long Island Sound Futures Fund to conduct a fish passage assessment
within the Oyster Bay/Cold Spring Harbor Watershed. The overall goal of the proposed project was to mitigate the impacts of
existing barriers on the health of the ecosystems throughout the Oyster Bay/Cold Spring Harbor watershed, specifically the depletion
of diadromous fish (fishes travel between fresh and salt water) populations caused by fragmentation of stream channels. Later
that same year, we were advised that our application was approved and we had been awarded the grant for the Oyster Bay-Cold Spring
Harbor Watershed Fish Passage Assessment Project. Read more
The results of the project.....National Fish and Wildlife FoundationFinal Programmatic Report