Lake Champlain and the Battenkill River are famous for their fishing and the number of Vermont anglers has been on the rise in recent years, bucking a national decline. State officials and fishing enthusiasts hope to maintain that trend, but there are some challenges – chief among them invasive species, which threaten to disrupt the ecological balance of Vermont’s rivers, ponds and lakes. Shawn Good is a fisheries biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Department. David Deen is a fly-fishing guide and chairman of the House Committee on Fish, Wildlife and Water Quality. They speak with VPR’s Jane Lindholm about how to keep the fish biting in Vermont.
Photo: Eric Rickstad, the president of the local chapter of Trout Unlimited, casts a fly on the Batten Kill River in Sunderland, Vt. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)