I parked my car on a dirt pull-off on the side of a southern Vermont river on a signature overcast late August day, around nine months ago. As I walked around and popped open my CRV’s trunk, pulled on my grandfather’s waders and popped open my fly box, I decided I needed to devote some thought to an issue that is woven throughout the sport I’ve learned to love over the past two years.

Fly fishing is a quintessential American pastime. With a fabled history ingrained in American outdoor recreation, popular culture and conservation, participants in the sport constantly refer to the tranquility of the fly-fishing experience — standing in a river placing flies in front of an eager trout and witnessing nature at its finest in the dark silhouetted halos on the crest of a brook trout’s spine. Fly fishing provides a serene experience to its enjoyers too, with widespread evidence for the sport’s mental health benefits.

The history of fish stocking is basically entrenched within the history of New England outdoor recreation and the fly-fishing industry. Funded by philanthropists, state and federal agencies and, most importantly, the public through fishing and hunting license purchases, it provides fishing opportunities across the state to a significant number of Mainers who otherwise might not be able to access productive trout fisheries. Stocked fish are ultimately what brought me to a Vermont river last September, allowing me to interact and experience nature in a personally healthy and enjoyable way. That said, the stocking of trout in America’s rivers directly opposes the fly-fishing industry and Maine’s stated environmental priorities, specifically with regards to the health of riverine ecosystems.

Ecologically, there is no way to assess the damage that fish stocking has done to Maine’s ecosystems. Trout stocking has been shown time and time again to disrupt river ecology and native and endangered species, from macroinvertebrates to native fish. Stocking of brown trout in ecosystems with wild and native brown trout populations has been reported to cause significant genetic changes to wild populations. Especially interesting is the potential impacts that stocking can have outside the watershed — a topic that is highly under researched in all aquatic ecosystems, beyond just rivers.

In Maine, a state known for its truly wild Brook Trout populations, especially in the western and northern regions of the state, it is critical that we prioritize protecting these native populations and surrounding ecosystems when thinking about the stocking question. Greg LaBonte, owner of popular Maine fly fishing brand Maine Fly Guys, captures the complexity of the fish stocking issue well, focusing on the major concerns around stocking in Maine’s rivers while acknowledging that some of southern Maine’s rivers likely would not support trout populations without stocking programs.

It is hard to break a cycle like fish stocking that is fueled by the participation of fishermen and probably provides better fishing opportunities than would exist without the practice. Native fisheries have been drastically depleted throughout the Northeast and across the entire world, but supplying synthetic, hatchery-raised fish that most likely won’t survive until the following year to watersheds is not the answer to the decline in native fishing opportunities.

What would happen if the profits made off licenses went directly to restoration efforts and conservation of native ecosystems? While fishing opportunities in the short term might decrease, I think that most fly fishermen would readily choose attempts to restore iconic native fisheries and ecosystems over following the IF&W stocking report to the river. At the least, a dialogue around the topic needs to have a much more prominent seat at the table in the fly-fishing community and industry.

As flows come down and gear is dusted off to hit the river this rainy spring, I urge fly anglers, and more broadly, outdoor and conservation-minded folks, to think critically about the influences and pressures we burden our already stressed and rapidly changing river ecosystems with.