Richard Greenough of Essex Junction asks a question during a public meeting of the Fish and Wildlife Board in St. Albans on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. Anglers are questioning new proposed fishing regulations. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerBeneath the low ceiling of the St. Albans Town Education Cente r library, the anglers were getting testy. Some three dozen members of the state’s fishing community, fishermen and fishmongers alike, had come to speak out against regulations proposed by Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Board that they said would upend the state’s little known commercial panfishing industry. Among the rules that the regulatory board has proposed — and which it plans to vote on this summer — are an outright ban on the sale of crappie and new limits on the number of panfish that recreational anglers can haul in per day. These are changes that Department of Fish & Wildlife officials have said would support healthy fish populations and discourage illegal behavior among anglers.Over the course of the heated two hour hearing, which the board hosted to encourage public input on its decision-making process, attendees denounced members of the Department of Fish & Wildlife for what they claimed was an assault on an already fading industry.“I’m not certain how they can push a law or drive something like this down our throats,” Adam Dunkling, of Westford, said at the hearing.While the dynamic may seem familiar, this is not just a debate over red tape that impacts only the state’s most avid outdoors enthusiasts, but a battle over a fishing industry unlike any other in the nation. Vermont is one of the only states in the U.S. — if not the sole state — that allows recreational, hook-and-line anglers to sell their catch. Currently anyone with a sportfishing license in the state can sell certain species of panfish provided that they obey limits on their haul size. Panfish, so-called because they can usually fit within a normal frying pan, are species of small, often delicious freshwater fish like crappie, perch, bluegill and pumpkinseed.Neighboring states like Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania all prohibit the sale of fish caught by recreational hook-and-line anglers — what’s caught is for personal consumption only. The same is true of most states in the Midwest and South, making Vermont one of the only sources for wild panfish. (Panfish can be farm-raised, but some species, like crappie, are difficult to harvest that way and are rarely farmed).As a result, a cottage industry around panfish has quietly boomed in the state for decades, though it has faced decline in recent years, partly due to evolving demographics and climate change affecting the winter fishing season. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of panfish are harvested and sold in Vermont each year, according to data from the Department of Fish & Wildlife. Between 2020 and 2023, the state exported an average of about $1 million of fish per year to Canada, where much of it is processed, down from roughly $9 million worth of fish crossing the border in 2013, according to data from the International Trade Agency.But the controversial new rules proposed by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board — a 14 member board that oversees hunting and fishing regulations in the state— would impose guardrails on that commerce, which state wildlife officials say has long flown under the radar of regulators. “I kind of look at this as us sort of catching up to other states,” Shawn Good, a fisheries biologist for the Department of Fish & Wildlife, said in an interview. “We’re sort of behind the curve here in Vermont.”Eric Palmer, director of fisheries for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, speaks during a public meeting of the Fish and Wildlife Board in St. Albans on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. Anglers questioned new proposed fishing regulations during the meeting. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger‘We have no clue how many people are selling fish’For the most part, recreational anglers sell their catch to small bait shops across Vermont, which in turn resell the fish to Ray’s Seafood Market, a restaurant and fishmonger in Essex Junction that serves as the state’s main hub for fish distribution. From there, the fish can go in any number of directions.“It varies. It all depends on what the markets are doing, but there are lots of different options for it,” Paul Dunkling, manager of Ray’s Seafood Market, said in an interview. Although the distributor sells some panfish locally, Dunkling said, it also trucks a large majority of the fish to processing facilities in the Great Lakes region in Canada, which package and sell fillets to online retailers and wholesalers. Much of it also goes to markets in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, Dunkling said.But the path those fish take, wherever they ultimately end up, is a difficult one for state officials to trace.Brian Dunkling of Hinesburg asks a question during a public meeting of the Fish and Wildlife Board in St. Albans on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. Anglers are questioning new proposed fishing regulations. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerAs things currently stand, only the buyers of fish — between 12 and 18 bait shops and fishmongers across the state in any given year — have to report their purchases, which affords the Department of Fish & Wildlife just a glimpse of the panfish commerce that occurs in the state.One of the rules proposed by the Fish and Wildlife Board is the introduction of a “Fish Sellers Endorsement” for recreational anglers looking to sell their catch. Anglers with the endorsement would have to report their sales to the state.“Part of this proposal is to start accounting for the number of anglers out there selling part of their catch,” Good said. “We have no clue how many people are selling fish.” The methods that anglers deploy to get their haul have also caused concern among state officials, who have argued that the high value of the fish, especially crappie, incentivize illegal behavior. Anglers can sell their crappie to local shops for over $3 a pound, which is at least twice as much as the running price for other panfish, according to statistics from the Department of Fish & Wildlife. By the time they make it up the commerce chain to online wholesalers, though, crappie filets can go for almost $30 a pound. As a result, officials are pushing to ban sales of crappie specifically, which poses a unique law enforcement challenge.According to Jud Kratzer, a fisheries biologist with the Department of Fish & Wildlife, crappie have been repeatedly introduced into new waters, more often than other fish. Department biologists can’t prove it, but they believe the introductions are being done by anglers looking to spread the valuable fish. “It’s almost certainly coming from anglers,” Kratzer said.Game wardens routinely catch anglers exceeding their daily limit on crappie, and have busted out-of-state anglers for illegally bringing the fish into Vermont to sell, according to Lt. Robert Currier, a warden serving northwest Vermont. In extreme cases, game wardens have received reports of physical altercations between anglers jockeying for spots along riverbanks where the crappie are plentiful.“It has happened where there have been assaults, physical assaults with rocks — people trying to fight others off because they got there in somebody’s very specific spot,” Matt Thiel, a warden based in Alburgh, told members of the Fish and Wildlife Board at a meeting in January.The board has also proposed new catch limits for panfish hauls, arguing that doing so would promote healthy fish populations.Anglers can currently take in 25 crappie per day and an unlimited number of other panfish species of any size from Lake Champlain. For every other body of water in the state — or “inland” waters — there’s a daily limit of 25 crappie and 50 yellow perch, with no restrictions on other panfish. According to Kratzer, the last time Vermont updated its panfish regulations was in the late ‘90s, when the perch limits were introduced.Under the proposed rules, which wouldn’t impact Lake Champlain hauls, recreational anglers would only be allowed to take in 25 of any given species of fish per day from inland waters, with a daily limit of 50 on all species combined, which could sharply curtail the amount of fish on the market.Jud Kratzer of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department speaks during a public meeting of the Fish and Wildlife Board in St. Albans on Tuesday, March 25. Anglers questioned new proposed fishing regulations during the meeting. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger‘A way of life’The proposed regulations have proven controversial in the angling community. Department of Fish & Wildlife officials said that a petition signed by over 240 people calling for the state to crack down on panfish sales is what galvanized the current move to regulate the industry. But the suggested rules have found fierce opposition in other corners of the state’s fishing community. “This panfish industry supports quite a few people around the lakes here when you stop and add it up,” said Paul Dunkling, of Ray’s Seafood.In addition to the anglers selling their catch, Dunkling pointed to employees of smaller bait shops who buy and handle the fish, as well as those involved in shipping and transporting.“It’s going to hurt,” Dunkling said of the regulations. “Anything they take away is going to hurt.” Opponents to the proposed rules have introduced a petition of their own calling on the Fish and Wildlife Board to vote down the new rules. As of Thursday afternoon, that petition had garnered just over 200 signatures.Anglers have also come out in droves to speak at the public hearings hosted by the board. Among them is Jeremiah Nichols, of Alburgh, who said in an interview that he was worried the initial regulations could snowball into something closer to an outright ban on all panfish sales. A stone mason by trade, Nichols sells panfish to help supplement his income, and he said that the new rules would “threaten a way of life” for some Vermonters.“Money’s tight,” Nichols said. “The fishing helps with gas, with getting new wiper blades, with having peace of mind.” Steve Martell of Alburgh listens to discussion during a public meeting of the Fish and Wildlife Board in St. Albans on Tuesday, March 25. Anglers are questioning new proposed fishing regulations. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerFewer fish The Fish and Wildlife Board will continue to take public comment on the proposed regulations until April 7 and expects to vote this summer on whether to adopt the new rules, which would take effect in January 2026.The extent to which the rules, if they are put in place, would adversely impact the panfishing industry remains to be seen. But regardless of what the board decides, the panfish industry will continue to face headwinds that have beset the community in recent years.Fish and Wildlife data shows a steady decline in the amount of fish that has been harvested and sold over the last decade, a trend that Dunkling confirmed. Although he pointed to the introduction of perch limits as something that hurt business in the past, he attributed the more recent trend to generational decline in panfish anglers. “There’s just less and less fishermen every year,” Dunkling said. “Let’s face it. The younger generation doesn’t fish like the older generation did.” For their part, Kratzer and Good, the fisheries biologists, linked the decline to climate change. Although anglers can catch panfish most times of the year, a large portion of panfish sales come from ice fishing. As the winters warm in Vermont, resulting in less ice cover across the state, ice fishing in general has been on the wane. “If you look at ice over the last few years — before this winter — there’s a definite trend,” Kratzer said.Read the story on VTDigger here: Proposed Fish & Wildlife rules could shake up Vermont’s little-known panfish market. ...read more read less