brown trout selective harvest?

[larkmark]

If I eat a trout it is a stocked fish. Killing wild fish in this day and age is just a waste. Go buy your fish at the store.

 

[jifigz]

larkmark wrote:
If I eat a trout it is a stocked fish. Killing wild fish in this day and age is just a waste. Go buy your fish at the store.

Is that so you can eat wild fish from an over harvested fishery elsewhere? Out of sight, out of mind and it isn't happening in your stream so it's okay.

I rarely harvest a fish, but harvesting a few fish from most wild brown trout streams can be done responsibly and ethically. Ocean stocks have been crashing for years and will continue to get worse. Buying your fish isn't always the solution..

 

[larkmark]

Fly fishing and catch and release go hand on hand. If everyone kept their limit of legal trout on most of our PA wild trout streams the fishing would be lousy. You can be very thankful that most of us let them go all the time. Encouraging catch and keep of wild trout with the amount of fishing pressure we have today is not a smart thing to do if you care about catching anything bigger than your hand.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Larkmark, I don't think anyone here advocates for folks to keep 5 wild trout every trip. Most mention keeping a handful of wild trout for the whole year for their consumption. I think everyone should keep trout once in a while. Enjoy a home cooked meal with their family and remember our angling roots.

 

[glamcaster]

larkmark wrote:

you can be very thankful that most of us let them go all the time. Encouraging catch and keep of wild trout with the amount of fishing pressure we have today is not a smart thing to do if you care about catching anything bigger than your hand.

Many of my favorite catches were smaller than my hand 😉 with red and blue flecks

 

[Mike]

Everyone keeping their limit of brown trout would be hard to do according to the wild trout angler use and harvest study. The average catch rate from larger streams, greater than or equal to 20 ft wide, was 0.56 brown trout per hour or 1.6 brown trout per trip. For streams narrower than that the catch rates were 0.13 browns per hour or 0.37 browns per trip. You have little to worry about with respect to people being able to catch their limits, let alone keep their limits of brown trout. Note that I specifically said brown trout catch per trip, which included the sub-legal fish, not just the legal size fish.

So jifigz, don’t fret at all about your limited harvest; you’re not harming anything. A random sample of wild trout stream sections in the creel survey had an average 142 legal browns per mile and the harvest rate was only 1 per mile on avg.

 

[larkmark]

So Mike, are you saying if I go down a small wild trout stream and have a particularly good day and keep 5 wild fish in the 10-14" range and I do that say 5 times a season and 10 other anglers also do that it will have no impact on the trout fishing? So we as fly fishermen should be encouraging people to keep larger wild trout? That's ridiculous!
By the way you all might want to look into the origins of catch and release and how it was a very important part of the fly fishing and conservation ethic.

 

[Susquehanna]

No.
Mike is saying you and the other 10 anglers are generally inept at fishing for wild brown trout and will only catch about 4 trout in your 11 trips.
The amount of wild brown trout you dont catch is staggering.

 

[glamcaster]

larkmark wrote:

By the way you all might want to look into the origins of catch and release and how it was a very important part of the fly fishing and conservation ethic.

I would like to reiterate that keeping, in the context of this post, is referring only to wild brown trout. Any holier-than-thou catching and releasing would also be non-native brown trout, in the abstract. Just a reminder..

 

[jifigz]

larkmark wrote:
So Mike, are you saying if I go down a small wild trout stream and have a particularly good day and keep 5 wild fish in the 10-14" range and I do that say 5 times a season and 10 other anglers also do that it will have no impact on the trout fishing? So we as fly fishermen should be encouraging people to keep larger wild trout? That's ridiculous!
By the way you all might want to look into the origins of catch and release and how it was a very important part of the fly fishing and conservation ethic.

Yes, catch and release is engrained in nearly all fishing circles. The people who love the fish rarely, if ever, keep any. And it doesn't take long. Look at Fred, I bet he is already frowning on people that he sees keeping snakeheads. They already have a huge catch and release following.

I fish nearly every single day (not an exaggeration) and basically never see anyone on the streams that I fish. I kept one stocked rainbow trout last year, and that was the first trout I kept in years..I haven't harvested a fish this season. Most anglers I know that are into keeping fish are stocked trout chasers..they probably don't even realize how good our fishing for wild trout is. Furthermore, most people who keep fish are not out every day. They may only go a handful of times each year.

Wild browns are dominating our state. There really isn't anything to be worried about. Today and yesterday I was on two different streams governed by regular statewide regs. I saw no one and caught a lot of wild browns. These streams have fished well for years. So, either harvest isn't an issue or despite harvest the streams are great. Just another example of how this is a non-issue.

 

[larkmark]

Is it the Brook Trout that is so valuable or is it the fact that it is a native fish? If you go out west there are places with loads of Brook Trout. Out there they whack them over the head because they are not native. By the way a lot of the Brook Trout you catch may very well be offspring of stocked Brook Trout so you can get strains that are less pure.
I like catching bigger wild fish. I am going to continue releasing them. I am sure if you were to keep the larger wild fish from the best habitat there would be a decline in larger ones for a season or two. I'm not that hungry that I need to keep wild trout.

 

[jifigz]

To me, the brook trout is not any more valuable than a brown trout. I have fully accepted the fact that the brook trout reign in PA is over and I'm not upset about it.

I don't think you fully understand the point of my posts and you are being reactive like your being attacked.

The sole point of my posts is simple..people who legally harvest fish in a responsible manner should not be chastised, made fun of, etc. I respect all wild trout equally.

 

[Susquehanna]

Is it the Brook Trout that is so valuable or is it the fact that it is a native fish? If you go out west there are places with loads of Brook Trout. Out there they whack them over the head because they are not native. 

Do you scold them for this practice? Or just guys in the East?

 

[larkmark]

When you catch that fat 18" Brown that lives under the log by the overhanging Hemlock I hope you enjoy eating it. I caught him 4 times since he was a 12" fish. You can thank me later for releasing him each time.

 

[Susquehanna]

Seems like no.
Im going with no.

 

[glamcaster]

jifigz wrote:

The sole point of my posts is simple..people who legally harvest fish in a responsible manner should not be chastised, made fun of, etc. I respect all wild trout equally.

Thank you, I really liked what you had to contribute

 

[BradFromPotter]

larkmark wrote:
When you catch that fat 18" Brown that lives under the log by the overhanging Hemlock I hope you enjoy eating it. I caught him 4 times since he was a 12" fish. You can thank me later for releasing him each time.

GPS Coordinates please 😎

 

[afishinado]

Job 1 is to preserve all our streams and rivers for all creatures great and small. If we don't at least do that, all is lost.

Job1A is to do what we can to preserve the native creatures like brook trout.

There is no way to turn the clock back and undo the damage done a hundred or hundreds of years ago by logging and mining in PA, and now development and other sources of pollution. Nonnative species were introduced to replace what was lost. But at a certain point, this point IMHO, we should think about preserving the native creatures that are left, and do all we can to stop them from disappearing altogether.

There are thousands of miles of great streams for brown trout. Keep those streams healthy and fish on. I too love fishing for brown trout and err maybe rainbows. But I believe we should identify the remaining viable populations of brook trout and do what we can to preserve, protect and possibly enhance those streams and populations. Stop stocking them and set them aside as native streams to be protected from all nonnative species as well protecting them from development and pollution.

My2

 

[lycoflyfisher]

afishinado wrote:
Job 1 is to preserve all our streams and rivers for all creatures great and small. If we don't at least do that, all is lost.

Job1A is to do what we can to preserve the native creatures like brook trout.

There is no way to turn the clock back and undo the damage done a hundred or hundreds of years ago by logging and mining in PA, and now development and other sources of pollution. Nonnative species were introduced to replace what was lost. But at a certain point, this point IMHO, we should think about preserving the native creatures that are left, and do all we can to stop them from disappearing altogether.

There are thousands of miles of great streams for brown trout. Keep those streams healthy and fish on. I too love fishing for brown trout and err maybe rainbows. But I believe we should identify the remaining[color=CCFF00] viable populations of brook trout[/color] and do what we can to preserve, protect and possibly enhance those streams and populations. Stop stocking them and set them aside as native streams to be protected from all nonnative species as well protecting them from development and pollution.

My2

They key discussion here is what is a viable brook trout population? is it a certain biomass, adult fish per mile estimate, or 1 pair of reproducing adults?

I think there are far more streams than any of us realize that support brook trout reproduction at some level.

 

[afishinado]

lycoflyfisher wrote:

afishinado wrote:
Job 1 is to preserve all our streams and rivers for all creatures great and small. If we don't at least do that, all is lost.

Job1A is to do what we can to preserve the native creatures like brook trout.

There is no way to turn the clock back and undo the damage done a hundred or hundreds of years ago by logging and mining in PA, and now development and other sources of pollution. Nonnative species were introduced to replace what was lost. But at a certain point, this point IMHO, we should think about preserving the native creatures that are left, and do all we can to stop them from disappearing altogether.

There are thousands of miles of great streams for brown trout. Keep those streams healthy and fish on. I too love fishing for brown trout and err maybe rainbows. But I believe we should identify the remaining[color=CCFF00] viable populations of brook trout[/color] and do what we can to preserve, protect and possibly enhance those streams and populations. Stop stocking them and set them aside as native streams to be protected from all nonnative species as well protecting them from development and pollution.

My2

They key discussion here is what is a viable brook trout population? is it a certain biomass, adult fish per mile estimate, or 1 pair of reproducing adults?

I think there are far more streams than any of us realize that support brook trout reproduction at some level.

Pick a biomass number, as well select streams streams that can easily be designated as brook trout preserves and work hard to make it happen....