Harvest or sport

[afishinado]

I fish, I hunt, but some out there harvest. I’m not really talking about the keeping of fish or game, I’m talking about the process, or what we call the “sport.”

I checked the PA Fish and Boat site this morning, like I do every day, and found an announcement about an app available for stocking, which updates “in real-time and gives GIS coordinates” and allows the users to “get directions to their favorite stocking site.” There are other features and the app can be used as a resource for info and learning,…a good thing. But I’m not really talking about the app itself; it’s more about this age of instant gratification.

Not long ago, by accident I blundered into an in-season stocking of a local stream. When I arrived, the parking lot was nearly full and there were more than dozen people standing around, but no one was fishing. Not a minute later the white truck arrived with a line of cars and trucks in tow. There was a mad scramble, not to help stocking or carry buckets, but to get on gear and rig up poles. I offered to help carry some buckets of fish downstream, but was actually scolded a bit by the PFBC person that they had no time to carry buckets. All the fish were dumped in the hole, and the crowd descended on the spot. Guys were shoulder to shoulder pretty much, with lures and bait flying everywhere, tangles, fish hooked and clipped to stringers….not a lot of joy in the crowd; in fact the whole thing was rather mechanical. Those fish were “harvested.”

I witnessed the same thing while hunting. The PA Game Commission truck pulled up, opened the Game Lands gate and drove up the road a little ways to stock pheasants. The parking lot filled, guys putting on boots and jackets and grabbing their guns. The “hunters” walked up into the field and pretty much began to open fire while the “game” was in the field like chickens in a barnyard. Again, like above, those birds were “harvested.”

Fishing or hunting should a sport, carried on by sportsmen, practicing sportsmanship. Walking through the woods hunting or fishing should be a joy and is a real privilege. If one catches some fish to keep or release or bags some game, that’s really a bonus. The joy should come from the actual fishing and hunting for the sport of it. The real measure of a day should be the amount of enjoyment received from a day out in the field, and not the weight of the creel or game bag at the end of the day…..IMHO.

 

[buffalo]

Well said! I agree.

 

[PocketWater]

I mentioned in another thread...I enjoy the 'process' of fly fishing. Some days I go out and catch nothing but beautiful landscapes and that is okay by me. I am not in it for the harvesting of fish (I will keep the occasional steelhead or trout, don't get me wrong).

 

[pabrookie94]

VERY well said sir. I feel the exact same. Fishing and hunting aren't about harvesting. For me it's the sunrises, the sunsets, that grouse I "barely" missed, the fish that was "huge" but he didn't take... And most importantly it's about spending time with family and friends and making memories that you'll never forget.

 

[salvelinus]

Great post. I have seen the same situation many times, no help but lots of [d]harvesters[/d] fishermen. When I was a younger man I would help float stock Stony Creek in Dauphin Co. on the SGL. Many times I had a float box by myself due to no help, and it really is a two man job. But sure enough as I made my way downstream there would be someone waiting at every decent pool. I would put some smaller fish in the pools and the nicer ones in the pocket water and runs. These people would never think of fishing there. I also never fished a stretch I had just stocked, where is the fun or challenge of that? Sorry to say they are exactly who the PFBC seems to cater to.

 

[hooker-of-men]

Also brings up the related issue of folks that never fish anywhere outside of 10 yards from the bridge where their truck is parked. How much fun are you having standing under a bridge breathing in exhaust fumes and dodging Coke cans that fly out the window of passing cars? Seems like part of the fun - especially for dudes like me that mostly fail at catching fish - is wandering around in the woods.

 

[krayfish2]

Well done Tom. I didn't have any anglers in the family so learning on my own was tough. It wasn't til later that I got some guidance from more seasoned anglers and pros. Every single trip was a learning experience. New sections of water, new bugs and hours of watching the fish. Catching fish was only a plus to the whole experience. My first year, I was a truck chaser because it seemed the thing to do.

For me, it's the surroundings, the buds you're fishing with and the challenge of going after what may be the apex predator in the stream you are fishing. The more skill is required, the more I love it. For the guys chasing the trucks, very little skill is required. I'd venture a guess that 50% of the freezer fillers end up throwing out their catch after it's freezer burnt from sitting for months. It's more of a way to get attention because you're "the guy that takes home his limit every single time". Must mean that he's an awesome fisherman. I quit hunting because some of the meat was going to waste. I suppose I could bag a buck every year, keep the horns and toss the rest which is not far off from what many truck chasers do.

I don't believe I have a photo of a fish laying on the ground next to my rod since the late 80's. I do that out of respect for the fish that just gave me a memory that will last forever. I also don't eat anything that swims.....not out of respect but because it's nasty. LOL. Worked at a fish hatchery and that reinforced my feelings on eating fish.

If the PFBC said "You get 2500 trout per year in this stream. All will be stocked on April 1st so moderate your harvest so that the fish last you longer into the season." What do you think the result would be? I'd say it's picked clean within 2 weeks and then they biitch that they didn't get more fish. As someone stated before.... simply let these guys fish in the hatchery for a fee. It would save the PFBC a ton on transport. It would have to be a 'win - win' for everyone.

 

[Acristickid]

I couldn't imagine the point of fishing near a busy area for stocked trout other than being a family with small children, disabled or you just wanting to show what a skilled angler one is by showing off a stringer.

Quite frankly in this day and age of- need to have a bottled water over tap water, four dollar and fifty cent coffee etc. that younger generations would even want to harvest stocked trout ,drag them around on stringers , clean and that actually cook them themselves seems like something that is fantastical

 

[Fishidiot]

While primarily a C&R guy, I do harvest some fish to eat every year (mostly stocked trout, but usually some panfish too). I don't apologize for eating an occasional fish.

With that said, I think it was a step in the wrong direction when the PFBC changed the old stocking announcement policy from "week of" to "day of" stocking a few years back. They should return to the old policy of just announcing the week.

 

[tomitrout]

For a lot of folks, what the OP describes is 'sport.' They fish & hunt in that manner because for them, that is a fun way to spend some free time.

If only everybody were as enlightened as us supremely evolved flyfishers. int:

 

[salmonoid]

How many of the truck chaser haters once chased trucks themselves? I wouldn't consider myself a hater (more ambivalent to the Great White Fleet, than anything at this point), but I used to help with stocking and we'd often be given a bucket that we could put somewhere in our own honey hole, and of course we'd race back to fish that hole after we were done for the day. Somewhere, I turned from that path, to the point that it's rare that I even fish ATW or the occasional DHALO or FFO stretch in a year's time. But it was a step down the fishing mentality evolutionary path for me nonetheless.

Some people never even put the boots on to start the trip down that path, and I'm sorry that they never get to experience some of the other aspects of fishing that I think are great - true camaraderie, beautiful fish, beautiful scenery and developing angling skill that isn't predicated on putting a hunk of chemically infused paste on a hook and waiting for a fish to take it through their gullet. But some people are satisfied with that as well. To each their own.

 

[franklin]

I don't think the chasing is anything new. I remember seeing cars chasing the stocking trucks in the early 60s. Back then I don't recall turkeys or pheasants stocked in season. Which is the simple answer, stock pre-season. (Possible the weather this year messed that up?)

 

[lycoflyfisher]

A perfect example of this is little bear creek in Lycoming county. Its a fairly small tributary to the Loyalsock creek and it is fished by hundreds of people the first day. its virtually fished out after the first week and then when it gets stocked the second week theres a long line of greedy harvesters in tow and the stream is basically fished out again in a few days. If let go I believe this stream could be a nice native stream as many other similar sized streams in the area are. Its sad that so many think the only way to trout fish is to follow the white trucks around or only fish the hole by the bridge where the fish were dumped.

 

[Stenonema]

Propagation of fish and fisherman.

I have a problem with dependence. I despised being on unemployment.

While our fisherman are catching fish the PFBC is trying to catch fisherman to save jobs. Trout are the quarry and the bait.

We should be smarter.

 

[Eccles]

While truck chasing is unedifying it is amazing how the pursuit of an eminently edible species has become an almost entirely aesthetic experience.

Maybe hunters can develop paint (water soluble) guns with which they can splatter their quarry as a mark of their success and in doing so also avoid the brutality of conventional weapons. Hit and release.

 

[Chaz]

I've helped stock a couple of times along the creek by our camp, but I've never been a truck chaser, and harvester. I keep a fish or 2 for a meal at camp once in a while. Mostly fish the back country wild streams where there is no one. If I get to a stream and a car is parked there, if it's someone I'm meeting, I go somewhere else.
I rarely fish stocked streams, though since there is a stream next to the cabin. I will fish it because it's there in the evening after a long day of fishing back country, and the hatches re excellent. The only other stocked stream I fish is Pine Creek, the big one.

 

[pcray1231]

There's different levels of truck chasing (I'm none of the above, but my opinion is somewhat different of the different groups).

Some REALLY chase trucks, as you saw, and wait for the truck to arrive and then fight to get in the exact spot they were dumped while they're still being dumped in. They'd fish the truck if they could!

Others keep an eye on stocking schedules, and tend to go to streams that were recently stocked (in the last week or two) vs. ones that haven't been stocked in a long time. If choice A was stocked 5 weeks ago and choice B was stocked 2 weeks ago, all else being equal they choose B.

And yet others AVOID streams that were recently stocked, and the crowds they bring, and instead choose to fish only streams a long time after they were stocked.

All of these groups would find in-season stocking schedules useful. I generally prefer they list the week of, rather than the day of, although I do understand that it makes it hard to recruit help this way.

 

[phiendWMD]

Chasing stocked fish doesn't interest me. But I had to do it before I realized that. I don't keep any fish so letting them shallow a hook full of powerbait to throw them back and watch them float belly up is something I learned to avoid. Ethics of harvesting fish aside, it is just wasteful to everyone except herons. I don't have any issues if someone wants to keep fish and will eat them. Actually I'd prefer they harvest the ones put there specifically to be harvested. Kray nailed about fishing at the hatchery. It would seem to save a lot of diesel and wouldn't be much different.

I would much rather learn what a spooky brown eats, where it holds, and how to make a presentation to it that will be successful, then release it so others and myself can do it again. There is sport in that to me. The trout have a better than fair chance and frequently get the best of me. The effort put into that is much more satisfying when it all comes together.

There are more of "them than there are of "us". I don't let that bother me. They are only there a couple weeks out of the year and the wild fish under the stocked fish they harvest are still there when they move on to golf or whatever they do after the stream is "fished out".

 

[afishinado]

:roll: Here is my first line of the OP:

I fish, I hunt, but some out there harvest. I’m not really talking about the keeping of fish or game, I’m talking about the process, or what we call the “sport.”

I not talking at all about keeping fish or game, keep them if you wish.....I'm talking about sportsmanship and fair chase.

People climbing over each other, casting over their lines to catch a fish just out of the bucket is not sporting (to the fish or to your fellow fishermen). As well, shooting birds just out of the crate is not fair chase.

We should all try to do better and teach others, especially young people to do better. That's it! End of story.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

I really have no problem with truck chasers as you call them. Go out there sometime and you will see these folks having a good time. That is what it is about. It might not be for you....that's all there is to say about it. It's a cultural thing.
What is really going to suck is when the PAFBC decides it is easier to commodify wild trout, which are fairly abundant these days. It is cheaper (free) to "sell" the wild fish than to raise them in a hatchery. To a great extent they are already doing this with all the wild trout lists and popularizing of wild trout fishing on their website. In some cases this might be okay but in many cases the wild fish will suffer. They are a fragile resource in the face of too much pressure. The biggest spot burn EVER!