Keeping Stockies for the benefit of Wild Trout

[jifigz]

This thread is partially due to reading a variety of other threads here but specifically troutbert's thread on wild brookies. How many of you folks harvest stockies out of streams with good wild trout populations to remove the competition and encourage the wild trout? I really don't harvest stockies often and usually not until later in the year when the early season pressure has died off if I do harvest. But given our concerns of stocking over wild fish, and obviously natives in particular, it makes me wonder if I should harvest more to remove these fish and their pressure from the wild trout.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

Can't bring myself to do it. I'm strictly pro-life regardless of the origin of trout I catch.

 

[Dave_W]

Personally, I think this matter has to remain joined together with ethical food choices.

I keep hatchery trout because I like eating fish. If it has the effect of improving wild trout population, that's a nice side benefit. However, I'm not convinced that removing a few stocked trout from a stream is significant in improving wild trout. I think this is probably more imagined than real (but it's debateable).

However, if one does not like eating fish, and lacks family and friends who do, I think it better to release stocked fish.

A good question and thread topic. I'm interested to see how folks feel about this.

 

[Canoetripper]

On my canoe trips on the upper Greenbrier and South Branch Rivers in West Virginia I harvest just enough for a grilled trout supper over the camp fire coals and for a fried in bacon grease breakfast.

I release the rest for the Bald Eagles that I see in those remote river valleys.

There aren't any wild or native trout in those two rivers to the best of my knowledge.

 

[jifigz]

Dave,

I certainly don't encourage the keeping and killing of trout for no reason. I'm sure that many trout that are kept by the majority of anglers are wasted and thrown out when freezer burnt. If I keep some fish I will consume them that day or the next for sure. I do enjoy eating fish but wild trout taste so much better than stockies. Yes, scorn me, I've kept and eaten wild trout before..that said, I may not keep a single fish in an entire year or multiple years. I do, however, plan on harvesting some panfish this spring from a few different waterways and having a fish fry.

The other thread that prompted this was reading the "Codorus" thread that seems to suggest how much the wild fishery improved after the cessation of stocking. I think wild trout populations and fishing will generally improve without stockings, hence why I wonder how removing stockings as quickly as possible can mitigate any damage that they may cause..

 

[Fly-Swatter]

From The Least Interesting Fly Fisher in the World: I don't often keep trout, but when I do, they are always stocked.

Seriously, though, there is little reason to NOT keep trout from marginal waters, especially delayed harvest, in late June when they are going to suffer thermal stress and die anyway. Please correct my thinking if I am wrong.

One major concern (only a few trout/locations listed): http://tinyurl.com/pafishconsuptionadvisory

 

[deaddriftx]

I don't fish stocked trout streams, but every now and then I catch one, and when I do I give it a thump on the head with a rock and toss it into my creel. Dare I say it, but I do eat some wild Brown Trout too. I like eating fish and I like to know where my food comes from. It never made much sense to me to release the fish I catch and then go to the store and buy fish that came from a rapidly depleting ocean.

 

[Dave_W]

Fly-Swatter wrote:
Seriously, though, there is little reason to NOT keep trout from marginal waters, especially delayed harvest, in late June when they are going to suffer thermal stress and die anyway.
http://tinyurl.com/pafishconsuptionadvisory

This is a good point and informs my choices of where to fish come May or June.

However much keeping stockies from these waters makes good sense, these are usually not the streams that have viable wild trout populations, at least in my neck of the woods. They're managed as put and take and I doubt would ever have any potential to develop significant wild populations, precisely because of the warm temps.

 

[Dave_W]

deaddriftx wrote:
Dare I say it, but I do eat some wild Brown Trout too. I like eating fish and I like to know where my food comes from. It never made much sense to me to release the fish I catch and then go to the store and buy fish that came from a rapidly depleting ocean.

This also makes a lot of sense too and is worth reiterating.^

For those of us who love seafood, being aware of the pressures on ocean fishes is important. Releasing stream trout and then buying seafood at the grocery store does involve some absurdity (even though I'm often guilty of this).

And yes, wild trout do taste better, as do panfish. Eating them is ethical too, although I prefer to release wild trout.

 

[jifigz]

Fly-Swatter wrote:
From The Least Interesting Fly Fisher in the World: I don't often keep trout, but when I do, they are always stocked.

Seriously, though, there is little reason to NOT keep trout from marginal waters, especially delayed harvest, in late June when they are going to suffer thermal stress and die anyway. Please correct my thinking if I am wrong.

One major concern (only a few trout/locations listed): http://tinyurl.com/pafishconsuptionadvisory

This makes total sense but has little to do with the point of the thread. I say eat every one of those fish that you can from the marginal stocked streams.

 

[Acristickid]

I’ve kept a stockies from marginal waters that get too warm in the summer- but it’s probably been 5 years. Mostly in Erie where the fish are large enough to make a meal - usually end up at poor Richards for filets or exchanged for smoked filets.

I don’t think I have ever kept wild fish.

One thing I hate is dragging fish around on a stringer. You don’t want to put fish on a stringer at 8am when you plan to fish all day.

 

[wildtrout2]

deaddriftx wrote:
I don't fish stocked trout streams, but every now and then I catch one, and when I do I give it a thump on the head with a rock and toss it...

This is what I do on the rare occasion when I encounter a stocked trout. Critters gotta eat too.

 

[Swattie87]

Not to be the proverbial "turd in the punchbowl" here, but probably worth mentioning...

It's likely interpreted to be illegal to "bank" a fish in PA on public land, and on private land without permission of the landowner to do so. Even if it's a fish otherwise legal to keep based on species, size, and season. Granted, you'd probably have to be observed by a WCO, or an eyewitness who reports you, but still...probably not the thing to advertise publically if you're doing it. I get that there's a conservation argument in favor of getting the stockies out of streams with wild fish, but be smart about it, and be smart with what you type in today's world. (Maybe I've been watching too much North Woods Law this Winter.)

From the Reg Book...


"FIELD DRESSING AND DISPOSAL OF FISH – It is unlawful to possess a fish in any form or condition other than in the whole or having the entrails removed while on shore, along the waters of the Commonwealth, onboard a boat or on a dock, pier, launch area or parking lot adjacent thereto. Fish may be processed fully if they are being prepared for immediate consumption on site. This does not apply to fish processed at a fish cleaning station officially recognized by the Commission or by a permitted charter boat/fishing guide operation.

It is unlawful to discard any fish carcass or parts thereof into the waters of the Commonwealth or upon any public or private lands contiguous to the waters unless disposal is on lands with permission from the landowner or it is where fish are properly disposed into suitable garbage or refuse collection systems or at an officially recognized fish cleaning station."

In regard to the OP. Yes, I'll keep a stockie or two from a stream with wild fish, but only later in the season, after they've been on a stream diet for a while. The fresh stockies taste like garbage and the meat has a mush like texture after it's cooked.

 

[wildtrout2]

Swattie87 wrote:
Not to be the proverbial "turd in the punchbowl" here, but probably worth mentioning...

It's likely interpreted to be illegal to "bank" a fish in PA on public land, and on private land without permission of the landowner to do so. Even if it's a fish otherwise legal to keep based on species, size, and season. Granted, you'd probably have to be observed by a WCO, or an eyewitness who reports you, but still...probably not the thing to advertise publically if you're doing it.

Thanks for your concern Matt, you're correct, but I'll probably continue to take my chances.

 

[Swattie87]

wildtrout2 wrote:
Thanks for your concern Matt, you're correct, but I'll probably continue to take my chances.

You bet Jeff...I won't pinch ya. Most of the places we run into one another don't have too many stockies anyway. ;-)

 

[wildtrout2]

Swattie87 wrote:

wildtrout2 wrote:
Thanks for your concern Matt, you're correct, but I'll probably continue to take my chances.

You bet Jeff...I won't pinch ya. Most of the places we run into one another don't have too many stockies anyway. ;-)

Very true! :-D

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Yeah...I think keepin' your limit of stockies on a stream w/ wild trout is good and fine. In particular, if you plan on actually eating the fish!

I've also been known to keep a few wild brownies. During the "WBTE" days, I would harvest legal-sized wild brownies on those streams. Helping the program, right!?

Also, when I was planning a trip to the Smokies, in talking w/ locals, I was encouraged to harvest wild bows on streams where efforts were being made to expand the range of the southern Brookies.

Smart harvesting has its benefits.

 

[Chaz]

I harvest stockies in WTS, but I shouldn't have to, I just don't want stockies in any WTS. But the real problem is that no mater how short a period stockies are in a WTS, there is a negative impact. Particularly in brookies streams.

 

[misanthropist]

Stocked trout have an affect on the stream both directly and indirectly. The direct affect is obviously a disruption of the Streams ecosystem and the indirect affect is the crowds of fisherman that these streams attract and the problems they bring: Fishing line tangled up in tree limbs for birds to get tangled in, trash on the ground and so on. This is in stark contrast to a wild trout stream, or at least the ones I fish.

Stocking trout has an affect on a lot more than just wild trout, it has an affect on all living creatures in that particular drainage.

I tend to look at things through the eyes of an ecologist and not a fisherman.

 

[ryansheehan]

I prefer to take the other route, harvest those pesky gemmies to make room for the much larger stockers ;-)