Native brook trout

[melvinp]

Isn’t the the best to help are native brook trout population is not to mess with them I’ve caught natives before and thought that they would eat anything and caught about 30 between 2 people in a hour and I never fished for them again am I being a bummer

 

[Dave_W]

melvinp wrote:
Isn’t the the best to help are native brook trout population is not to mess with them I’ve caught natives before and thought that they would eat anything and caught about 30 between 2 people in a hour and I never fished for them again am I being a bummer

Are you being a bummer? Not really in my view.

If you believe that fishing for small stream brookies wasn't much fun and you'd rather abstain from this to protect populations...then by all means make that decision and stick with it.

Sport fishing requires some ethical decisions be made by those who engage in it. These decsions are personal. For example, I enjoy trout fishing in the fall, but don't cast to fish actively on redds. I think it's even more critical to leave bass on redds alone as they need to guard their redds after swim-up. On the other hand, I really enjoy small stream brookie fishing and don't feel it has serious consequences. Small stream brookies face bigger problems than angling presssure, in my opinion. I choose to kill and eat some stocked trout and other fish species. Other species I always release. Other folks release every fish they catch.
These are my personal choices and you should consider what your's are.

Don't be too quick, however, to impose your choices on others. You may change your ethical positions, or they may evolve a bit, in the future. This has certainly been true for me over a lifetime of sport fishing.

This is why I frankly don't support many of the threads here on PAFF calling out people for fish handling or fishing during the spawn, etc. Think through your ethical positions, but don't be overly rightous towards others who have come to different conclusions.

 

[melvinp]

Thank you for your response and by no means do i force my opinion on anyone else,but if you feel the need to fish for these little PA gems please handle with the most care possible,As for me i will not be fishing for these pretty little things till i am starving and have to feed my family.I should say that i come from an area that at one time had at least a small amount of natives that are no longer there.so take care they can go away.

 

[redietz]

melvinp wrote:
I should say that i come from an area that at one time had at least a small amount of natives that are no longer there.so take care they can go away.

They're most likely to go away if nobody fishes for them, because nobody will advocate for them otherwise. Their real enemy is destruction of habitat, including building impermeable surfaces ("roofs and roads") into their watershed.

Brook trout are a very short-lived fish. A three year old is ancient in mountain streams. Protecting individual fish isn't that important; protecting populations is.

When they're got a healthy environment, angling pressure isn't going to wipe the out. In the Sierras in California, the limit on trout is 5 per day of any species, plus an additional 10 brook trout. That's just to try to keep them under control, since they make rabbits look like slackers in the breeding department.

I'm not suggesting at all that we kill and eat every one we catch (or even any of them) but if nobody fishes for them, they will go extinct in their native range.

 

[misanthropist]

Up until I was in my early 30s I fished a lot for Brook Trout, but now I don't. Do I think angling has a big impact on Brook Trout populations? No, not really.

Brookies have it hard and the cards are stacked against them as a species. I see no need to make their existance any harder. I still hike the brookie streams and watch them, especially during the fall. I liken it to bird watching.