Trout harvest limits

[salvelinusfontinalis]

A guy on the Lackawanna River that was fishing kept two better sized browns and told me he feeds them to the cat.

I hope he enjoys the vet bills once the kidneys start to go

 

[foxtrapper1972]

I don't like the taste of the state stocked trout. They taste just like the hatcheries smell.

We used to keep our limits. Me and my two sons. That was 24 trout a day back then. we'd go out day after day and clean up. We froze most of them. Even the ones that didn't get freezer burned tasted like crap. Coon bait.

Next thing you know the state puts out a warning about eating only so many meals a week of stocked trout. That really dampened the enthusiasm.

Now we keep none.

 

[DanL]

I've never kept more trout than I could eat that day when I got home (2 if I was going home to myself, a couple more if buddies were with me).

As it is, trout isn't the best tasting fish, and the thought of freezer burned trout isn't very appealing.

Even if you lower the creel limit to 2, there's going to be poachers hitting different spots or taking their catch home and heading back out. 5 seems like an OK number in ATW but the limit of 2 for wild fish sounds good.

 

[krayfish2]

You may call it wasteful but Mike will refer to it as utilizing the fish. Evidently there's an endless supply of wild fish being brought in by unicorns daily.

I've also seen angler (if you can call them that), limit out....pass the stringer off to a buddy or the wife drives by and picks it up and they keep fishing. Talk to these knuckleheads streamside. They readily boast about limiting out 3-4 times on opening day. Unless they run a seafood market, those fish will be freezer burned and in the trash.

Doesn't matter to me as I seldomly fish stocked waters. It's a losing battle but keep fighting

 

[Chaz]

An estimate of the number of wild trout in PA several years ago was 5 Million, I don't know if that estimate is up or down from that. It ought to be up since they've found more streams, I've never heard a biomass attached to that though. At the time I read it PFBC was still raising 5 million trout to throw in the streams.

 

[streamerguy]

krayfish2 wrote:
I've also seen angler (if you can call them that), limit out....pass the stringer off to a buddy or the wife drives by and picks it up and they keep fishing. Talk to these knuckleheads streamside. They readily boast about limiting out 3-4 times on opening day.

I think a lot of people, especially the opening day type, harvest fish just to show off. "Oh.....look at these five 11in trout I caught! Did great....limited out in two hours!!" I also chuckle at all the people who want to get their 15in lightening trout mounted

I've had multiple people offer me their fish before. If you're not going to eat them, then why the heck put it on a stringer??

 

[dudemanspecial]

acristickid wrote:
The lil j and Spring Creek are polluted streams which is why they are catch and release. FYI

Is this true? Or is there more to the story than that? Not that I doubt you just would like some more info on the subject. Never fished either but would love to this year.

 

[Fishidiot]

dudemanspecial wrote:

acristickid wrote:
The lil j and Spring Creek are polluted streams which is why they are catch and release. FYI

Is this true? Or is there more to the story than that?

Yes, it's true.
In the case of Spring Creek, it was made catch and release about 30 yrs ago due to toxins in the fish's flesh making them unsafe to eat. As a result of the C&R regs, the wild trout population increased dramatically. In recent years, the toxin levels have abated, but the stream remains C&R. Some irony: Spring Creek had to be polluted to end stocking and harvest and become the world class wild trout stream it is today.

The situation with LJ is a bit different but it too has had pollution issues (like many other recovering streams in PA that are now among our best and most famous waterways).

 

[Kill3ducks1deer]

If they were to drop the limit it would cause more of an uproar than it's worth. 5 fish seams like a good amount, coming from a stocked view. Would feed my whole family for a night, but I don't keep fish everyday so maybe thats the reason I like 5.

With that said, Cold, if you are the same Cold from another board I used to frequent Hi. Although I think it is over exaggerated I have done it myself. Catch a few trout throw them in the freezer and forget about them. Wasted them, pointlessly, reason I don't keep much anymore. So it happens, whether it's purposeful or not, cutting the limit down would keep it back some, but not enough to make a stocked pop last any longer, especially in SW PA.

Pabrookie, bad argument on the cat bait man, pretty sure you and your buddies did it as well. Nothing against it, you paid for them, just like I did, just like any bass/bluegill I catch and want to use, the fish are yours to do whatever you want with, thats why you got a license, the are stocked trout, wouldn't be there normally anyways, if they are gone sooner than later oh well, it sucks, but oh well.

 

[MKern]

I think the limit should be what a person could consume for one meal that day. Say 2, which is more than you should probably eat.

If you are fishing for a family they should buy a license too, heck kids fish for free anyway.

You want to entice a new generation to expirience fishing, thus buy licenses later down the road, but you allow a dad to catch all the fish his family needs.

 

[troutbert]

MKern wrote:
I think the limit should be what a person could consume for one meal that day. Say 2, which is more than you should probably eat.

If you are fishing for a family they should buy a license too, heck kids fish for free anyway.

You want to entice a new generation to expirience fishing, thus buy licenses later down the road, but you allow a dad to catch all the fish his family needs.

I agree. Two. The "gentleman's brace."

Most people are not going to eat more than two trout.

And two is a more realistic number, given the trout/fishermen ratio in PA.

In MD, the limit on unstocked, i.e. wild trout streams, is 2 trout per day.

Making the limit 5 is basically telling a fib regarding the number of trout relative to the number of fishermen. It creates an impression of abundance that doesn't actually exist.

 

[Mike]

Hardly a fib. The basis for creel and size limits around country and across species has nothing to do with a ratio of fishermen to fish and has much to do with the impacts that anglers exert on the quantity and/or quality of the fish species that they seek. In Pennsylvania, the statewide angler use and harvest study as well as the confirming C&R wild brook trout reg study both demonstrated that angler use is low on purely wild trout streams and angler impact on the statewide wild trout population(unstocked streams) is low as well ; therefore a generalized statewide 2 fish creel limit for wild trout would be a case of unnecessary government over-regulation with no biological basis for implementation. If you desire a 2 fish creel limit, you will need to find a specific unstocked wild trout stream population that needs it based on present overharvest.

 

[OldLefty]

Mike, I appreciate what you are saying; however, to truly know what goes on with regard to angling on wild trout streams the PFBC would have to be on the stream with someone having a clipboard in hand every day during daylight hours.

I have experienced some of the "surveyors" spending much time away from the water when they should have been on the water. Too, I have personally experienced anglers on these wild trout streams keeping a limit (interpreted: goal) when there was no one on the stream surveying.

One of the best examples of what I refer to happened back when the limit was 8 trout. I was fishing the headwaters of a particular stream and was informed that, the day before, 4 anglers limited out. That totals 32 trout removed from a section of stream in one day.

All it takes is for a few anglers to harvest a limit of trout on a wild trout stream a few times a year. If 5 anglers take 5 trout each four times a year from a section of a wild trout stream - and that's IF there are that many legal trout having resided in that section of stream to begin with - that's 100 legal trout removed that wasn't captured during the survey.

How much of this type of activity is calculated into the survey analysis to provide an "accurate" picture of what really goes on here?

 

[wildtrout2]

OldLefty wrote:
All it takes is for a few anglers to harvest a limit of trout on a wild trout stream a few times a year.

That's so true. I know of wild streams that I alone could put a hurting on if I kept my limit of trout every time I fished it. And these are streams that get little attention.

 

[rrt]

Old Lefty has it figured about right. A few years back when the locusts (cicadas) were around, one little wild trout stream got pounded unmercifully by live locust users. The creek had a nice pop. of trout of varying age classes, but the guys who were there to limit out (or worse) slaughtered trout of all sizes. What was left, mostly, was the little fish. It was not until last year that the trout population recovered enough to feature trout of varyingl sizes up to about 16 or 17".
Having said that, I think we catch-and-release types must acknowledge that ours is a blood sport, too, with studies showing that fly- and lure-caught and released trout die at somewhere between 2.5% and 4%, depending on what study you cite. Let's say you're an enthusiastic angler and fish 50 or 60 days (or many more for some of us) and land 15 trout or so per outing. Let's go with 1000 trout. That means you probably killed 25 to 40 trout without really realizing it. Is that as bad as a guy on ATW streams limiting out 3 or 4 times? (I don't think it's as bad as a limit taker who fishes 50 or 60 times, though.) Anyhow, we are not all innocent in all this. Just saying.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I told you that every chance those "studies", studies based on huge assumptions and rigged hypothesis, methods and conclusions, would be be thrown in your face at every opportunity.
Enjoy.

 

[geebee]

who here has ever been surveyed ? not me and I fish wild streams all the time.

 

[RLeep2]

I find it difficult to become a true believer in either position on this question. Too much of the support offered to demonstrate the damage done by harvest to wild trout populations is anecdotal and I've seen too many wild trout populations in PA and elsewhere weather the level of pressure that is supposedly lethal and seem to me at least to be none the worse for the experience.

At the same time, it seems to me to simply contradict common sense, not to mention basic arithmetic, to maintain that harvest-based damage from concentrated angling pressure (even short term pressure) does not occur, especially in smaller streams.

So, since I cannot formulate a position based on evidence, I'll go with what feels right to me.

I'd support a reduction in the creel on unstocked streams from 5/day to 3 or even 2/day. Even though it cannot conclusively be proven to matter one way of the other, I like the idea.

Sometimes, that's all the reason we have. Or need....

 

[wildtrout2]

Surveyed? lol I have yet to even see a fish warden on or near a wild stream, let alone be surveyed by one. EVER.

 

[troutbert]

Suppose Spring Creek and the special regs areas on Penns and Little J were changed to the state-wide 5 fish limit.

Would the populations stay as good as now, or would they decrease?

If the answer is decrease, what does that tell us about wild trout waters currently under the 5 fish limit?