A follow up

About 1/1/04 I wrote several letters to various people asking to be pointed
at any research available that showed how heavy fishing usage affects the
overall ecology of streams, with specific interest in the invertabrates

I just received another reply, probably the last I'll get, I'd bet and I
promised to post any results .... so here they are

Best I can find out nobody, anywhere, has actually studied how heavy fishing
pressure affects anything but fish numbers. We are left to "assume" that
fish numbers and health are an accurate reflection of the streams overall
health.

If you know of a fisheries student looking for a PHD or Masters project ...
I can suggest one, and one apparently on virgin ground.

I think better of mentioning names ... although everyone that replied made
an effort to be helpful and most asked for me to tell them what I found out
..... I don't have permission to do so. Nearly all the replies suggested I
go to one of the other people I had contacted ... g .... making it feel a
lot like trying to get tech support on one of those damn "if you'd like to
talk to a real person...then **** off" systems G

This line from the note I got today is typical the actual replies to my
question
"Amazingly, we don't have any articles about angler pressure on the fishery,
inverts, or vegetation. It is something to think about, considering the
number of people who fish here. "

For now, if fishing pressure is something that worries the ecologist in you,
I'd say it's likely that fish counts and health DO accurately reflect
overall stream health, and heavy pressure on C&R streams has been shown to
do little damage to fish counts. It does affect the nature of those fish,
imho.

I did find studies that point out the pretty obvious effects heavy human use
has on NON-aquatic residents of streams and they mostly move away and suffer
.... birds, mammals, etc don't like us, at least not in crowds.

MY guess ( guess is as close to science as I get ) is that fishing pressure
will be largely self regulating, over time. When crowds get terrible, the
experience gets terrrible, the fish hide in terror, fishing gets real tough,
and word gets out that "fishin' hole X" ain't what it used to be and crowds
drop off to start the cycle over again. Just my guess, but, a couple of my
responders hinted at the same idea.

From: "Larry L"

MY guess ( guess is as close to science as I get ) is that fishing pressure
will be largely self regulating, over time.
When crowds get terrible, the
experience gets terrrible, the fish hide in terror, fishing gets real tough,
and word gets out that "fishin' hole X" ain't what it used to be and crowds
drop off to start the cycle over again.

It's way too crowded, that's why nobody fishes here anymore. G
(Apologies in advance to Yogi)


George Adams

"All good fishermen stay young until they die, for fishing is the only dream of
youth that doth not grow stale with age."
---- J.W Muller

Larry L wrote:


MY guess ( guess is as close to science as I get ) is that fishing pressure
will be largely self regulating, over time. When crowds get terrible, the
experience gets terrrible, the fish hide in terror, fishing gets real tough,
and word gets out that "fishin' hole X" ain't what it used to be and crowds
drop off to start the cycle over again. Just my guess, but, a couple of my
responders hinted at the same idea.




It doesn't seem that way to me. I would be willing to bet that, at least
in the Rockies, less than 10% of our trout streams/rivers get 90%+ of
the fishing pressure. The places that are popular haven't changed much
over the last ten years and I don't know of any that have gotten less
popular because of crowds. It seems to me that fly fishermen draw more
fly fishermen, not the other way around.

Willi

Willi wrote:

It doesn't seem that way to me. I would be willing to bet that, at
least
in the Rockies, less than 10% of our trout streams/rivers get 90%+ of
the fishing pressure. The places that are popular haven't changed much
over the last ten years and I don't know of any that have gotten less
popular because of crowds. It seems to me that fly fishermen draw more
fly fishermen, not the other way around.

Willi

I'm with you on this Willi. I've fished Lake Lenore for the big
Lahontan Cutthroats a couple times this year, and have found 30
fishermen spaced 20 feet or less apart at the north end of the lake,
and 3 other fishermen over the 6 mile length of the rest of the lake.
I left that area in disgust last week, and stopped at another obvious
place along the road. The fish were swimming by in pods of three to 10
fish spaced only a minute apart. Granted, most weren't ready to take a
fly, but in a couple hours I landed 5 in the 18-22 inch range. It
would have been more if one of the bums wasn't rising every couple
minutes. I switched to a dry and wasted half an hour or more trying to
coax him up.

I'm going back there tomorrow, and I bet I'll find the same silly
clustering of the fishermen.

By the way, your lesson on indicator fishing has been a great help this
year on the steelhead, and with these cutthroat. Thanks again for that
help.

Chas
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