To stock or not to stock a wild trout stream. That is the question.

wrote:

"In addition, the stocked rainbows would probably crowd out the wild
fish as they compete for the few hiding places. That's the last thing
the wild trout need or deserve.
Finally, the river and its wildlife are already under great stress from
both drought and high water. This is not the time to increase the
pressure on the river's overall health or the fish trying to survive
there."

So let me get this absolutely straight.

The anglers are, at once, concerned that the stocked rainbow would
stress the wild trout and it's also suggested that the wild trout are
under "GREAT STRESS FROM BOTH DROUGHT AND HIGH WATER" (which makes no
damned sense?)

Actually, it does. It is possible to have a flood followed by
drought in the same year.

yet, the anglers continue to catch and release these
fish anyway?

Yeah, they should just catch and kill them. That would solve the
problem.

Help me understand what is *really* going on here.

I think we all understand what's going on here.


Chuck Vance (what's the matter ... not getting any bites on the
other newsgroup?)

Conan The Librarian wrote:
wrote:

"In addition, the stocked rainbows would probably crowd out the wild
fish as they compete for the few hiding places. That's the last thing
the wild trout need or deserve.
Finally, the river and its wildlife are already under great stress from
both drought and high water. This is not the time to increase the
pressure on the river's overall health or the fish trying to survive
there."

So let me get this absolutely straight.

The anglers are, at once, concerned that the stocked rainbow would
stress the wild trout and it's also suggested that the wild trout are
under "GREAT STRESS FROM BOTH DROUGHT AND HIGH WATER" (which makes no
damned sense?)

Actually, it does. It is possible to have a flood followed by
drought in the same year.

yet, the anglers continue to catch and release these
fish anyway?

Yeah, they should just catch and kill them. That would solve the
problem.

Help me understand what is *really* going on here.

I think we all understand what's going on here.


Chuck Vance (what's the matter ... not getting any bites on the
other newsgroup?)

Of course you can have floods and droughts in the same year. We have
them *every* year in Colorado. It's called run-off and the fish manage
just fine, even in the worst of it. Fishing in drought or warm water
conditions, however, is another thing altogether, when the only
responible thing to do is to quit fishing entirely. Of course the
majority of guides and fly shops won't do that, even here, and the
corpses of hundreds of trouts littering the Roaring Fork, for example,
on a summer day are mute testimonies to this fact.

What is going on here is flyfishing elitism on the Battenkill.

Halfordian Golfer
A cash flow runs through it.

wrote in message
oups.com...

Conan The Librarian wrote:
wrote:

"In addition, the stocked rainbows would probably crowd out the wild
fish as they compete for the few hiding places. That's the last thing
the wild trout need or deserve.
Finally, the river and its wildlife are already under great stress from
both drought and high water. This is not the time to increase the
pressure on the river's overall health or the fish trying to survive
there."

So let me get this absolutely straight.

The anglers are, at once, concerned that the stocked rainbow would
stress the wild trout and it's also suggested that the wild trout are
under "GREAT STRESS FROM BOTH DROUGHT AND HIGH WATER" (which makes no
damned sense?)

Actually, it does. It is possible to have a flood followed by
drought in the same year.

yet, the anglers continue to catch and release these
fish anyway?

Yeah, they should just catch and kill them. That would solve the
problem.

Help me understand what is *really* going on here.

I think we all understand what's going on here.


Chuck Vance (what's the matter ... not getting any bites on the
other newsgroup?)

Of course you can have floods and droughts in the same year. We have
them *every* year in Colorado. It's called run-off and the fish manage
just fine, even in the worst of it. Fishing in drought or warm water
conditions, however, is another thing altogether, when the only
responible thing to do is to quit fishing entirely. Of course the
majority of guides and fly shops won't do that, even here, and the
corpses of hundreds of trouts littering the Roaring Fork, for example,
on a summer day are mute testimonies to this fact.

What is going on here is flyfishing elitism on the Battenkill.

Halfordian Golfer
A cash flow runs through it.

Hee, hee, hee.

You missed it.

Dumbass.

Wolfgang
hee, hee, hee.

Wolfgang wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Conan The Librarian wrote:
wrote:

"In addition, the stocked rainbows would probably crowd out the wild
fish as they compete for the few hiding places. That's the last thing
the wild trout need or deserve.
Finally, the river and its wildlife are already under great stress from
both drought and high water. This is not the time to increase the
pressure on the river's overall health or the fish trying to survive
there."

So let me get this absolutely straight.

The anglers are, at once, concerned that the stocked rainbow would
stress the wild trout and it's also suggested that the wild trout are
under "GREAT STRESS FROM BOTH DROUGHT AND HIGH WATER" (which makes no
damned sense?)

Actually, it does. It is possible to have a flood followed by
drought in the same year.

yet, the anglers continue to catch and release these
fish anyway?

Yeah, they should just catch and kill them. That would solve the
problem.

Help me understand what is *really* going on here.

I think we all understand what's going on here.


Chuck Vance (what's the matter ... not getting any bites on the
other newsgroup?)

Of course you can have floods and droughts in the same year. We have
them *every* year in Colorado. It's called run-off and the fish manage
just fine, even in the worst of it. Fishing in drought or warm water
conditions, however, is another thing altogether, when the only
responible thing to do is to quit fishing entirely. Of course the
majority of guides and fly shops won't do that, even here, and the
corpses of hundreds of trouts littering the Roaring Fork, for example,
on a summer day are mute testimonies to this fact.

What is going on here is flyfishing elitism on the Battenkill.

Halfordian Golfer
A cash flow runs through it.

Hee, hee, hee.

You missed it.

Dumbass.

Wolfgang
hee, hee, hee.

The reason a comprehensive management plan is in place in Colorado is
that a lot of people, people who pay license fees, fish for stocked
trout. In the article below it is a ratio of 25:1. That is 25 times
more anglers fish for stocked rather than streambred. This is
critically important to understand and vitally important to the thread
of this conversation. While I am still awaiting word from the Vermont
F&G, it's pretty clear that a minor tactic is in play here and that is,
by bringing people to the Battenkill for an opportunity to catch a
rainbow trout with something approaching a reasonable per-hour catch
rate people, they will spend money, fall in love with the place and
this, then to be translated in to revenue from licenses to support
education and habitat restoration for sustainable management. Rivers
need friends and the SIG that is the small group of Batenkill anglers,
is, obviously not enough to protect it.

To wit, it seems, 1/25th of the fishing population is acting like they
have exclusivity to this river and controlling it's fate for everyone
else. I could be wrong, but I believe that these are the same people
that hold competitions on these rivers in the name of 'conservation'
and who will catch and release fish despite the fact that they are
already stressed to the critical point and beyond.

The one bankside owner from earlier in this thread says "If they stock
rainbow trout than I won't help improve the habitat". Think about that
for a critical second. We are supposed to side with and believe that
this man is sincere about conservation when he will not improve the
habitat for the sake of improving the habitat alone? Nor will he listen
to the biologists and fisheries managers that have a comprehensive plan
for it?

This is why I humbly and respectfully suggest that flyfishing elitism
is actually harming the fishery and preventing a real solution. I can
only imagine the same anglers that are moaning now standing there with
one of these rainbow trout holdovers in a couple of years, standing
there with a 5 pound rainbow, that went in to the backing, grinning
from ear to ear. All of these fish were stocked at one time or another.


The article and relevent snippet is below my .sig

TBone
A cash flow runs through it
_____________________________________
From:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt.../s_466910.html

Right now, though, anglers aren't targeting wild trout, at least not in
numbers comparable to those fishing for stocked trout. A study carried
out by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and Penn State
revealed that anglers fish for stocked trout about 25 times more often
than they do for wild trout.

Survey crews questioned anglers along 30 randomly selected stocked
trout streams in the spring of 2005. According to the report resulting
from that work, anglers made an estimated 2,124,821 trips to stocked
trout streams during the first eight weeks of the season. They caught
an estimated 6,770,094 fish -- twice as many as were stocked -- which
reflects the fact that anglers are releasing fish to be caught again
and that that there are wild trout in about 50 percent of the streams
that get stocked.

Based on the results of this study, angling on stocked trout streams
contributed more than $65.7 million to Pennsylvania's economy during
the first eight weeks of the regular trout season in 2005, the study
concludes. Angling on stocked trout streams also supported 1,119 jobs
in Pennsylvania.

wrote in message
oups.com...

...it's pretty clear that a minor tactic is in play here...

Right. That's exactly what Chuck said.

Dumbass.

Wolfgang

GM wrote in :

It seems to be a warped kind of democracy in that the locals want
something and the state feels obliged to give it to them, to hell with
the science.


Well, that would be exactly a democracy. The locals feel, for some
reason, that their immediate needs are more important than the science,
and the Conservation appointees, responding to their elected bosses, act
accordingly.

FWIW, my impression is that 1,000 trout is not a whole lot for that
river, and the fact that the state is using sterilized trout is a HUGE
concession that not many states would bother with. They really don't
need to do that. They can do whatever the hell they want to do, and it
sounds to me like they're trying to be somewhat sensitive to everybody's
needs and wants

1,000 sterile rainbows is not going to make the population of the
Battenkill crash overnight. IMO, the best course of action is to make
su

a) the fish really are sterile. You need to know the efficacy of the
sterilization program. Even a small percentage of nonsterile fish will
lead to hybridization problems. You need to make sure that both sexes
are sterilized. Get a number on that-- they know it, but they might not
be telling it to you. Once you have the number, spread it around.

b) proper assessments are in place to determine if the stocking is
hurting the wild brown trout population. The "it couldn't help" argument
is not going to get you very far. What you need to do is make sure that
the program is stopped if the brown trout population is being
demonstrably hurt. This means designing the experiments and do the
electroshocks now. You also need to make sure that MONEY and PERSONNEL
are in place to do the future studies, and that there is a real state
commitment to stopping the program if it demonstrably hurts. Get the
goals for the brown trout population set in place. Get the state to say
"we intend to stop the stocking program if ...." and behind the "if", you
need realizable and realistic assessments, and reasonable growth of the
brown trout population. Hybridization should be at the top of that list
for turning the program off.

I think you'll actually be surprised if you work to define the
constraints and off-switch for the program with the state, instead of
digging your heels in and saying "not in my lifetime, dammit". For one
thing, for the state to not define an off switch for the program when
asked to is sort of like saying "we don't care about the wild brown
trout". They probably don't want to look like they're saying it, and they
probably do care about the browns, in any case. The opposition would
look much more reasonable, saying "let's find a way to make sure it stops
if we determine its hurting the browns" than "well, it might hurt the
browns, so lets not do it"-- and it will probably end up being done, in
any case.

If it turns out to be a successful program, and the browns and the
rainbows can lie down together, all the better. If they can't, well the
stops will be in place before fish number 1 is stocked.

--
Scott
Reverse name to reply

Wolfgang wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

...it's pretty clear that a minor tactic is in play here...

Right. That's exactly what Chuck said.

Dumbass.

Wolfgang

I wonder how many people would wade in and contribute to an intelligent
discussion of difficult subjects such as this if you weren't such an
insufferable asshole. One thing is for sure, your venomous attacks are
not constrained to me. The posts go on and on about people pleading
with you to knock it off. I've been on ROFF longer than you've had an
internet connection and, in very large measure might be the longest
posting individual here. I remember posting post upon post to get the
activity up in the early days and I can't count more than a very, very
few times where people asked me to cease, this despite taking
non-conventional points of view on difficult subject matter. I asked
you, man-to-man, to respectfully knock it off and you did not. You lack
the basic integrity of a gentleman and you contribute not an iota to
this forum.

TBone

daytripper wrote:
http://www.benningtonbanner.com/localnews/ci_4200376

Discuss.

Hi Daytripper,

I know that Willi, Jon, Wayno, Bill Grey, Walt, Op and many more,
probably scores of people lurking in the wings, would love to discuss
this topic. Not sure why they haven't weighed in but I can certainly
understand why people would be hestitant to. Hopefully, the discussion
has been generative to date but I'd love to see some real discussion
around the salient points raised. I think there'd be a great deal of
collective understanding.

Halfordian Golfer
Guild replaced the creel.

On 21 Aug 2006 14:39:16 -0700, wrote:


daytripper wrote:
http://www.benningtonbanner.com/localnews/ci_4200376

Discuss.

Hi Daytripper,

I know that Willi, Jon, Wayno, Bill Grey, Walt, Op and many more,
probably scores of people lurking in the wings, would love to discuss
this topic. Not sure why they haven't weighed in but I can certainly
understand why people would be hestitant to. Hopefully, the discussion
has been generative to date but I'd love to see some real discussion
around the salient points raised. I think there'd be a great deal of
collective understanding.

Halfordian Golfer
Guild replaced the creel.

I've never known those folks to hold back if they had something to say...

/daytripper (now watch them show me up ;-)

In article .com,
says...

Wolfgang wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

...it's pretty clear that a minor tactic is in play here...

Right. That's exactly what Chuck said.

Dumbass.

Wolfgang

I wonder how many people would wade in and contribute to an intelligent
discussion of difficult subjects such as this if you weren't such an
insufferable asshole.

Just killfile him.....the experience is greatly improved.
- Ken