The trout's diet...

So the other day my daughter & I kept three fish for dinner. For those
of you aghast at my political incorrectness, I offer no apology. FWIW,
these were not wild fish. Indeed, we were so close to the hatchery it'd
be embarrassing for me to fish there without my daughter.

Two of the trout had white flesh while the third had orange/pink flesh.
Not as pink as the (landlocked) Dolly Varden I used to catch in Alaska,
but distinctly _not_ white.

Coincidentally, the 'orange' fish had a belly full of bugs while the two
'white' fish had very little in their stomachs.

My assumption, and I'd like to think the obvious one, is that the
'orange' fish had been in the creek substantially longer than the
'white' fish. Long enough to learn how to eat and even thrive in the
wild. OTOH, I figure that the 'white' fish were relatively new to the
stream and hadn't figured out how to eat & thrive in the creek.

Now I'm wondering about the lack of survival skills in hatchery fish.
How many of them fail to thrive in the wild because they don't know
how/what to eat? Could this be part of the problem with the low success
rate of fish restoration projects like the one Stan Gula was working on
with Salmon in Massachusetts? Does this imply that preservation is even
more important because restoration is not an effective possibilty after
preservation has failed?

Just a thinkin' and wonderin'...
Tom G
--
email:remove tt

"Tom G" wrote in message
...

Two of the trout had white flesh while the third had orange/pink flesh.
Not as pink as the (landlocked) Dolly Varden I used to catch in Alaska,
but distinctly _not_ white.

Third paragraph pg. 52

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/fishing/assets...ts/trout22.pdf

or

http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Fish_Boat/qtrmeat.htm

I have also heard, not sure if it's true, that hatcheries will feed the
trout something that will make the meat pink?

hth,
JT

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004, Tom G wrote:

Two of the trout had white flesh while the third had orange/pink flesh.
Not as pink as the (landlocked) Dolly Varden I used to catch in Alaska,
but distinctly _not_ white.

I have had similar experiences with brown trout in a little spring-fed
pond I used to fish. Early in the season the flesh was white. By August,
those that managed to survive the summer had pink/orange flesh.

__________________________________________________ _____________________
\ Mu Young Lee
remove all dashes and underscores in reply address

"Tom G" wrote in message
...
Now I'm wondering about the lack of survival skills in hatchery fish.
How many of them fail to thrive in the wild because they don't know
how/what to eat? Could this be part of the problem with the low success
rate of fish restoration projects like the one Stan Gula was working on
with Salmon in Massachusetts? Does this imply that preservation is even
more important because restoration is not an effective possibilty after
preservation has failed?

OK, I can answer that a little. I don't know anything about survivability
of hatchery trout, but I know a little about salmon. I doubt that the pale
color is due to hatchery chow. They make really colorful trout pellets. I
caught a brookie at a pool inside the hatchery a few years ago (they let
school groups, scouts, etc. bring in kids for lessons) and it was as orange
as a farm raised salmon.

The poor salmon returns here are not problems with survivability in the
streams. The salmon are planted as fry - just a few weeks after hatching.
The studies of the populations in the breeder streams (I'm talking low
fertility New England freestoners feeding the Connecticut River) show that
they do very well - millions reach the smolt stage and start the migration
to the Atlantic. Unfortunately, very few come back and nobody's really sure
why that is. We started this program (we as in Mass., VT, CT, NH and USF&W)
at the worst possible time. It's probably a hopeless cause trying to bring
them back to the Connecticut when the world population is seeing such a
disastrous decline.

--
Stan

Over the past years, I have volunteered with both CA Fish and Game and
Nevada Fish and Wildlife in planting fish. The biologists believe that few
of the large fish planted will survivie. However, they only plant where
there is a large population of fishermen. To them, success is having 100%
of the fish caught and a few more fishing licenses sold. Some do survive
though because some are caught a long ways from where they were planted, and
a lot larger than the typical plant. Also , anything you catch in a lake
was probably planted. These often grow to very large sizes.
We have been able to get both departments to plant fingerlings in some of
our rivers. These cost the departments almost nothing because thay have not
eaten much. therefore where they may only stock a 100 or so large fish,
they will plant 10,000 fingerlings. The hope is that a few percent will
survive and have the characteristics of wild fish. Unfortunately there have
been no studies to see if this is successfull.
Also, few of our rivers will sustain a wild fish population unless they are
catch and release...and patrolled!! Again, the game wardens will nly patrol
areas where there is a largae population of fishermen!

--


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"Tom G" wrote in message
...
So the other day my daughter & I kept three fish for dinner. For those
of you aghast at my political incorrectness, I offer no apology. FWIW,
these were not wild fish. Indeed, we were so close to the hatchery it'd
be embarrassing for me to fish there without my daughter.

Two of the trout had white flesh while the third had orange/pink flesh.
Not as pink as the (landlocked) Dolly Varden I used to catch in Alaska,
but distinctly _not_ white.

Coincidentally, the 'orange' fish had a belly full of bugs while the two
'white' fish had very little in their stomachs.

My assumption, and I'd like to think the obvious one, is that the
'orange' fish had been in the creek substantially longer than the
'white' fish. Long enough to learn how to eat and even thrive in the
wild. OTOH, I figure that the 'white' fish were relatively new to the
stream and hadn't figured out how to eat & thrive in the creek.

Now I'm wondering about the lack of survival skills in hatchery fish.
How many of them fail to thrive in the wild because they don't know
how/what to eat? Could this be part of the problem with the low success
rate of fish restoration projects like the one Stan Gula was working on
with Salmon in Massachusetts? Does this imply that preservation is even
more important because restoration is not an effective possibilty after
preservation has failed?

Just a thinkin' and wonderin'...
Tom G
--
email:remove tt

I have also heard, not sure if it's true, that hatcheries will feed the
trout something that will make the meat pink?

hth,
JT
That's true. They add stuff called beta-carotine tothe food. This gives them
this "salmon-like" colour.
Dan

Two of the trout had white flesh while the third had orange/pink flesh.
Not as pink as the (landlocked) Dolly Varden I used to catch in Alaska,
but distinctly _not_ white.

Coincidentally, the 'orange' fish had a belly full of bugs while the two
'white' fish had very little in their stomachs.

I am fishing several rivers, of which one has a very good population of
Gammarus. The trout here have a very pink flesh! Most of the trout caught
are full of these little shrimp, some do have up to 200 in their intestines!

My assumption, and I'd like to think the obvious one, is that the
'orange' fish had been in the creek substantially longer than the
'white' fish. Long enough to learn how to eat and even thrive in the
wild.

It could also be the case, that they feed on different kinds of food.

OTOH, I figure that the 'white' fish were relatively new to the
stream and hadn't figured out how to eat & thrive in the creek.

I've often seen that newly stocked trout are very skillful in catching
minnows. They are probably not clever enough to search for larvae and
nymphs, but fast and aggressive so they will feed on smaller fish.

Daniel

"Sierra fisher" wrote in message ...

Also, few of our rivers will sustain a wild fish population unless they are
catch and release...and patrolled!! Again, the game wardens will nly patrol
areas where there is a largae population of fishermen!

Well, you could find more ROFF posts on this matter than you'd care to
read if you googled it, but we'd probably all agree that few of our
rivers will sustain a fishably healthy wild fish population unless
fish mortality caused by fishermen is tightly controlled. C+R is most
definitely NOT the only way to achieve that.

As for sustaining an arbitrary wild fish population, I once spoke
to a trout researcher who surveyed quite a few streams in Mexico,
and he stated that he did not believe it was possible to exterminate
a wild population merely by hook+line fishing. Down there he did
see fishing, even flyfished with the local 3-person flyfishing club,
and any fish caught was _always_ kept. Yes, the trout populations
were very low. Yes, the fish were very small. But they were there.

Jon.

"Jonathan Cook" wrote in message
m...
"Sierra fisher" wrote in message
...

Also, few of our rivers will sustain a wild fish population unless they
are
catch and release...and patrolled!! Again, the game wardens will nly
patrol
areas where there is a largae population of fishermen!

Well, you could find more ROFF posts on this matter than you'd care to
read if you googled it, but we'd probably all agree that few of our
rivers will sustain a fishably healthy wild fish population unless
fish mortality caused by fishermen is tightly controlled. C+R is most
definitely NOT the only way to achieve that.

As for sustaining an arbitrary wild fish population, I once spoke
to a trout researcher who surveyed quite a few streams in Mexico,
and he stated that he did not believe it was possible to exterminate
a wild population merely by hook+line fishing. Down there he did
see fishing, even flyfished with the local 3-person flyfishing club,
and any fish caught was _always_ kept. Yes, the trout populations
were very low. Yes, the fish were very small. But they were there.

Lots of experts throughout history were certain that [insert critter of
choice here] could not possibly exterminated by means of [insert method of
choice here]. They were wrong. Always. Evidently, some things don't
change.

Wolfgang
some things don't change.

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:41:11 +0200, "Daniel M. Handzel"
wrote:


I have also heard, not sure if it's true, that hatcheries will feed the
trout something that will make the meat pink?

hth,
JT
That's true. They add stuff called beta-carotine tothe food. This gives them
this "salmon-like" colour.
Dan


Also, a by-product of the crawfish industry in Louisiana is
highly-concentrated, incredibly-priced drums of "broth" made from the
shells of the cooked crawfish. It sells, from what I understand, for
tens of thousands of US dollars per drum, for ultimate sale to tropical
fish fans, esp., for some reason, in Japan (?). Apparently, it makes
the live fish all sorts of incredibly bright colors. Seems as if I had
heard of such being used for flesh-toning in food-product fishes, too,
but ???

For those who aren't familiar with them, Louisiana "crawfish" are like
small homard/lobsters, not Bahamian/Mediterranean "crayfish"/lobsters.
They are about 3-8 inches long, with a single set of lobster-ish claws,
although rarely is one claw as disproportionate as the other in some
lobsters - the crusher vs. the grabber. And like similar crustaceans,
the shell turns to a bright red when cooked, and the meat turns a shade
of pink. To me, they look like a the front of a European lobster and
the tail of a Maine lobster, but in miniature.

For those of you that are familiar with them, we have been getting some
these past couple of weeks that were, well, un-bee-LEEVE-able...and now,
we're into shrimp season...BWA-HA-HA-HA!

TC,
R
who's eatin' like a..., nay, THE prince o' pork products oughta!
Tonight, shrimp remoulade, crawfish bisque, FRESH pistolet, and the last
of the strawberries...yeah, BA-bee...