thow the big ones back

[forrest]

Throw the big ones back. Keep the little ones. It is better for the fishery:

 

http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/415624

[muskymike]

Interesting read, thanks Forrest

[fish_finder]

Great article! Everyone should read!!

[Greencoachdog]

But there's SO MUCH MEAT on the big ones!!!

[muskymike]

But there's SO MUCH MEAT on the big ones!!!

 

I hope you are referring to fish

[kickingfrog]

Quote from article:

 

"That type of regulation, which we see in many sport fisheries, is exactly wrong," George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego said in a statement.

 

"It's not the young ones that should be thrown back, but the larger, older fish that should be spared. Not only do the older fish provide stability ... to the population, they provide more and better quality offspring."

 

End quote.

 

 

Are there "many" sport fisheries that still throw the littles ones back to grow up? This may have been true, but for 20 years or so things have been changing. Have enough changed, maybe not, but he makes it sound like this concept has never be considered before, and he is the one who has come forth to enlighten us. IMHO

Edited April 18, 2008 by kickingfrog

[Musky or Specks]

Ive been saying for years that the secret to recovering the brook trout fishery in southern ontario would be to make the limit 5 of which only one can be over 8 inches.

[danc]

Ive been saying for years that the secret to recovering the brook trout fishery in southern ontario would be to make the limit 5 of which only one can be over 8 inches.

 

The opposite is true for Brook Trout, because of their short life span. Keep the big ones and release the small guys. It's a long, complicated theory, one that I'm not willing to theorize on at the moment, but believe me, it works.

[Ramble]

Dan makes a really good point. Releasing the big fish is a good managment tool for some speices but not all. This is DEFINATLY not a new concept.....i'm sure everyone here has heard of slot sizes. Slots take the same idea a step further.

 

It is good to be reminded of these things every now and then.

 

-R-

[kickingfrog]

We're getting a bit off the topic, but I would suggest that a bigger problem for the brook trout is the impact we've (homo saps) have had on the habit that is needed for healthy brook trout streams.

[Musky or Specks]

The opposite is true for Brook Trout, because of their short life span. Keep the big ones and release the small guys. It's a long, complicated theory, one that I'm not willing to theorize on at the moment, but believe me, it works.

In the words of Andy Millman"Is he having a laugh"Thats so very far from the truth actually. Your trying to preserve the best genes. Thats why the limits are set the way they are in Nipigon. In southern Ontario we have rewarded fish that reach maturity precosiously by removing any "keepers" that people might get continually throwing back the small ones. Now our streams are overrun with genetically inferior stunted trout. In streams where size restrictions have been put in place(credit river) brook trout average size has increased greatly in a very short time BECAUSE of their short life span and quick progression through generations.

[Musky or Specks]

We're getting a bit off the topic, but I would suggest that a bigger problem for the brook trout is the impact we've (homo saps) have had on the habit that is needed for healthy brook trout streams.

Oh no doubt we are doing our best to wipe out the southern ontario brook trout weve lost three streams in the town of kitchener in the last ten years.But Im talking about genetics which is what the OP is about.

[danc]

In the words of Andy Millman"Is he having a laugh"Thats so very far from the truth actually. Your trying to preserve the best genes. Thats why the limits are set the way they are in Nipigon. In southern Ontario we have rewarded fish that reach maturity precosiously by removing any "keepers" that people might get continually throwing back the small ones. Now our streams are overrun with genetically inferior stunted trout. In streams where size restrictions have been put in place(credit river) brook trout average size has increased greatly in a very short time BECAUSE of their short life span and quick progression through generations.

 

I have no idea who "Andy Millman" is, but I do know who Rob Swainson is. Rob is the guy that put Nipigon back on the map. His theory about releasing the small fish, and keeping the older, last year of their life fish, has paid huge dividends.

 

"You're trying to preserve the best genes"

 

Really?? I never thought of that. Good point...

 

"Now our streams are overrun with genetically inferior stunted trout."

Perhaps your geographical location has something to do with this? Brook Trout are the "canary in the coal mine"(Gord Ellis quote, which I happen to like) of fishes. If things are good, they'll thrive. If not, they'll disappear.

 

" brook trout average size has increased greatly in a very short time BECAUSE of their short life span and quick progression through generations."

 

My point exactly. Let them live. Let them grow. Keep the big ones, if you must keep any at all.

[Dano]

Yea, the brookies have all but dissapeared from the streams I fished in Southern Ontario as a boy and a young man. I used to wet wade the Credit river from Creditview up through to old Meadowvale and catch specks on my Shakespear fly rod & reel all day long.

Edited April 18, 2008 by Dano

[Musky or Specks]

I have no idea who "Andy Millman" is, but I do know who Rob Swainson is. Rob is the guy that put Nipigon back on the map. His theory about releasing the small fish, and keeping the older, last year of their life fish, has paid huge dividends.

 

 

I know who Rob is Ive met him and he didnt put the Nipigon back on the map it was never off it he has however done an outstanding job of saving a fishery that was on the way out due to different problems than what exist in southern Ontario.Just how many of those big brook trout are you allowed to keep on the Nipigon again? A 10 " brooky here is like a 20 " there.

 

"You're trying to preserve the best genes"

 

Really?? I never thought of that. Good point...

 

In southern Ontario we need to rebuild our gene pool different place different problems no need to be a jack ass.

 

"Now our streams are overrun with genetically inferior stunted trout."

Perhaps your geographical location has something to do with this? Brook Trout are the "canary in the coal mine"(Gord Ellis quote, which I happen to like) of fishes. If things are good, they'll thrive. If not, they'll disappear.

 

Again I know Gord and that is not his quote he has borrowed it and the quote is about trout in general really not just brook trout.

 

" brook trout average size has increased greatly in a very short time BECAUSE of their short life span and quick progression through generations."

 

My point exactly. Let them live. Let them grow. Keep the big ones, if you must keep any at all.

No thats your opinion of a problem your familiar with. each fishery has its own unique problems.

 

Keeping the 5 of the "big ones" is one of the many factors that have led to the decline of brook trout genes in Southern Ontario.

 

 

Ive never mentioned your fishery I was talking about southern Ontario. Best if you dont know what your talking about to not come off as an authority on the subject.

 

Oh and Andy Millman is this character on a show in a show on the Comedy Network called Extras, Very subliminal and intelligent show.

[forrest]

I only eat the small ones, they are the tastiest. All the big ones go back.

 

Do other people prefer eating the big ones?

 

forrest

[danc]

Brook Trout are Brook Trout. They only live 5 years on average no matter where they are born on the planet. That gives them a small time period to become prime spawners. If killing the fish before they become prime spawners works for you, then so be it. I've never heard of such a strategy before, but if Andy Millman endorses it, it must be good.

[Gerritt]

I like my Muskie steaks from fish 62" or longer personally

 

G

[Sinker]

I was reading a sign on the shore of rice lake today that said "if its bigger than your palm, let it go."........"if they're small, keep them all" .......

 

Makes perfect sense to me...........the little ones eat better anyways.

 

Sinker

[forrest]

Brook Trout are Brook Trout. They only live 5 years on average no matter where they are born on the planet. That gives them a small time period to become prime spawners. If killing the fish before they become prime spawners works for you, then so be it. I've never heard of such a strategy before, but if Andy Millman endorses it, it must be good.

 

 

I don't know a brook trout from a bock stout. But what you said makes sense, I guess that is what can happen when people generalize without qualifying.

 

I have never like rainbow trout so the brooks are safe from me: pike, walleye, bass panfish...hmmmm.

 

forrest

[danc]

I know who Rob is Ive met him and he didnt put the Nipigon back on the map

 

We must be talking about a different Rob Swainson then.

[irishfield]

Dang.. looks like I may need a third category in my poll...

[Musky or Specks]

Brook Trout are Brook Trout. They only live 5 years on average no matter where they are born on the planet. That gives them a small time period to become prime spawners. If killing the fish before they become prime spawners works for you, then so be it. I've never heard of such a strategy before, but if Andy Millman endorses it, it must be good.

 

Heres a good read for you

 

"The truth is that large brook trout vanished from our big freestone streams when northcentral Pennsylvania became readily accessible to anglers. With the opening of roads and the coming of the automobile, fishing pressure was intense, and the brook trout population was quickly decimated. It only took about 20 years. The limit was 40 a day around the turn-of-the-century; it was reduced to 30 a day shortly thereafter and to 25 a day before 1920. Catching a limit was not difficult, and there was little thought given to limiting the catch. The resource was believed to be limitless. By 1940 it was all over.

 

In sterile freestone waters like those in Pennsylvania, brook trout grow at best at an average rate of about 2 inches per year. They have the potential to live about 7 years, and can live as long as 10 years. This corresponds very nicely with sizes documented in turn-of-the-century angling literature. But they need time and space, and this is what they no longer have. Brook trout are extremely sensitive to angling pressure and in heavily fished waters like ours seldom survive more than three years, the age at which they generally reach harvestable size. It's not very complicated: This is why native brook trout now average six inches in length and a ten inch fish is a trophy in waters that once teemed with 9- to 12-inch brookies.

 

Since about 1940, the large freestone streams of Pennsylvania have been primarily managed as put-and-take fisheries. Instead of limiting angler harvest, wild fish populations were supplemented with hatchery trout. This seemed logical at the time. Nature was thought to be inefficient and wasteful, and with hatcheries man could easily and cheaply replace wild fish with domesticated versions. It would no longer be necessary to wait years for trout to mature. They could be put in the stream one day and caught the next.

We still have thousands of miles of freestone streams with sufficient natural reproduction to support an extensive wild trout fishery. The best are located in the northcentral section, centered around Potter County. But now, just as the water is beginning to warm in the early spring sun, millions of hatchery fish are dumped into these streams. Recent biological studies have shown that the stocking of hatchery trout into streams with wild trout populations is a disaster for the wild trout. Hatchery fish are bigger and much more aggressive than wild fish and utter chaos results. The whole orderly system established by the resident fish collapses. Imagine what would happen if your neighborhood was suddenly occupied by a horde of big, ill-mannered, aggressive strangers who had nothing to eat except your food and nowhere to stay but your house. When streams containing wild trout are stocked, the number and size of the wild fish plummets. Conversely, when stocking is halted in streams with naturally reproducing trout, wild trout numbers and size increase dramatically. And, worst of all, stocking draws an army of anglers, many of whom are there to "limit out." The toll is enormous. The streams are quickly stripped of both wild and stocked trout. Repeat stockings are required every few weeks, just to meet the demand. The disaster that occurred earlier in this century is replayed every year now, starting on the opening day of each trout season.

 

Treating streams which are perfectly capable of supporting viable wild trout fisheries as though they are nothing more than counters from which to dispense expensive, domesticated hatchery trout is an incredible waste of increasingly rare and valuable resources. And imagine what is being done to the irreplaceable genetic diversity of our native brook trout populations. It took literally millions of years for these fish to evolve. Now those fish genetically coded to mature early in life while small in size, spawn and die, are heavily favored. There is no longer any survival advantage to long life and large size. As anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of natural selection knows, the species will adapt to fit the environment. Extinction is the only alternative. Make no mistake about it, these fish are highly adaptable and will survive, but their ability to live long lives and reach large size will be lost forever if we continue on the present course. "

 

Source http://www.patrout.org/brook.htm

 

You have an astounding ability to not absorb what your reading,the size of "prime spawners" is six inches in southern ontario, to the point that their genes overwelm any fish that might be later maturing. Once a fish hits sexual maturity its growth becomes limited. A six inch fish that is mature will only be six -eight inches long at the time of its death. A ten inch fish which might not even be sexually mature has a much greater chance of being harvested as an eater size fish because of the angling pressure berfore it ever has a chance to pass on its superior genes. The regs I suggest are very similar to what exist on the Nip they are just different sizes. The regs almost exist right now on the Credit River where only 1 fish may be kept over 18 " The reason I said keep four under 8" was to encourage the culling of genetically inferior fish and allow ample angling opportunity. Believe me it wouldnt be many years and everyone would be complaining that 8" is way to small and they never catch them small enough to keep anymore. Ask the guys who fish Parry Sound for Lakers. Again your a layperson so I dont expect you to totally get it. But its Darwinism at work as quicky as regs could make it while still appealing to those who like to have brook trout for the dinner table. Would the regs stay that way forever, who can say? Its all about angler education. People on the Nipigon and Superior systems have come to accept a one brook trout limit. My dream is to have people in southern ontario accept it as well.

[2 tone z71]

I like my Muskie steaks from fish 62" or longer personally

 

G

LOL

[Musky or Specks]

We must be talking about a different Rob Swainson then.

Dr Cook put the Nip on the map. People have been traveling to fish the Nipigon since long before Rob was born and will continue to fish it long after he is gone but he has left an important legacy. I still have one of the Save a Brook Trout Turn out the Lights T shirts somewhere in my closet.