Why is PA still stocking trout?
- Thread starter mporter012
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Here is info I found about trout stocking in MT:
..the department is now rearing and planting eight million trout per year. But instead of stocking rivers and streams, it plants lakes and reservoirs. And instead of stocking catchable-sized fish, the stocking has shifted to smaller trout that grow to be catchable size but have wilder traits. The hatchery program now is critical for lake management and also for helping propagate species of concern such as westslope cutthroat. It’s really doing a great job.
Also in the article is some interesting info about stocking over wild trout:
Based on my observations over the years and the results of studies done in Pennsylvania, I believe that hatchery fish disrupted the natural behavior and feeding territories of wild trout. Wild trout have feeding territories and a social hierarchy based on size and behavior that efficiently makes use of available food and makes the fish less vulnerable to predation while feeding. Fish reared in hatcheries don’t worry about predation while feeding and swarm to food fed at concentrated locations with regular timing. Those who get to the food first survive.
Thus, when hatchery fish are dumped in with wild trout, they are not used to finding their own food, and their nutrition and survival suffers at the same time that they are disrupting the feeding territories of wild trout. The behavior of hatchery trout also makes them more vulnerable to predation. The disruption of the behavior and territories of the wild trout both reduces their feeding efficiency and nutritional level and also makes them more vulnerable to predation than they previously were. Thus, both wild and hatchery fish have a lower survival rate when in the same stream area.
One example of stress changes due to stocking that we observed during our study was an increase in detectable movement of the resident wild trout after hatchery rainbow trout were stocked. Normally, wild trout in these streams show very little detectable movement (less than 5 percent), with most movement being very localized around feeding sites and cover. Release of hatchery trout in O’Dell Creek increased detectable movement by over 1,000 percent, which left the wild trout more vulnerable to predation (including by anglers) and reduced nutrition due to poor feeding sites.
Link to source: http://fwp.mt.gov/mtoutdoors/HTML/articles/2004/****Vincent.htm
Montana FWP Stocking Plan
Export (.cvs) is available. From there use MS Excel and some filtering. I filtered location column for presence of "River" but not "Lake". I filtered species column for "Trout".
The results will leave a few lines for the Ruby River Reservoir -- simply exclude those.
The cutthroats are 2", everything else is 7-8".
Char_Master
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I didn't read every reply on this thread, but addressing the original question, I'm really not sure why PA continues to stock millions of pelletheads every year.
Streams that support natural reproduction don't need stockers dumped in them to compete with the wilds and natives.
Streams that don't, and never have, supported natural reproduction, don't need Trout at all. There's dozens of other sportfish in PA that sustain self-supporting populations in said streams and waters.
Warmwater lakes that are only cold enough for Trout to survive in for 5-6 months/year..... don't need any stockers. Again, there's plenty of other sportfish that survive year round in these waters to target. And, keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who loves to chase Trout but lives 90-100 minutes away from any even half-decent wild Trout fisheries.
But, before we can progress towards getting rid of all of the pointless inland stocked Trout fisheries in PA, the put'n'take and 'kill my limit' mentalities need to be eliminated first.
Streams that support natural reproduction don't need stockers dumped in them to compete with the wilds and natives.
Streams that don't, and never have, supported natural reproduction, don't need Trout at all. There's dozens of other sportfish in PA that sustain self-supporting populations in said streams and waters.
Warmwater lakes that are only cold enough for Trout to survive in for 5-6 months/year..... don't need any stockers. Again, there's plenty of other sportfish that survive year round in these waters to target. And, keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who loves to chase Trout but lives 90-100 minutes away from any even half-decent wild Trout fisheries.
But, before we can progress towards getting rid of all of the pointless inland stocked Trout fisheries in PA, the put'n'take and 'kill my limit' mentalities need to be eliminated first.
tomgamber
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Never happen. Its their god given right to take trout home, put it in the freezer and forget about it until the next spring and throw it away. (my opinion as to what happens to most of them) Just ask them.
but they hold their right to harvest fish as tightly as the hunters do their weapons. and they are in the majority...for now. and they don;t want any tweed wearing, hoidy toidy feather flinger telling them what they can and can't do. BTW I'm the only one who fly fishes at our camp so I've heard this speech more often than most.
I'm glad to see others have also thought of two separate trout stamps as a solution to the insolvent put&take program. I'd love if money from a c&r stamp that u bought was earmarked specifically for wild trout management. It'd also really tell the tale of where fisherman truly stand on the issue.
This is interesting because I've often heard it stated that Montana does not stock hatchery trout at all. Or that they only stock fingerlings in lakes.
But they actually do some stocking in rivers. Does anyone know what rivers these are, where they are stocked, and why they are stocking at those particular places, when they've mostly quit?
PennKev
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Exactly, "bad" creeks in MT are still better than the good streams we have. And that's no BS. Put Penn's or the LJR in MT and you'd have em all to yourself. No one would bother with them.
There was a really misleading article I saw a while back that compared trout per mile between PA streams and several famous western waters. I suppose it made some people feel better about being stuck in PA, but it was misleading as heck. Go fish those rivers and see if your think anything n PA is that good. Maybe the Delaware, that's about all.
ryansheehan
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Did someone make this claim?
tomgamber
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POST #41
gulfgreyhound
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I'd pose this question: will Montana's fishing ever approach New Zealand's fishing?
Not much different than Pa's. fishing approach Montana's. At least as I see it. GG
Not much different than Pa's. fishing approach Montana's. At least as I see it. GG
gulfgreyhound
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http://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/video-clip-latitude-40-back-country_topic126499.html
Attached to 55. GG
Attached to 55. GG
Fly-Swatter
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So, is the goal for PA trout fishing to be as good as MT or to improve significantly from what it currently is? It should be a rhetorical question.
To use a bad analogy, if I am a High School quarterback and I want to improve, should I eat, sleep and train like Tom Brady? I think that would make me better, but it can never make me Tom Brady. That's not the goal.
MT is the gold standard in the continental US. How did MT get so good? Lots of "natural talent" and a solid program that put them on the path to greatness.
To use a bad analogy, if I am a High School quarterback and I want to improve, should I eat, sleep and train like Tom Brady? I think that would make me better, but it can never make me Tom Brady. That's not the goal.
MT is the gold standard in the continental US. How did MT get so good? Lots of "natural talent" and a solid program that put them on the path to greatness.
>>Lots of "natural talent" and a solid program that put them on the path to greatness.>>
Thing is, IMO at any rate, without the pre-existence of a sufficient amount of the former, the amount of real difference you can make by adjusting or fine tuning the latter is limited. This may be Pennsylvania's main impediment on the road to fully realizing it's wild trout potential and becoming as good as say, even Michigan, let alone Montana.
We have a pretty good program in PA, quite wild trout oriented by comparison with a lot of the cold water fishery states. While there are exceptions and specific case improvements can always be made, in general what is holding us back (if indeed, we are being "held back...") has more to do with nature than nurture.
My view, anyway...
Thing is, IMO at any rate, without the pre-existence of a sufficient amount of the former, the amount of real difference you can make by adjusting or fine tuning the latter is limited. This may be Pennsylvania's main impediment on the road to fully realizing it's wild trout potential and becoming as good as say, even Michigan, let alone Montana.
We have a pretty good program in PA, quite wild trout oriented by comparison with a lot of the cold water fishery states. While there are exceptions and specific case improvements can always be made, in general what is holding us back (if indeed, we are being "held back...") has more to do with nature than nurture.
My view, anyway...
