According to Peter Rolfe of the Australian Herald Sun, some in the Australian government are pushing to eradicate trout from some of the continent’s waters in hopes of restoring native species.  But such an idea doesn’t sit well at all with Aussie anglers.

Commission chief Wendy Craik conceded the removal of trout was a sensitive issue.

“I can understand that fishing people might be upset about this but we need to look at what is best for our rivers and native fish,” she said.

Trout were introduced to Australia beginning in the 1870’s, and the popularity of trout fishing has grown over time to the point where it provides an annual industry worth about $1.3 billion, much of that money brought in via fishing-related tourism.

Anglers and local residents are outraged, and argue that removing trout will be devastating to local economies.  In addition to removing trout, other fish species such as carp are expected to be targets for removal.  Many anglers do not oppose the removal of less desirable fish, but draw the line at trout.

In the Western United States native fish are plagued by nonnative trout introductions as well, but removing nonnative trout often opens the door for better opportunities to catch native trout species, which can be equally enjoyable to pursue.  Australians aren’t so lucky.  Removing trout from their waters would likely cause much more devastating impacts to recreational fishing because Australia lacks native trout. 

So will it be ’out with the trout’ in Australian waters?  Time and politics will tell.

It’s ice fishing time, and for many in the state of Maine, that means hook-and-lining it for smelts in the ice shack.  The rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) is native to many coastal waters in Maine, and has been extensively introduced to inland lakes.  The smelt is a thin, silvery fish that ranges in size between a couple of inches and nearly a foot in some areas.  Smelts are an important forage fish in both inland and coastal waters in the state.  In fact, smelts can often constitute over 90% of the diet of landlocked salmon in Maine lakes. 

Aside from being forage for other game fishes, though, smelts also directly provide an important sport fishery for many Maine anglers.  Fishermen set up fishing cabins, or ‘ice shacks’ on lakes to provide shelter while they jig for smelts, using small hooks tipped with little chunks of bait.  The bite can be fast and furious at times, and smelt fishing typically provides steadier action than targeting other species.  There’s nothing quite like spending a quiet day out at the cabin pulling in smelt after smelt.    

Many of Maine’s coastal rivers experience vast runs of smelts, which ascend into freshwater in preparation for spawning.  When the ice is thick enough, some establishments place dozens of shacks out on the ice for fishermen to rent.  I’ve spent my fair share of time in some of those shacks, and the fishing can be incredible.  It’s not rare to come home with a few hundred smelts, and a ’smelting’ trip with friends or family is always worth the few bucks paid to rent a shack.       

In addition to the direct recreational benefit smelts provide, smelts are a very popular food item, and are absolutely essential to the baitfishing market.  Many anglers will fry up a mess of battered smelts, but others save their catch to use as bait.  The vast majority of Maine ice fishermen use tip-ups rigged with live bait to catch salmon and trout, and smelts are far and away their top choice of bait.  These baitfish can cost upwards of $10/dozen, so it’s no surprise that many anglers take the opportunity to catch their own bait!

Smelts play a vital role in Maine’s fisheries.  They provide a crucial forage base for gamefish and are popular sportfish in their own right.  Smelts are also excellent table fare and are a very important part of Maine’s live bait industry.  If you haven’t been out smelt fishing, you may be missing out on one heck of a time! 

Here’s a great article about smelt fishing Maine’s coastal rivers

Click here for places to rent smelt shacks.  I’ve been to James Eddy’s and Jim Worthing’s smelt shacks.  Both provide good cabins for a decent price.

Here’s an article on smelts in Maine written by fisheries biologist Jim Pellerin, who is considered the smelt expert within the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Wildlife photographer Dennis Bright recently caught this amazing image of trout attempting to escape from an English fish farm via the water supply pipe.  The farm’s owner doesn’t believe that many fish are actually escaping via the pipe, but still, a screen might be in order! 

Full Article

After being introduced to Colorado waters in the 1980’s via fish transport from a private hatchery, whirling disease has had substantial impacts on the state’s rainbow trout populations.  Whirling disease causes nerve damage and skeletal deformities in juvenile trout, and can cause very high juvenile mortality rates.  Many waters have seen major trout declines since the disease hit the West, but Colorado researchers are now predicting a huge comeback in rainbow trout populations. 

Through experimental breeding and stocking programs, the Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists believe that they can rebuild rainbow trout populations with a strain of fish that is generally resistant to the disease.  The strain was developed by crossing Colorado rainbows with a resistant strain of rainbows from Germany.  This new strain of trout will be heavily stocked next year.

 Read the full story here 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! 

Hope you and your family enjoy a great Holiday Season!

There’s nothing like a little habitat destruction to ruin an otherwise great day of stream fishing. 

Pictured above is what’s left of a section of stream that I caught dozens of fish in this past year.  Now, it’s nothing but a wide, shallow run with no cover or other fish habitat remaining.  The landowner took a bulldozer in the stream and completely obliterated this stretch, pushing all of the stream material into large banks at the stream’s edge.

I’m assuming that whoever decided to do this to the stream intended to prevent bank erosion in a camping area, and may not have realized the damage they were doing to the stream by destroying trout habitat.  This stretch once had contained undercut banks, a nice deep pool, and numerous rocks and trees used for cover and holding habitat by trout. 

It’s now just a wide, shallow stretch of gravel, and I was unable to locate any fish in the area.

It’s hard to believe that activities like this are still going on in the 21st century.  We should know better.  We’re spending millions of dollars to work on stream restoration and some yahoo can go into a stream with a dozer for a couple of hours and completely ruin a great stretch of trout stream. 

I spoke to a local biologist about the situation, and it sounds like Utah state law doesn’t give them much leverage to stop things like this from happening.  Still, I think there should be better communication between landowners and biologists concerning fish habitat.

I’d like to think that if the landowners were aware of the damage they were doing, they would voluntarily take measures to preserve trout habitat, but that remains to be seen. 

Results from a recent genetic study in the state of New Jersey appear to indicate that some populations of brook trout in the state still contain the genes of the native strains that existed long before humans occupied the area.  The results come from research conducted by fisheries biologist Pat Hamilton, in conjunction with East Stroudsburg University. 

For many anglers, this is great news.  The idea of catching a native strain of trout holds great value for some.  Others, on the other hand, just want to catch fish, and may be dismayed by the idea that having native strains of trout may cause more restrictive fishing regulations.

The release of these findings come on the heels of a proposal to change the minimum length limit for trout in New Jersey from 7″ to 9″, among other proposed changes.

Read more about the genetic study here

You may remember a post of mine earlier referring to the Colorado record cutbow trout caught out of Antero Reservoir.  It’s ice fishing time at Antero, and the hot fishing trend continues despite the cold weather.  With just a few inches of ice on the reservoir over the weekend, anglers were successful in catching a large number of quality fish in the past few days.  It appears that draining and refilling the lake this past year opened up the opportunity for a lot of trout to grow REALLLLY BIG!

See the local news story here

If you’re in any way connected to the sports world, you’ve certainly heard about fantasy football, fantasy baseball, and fantasy basketball.  In fact, the popularity of fantasy sports, where an individual assembles a ’team’ of pro athletes and obtains points for his or her team based on those athletes’ performances, has grown tremendously over the past few years. 

Talking about fantasy sports is all fine and good, but you’re probably wondering what this has to do with a fishing blog.  Enter fantasy fishing. 

FLW Outdoors, a bass fishing tournament group, has launched its new site, FantasyFishing.com, where fans of the FLW tour can select their favorite fishermen and earn points based on their catches in upcoming tournaments.  And that’s not it.  In order to entice fans to sign up at the site, the organization is offering millions of dollars in prizes, including a guaranteed top prize of $1 million for the winner of the fantasy fishing competition. 

Signing up to compete at FantasyFishing.com is free, the only ‘catch’ being that detailed information about the anglers in the tournament will cost $39.95.  But even that doesn’t seem all too inconvenient…….the cost includes a $15 Wal Mart gift card and a subscription to FLW Outdoors magazine.

The FLW tour seems pretty serious about getting more people interested in the sport of bass fishing, even if it be via television and fantasy sports.  I for one am really curious about how this new fantasy fishing deal turns out.  I typically tend to lean toward the non-spiny finned fishes for my entertainment, but heck, this seems kinda cool.  I might even register myself!   

 For more information, go to FantasyFishing.com

The rapid improvement of the Great Lakes muskie fishery in the waters of Green Bay has caused anglers to urge the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to increase the minimum length limits for the fish in order to further protect trophy fish.

A public meeting is scheduled for the end of the month at the Green Bay Yacht Club to discuss changing the length limit, a proposal that has the support of many anglers, with majority support in 25 of 26 counties.  Biologists believe that more information about the ecology of the Green Bay population is necessary to make a proper decision about length limits.

Read more here……