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……

Ever been frustrated by illegal fishermen who always seem to get away with taking more than their fair share and hurting the fishery?  Well, one fisherman in the Phillipines was dealt with a dose of karma this weekend when he had his arm blown off by some homemade dynamite that exploded before he could toss it into the water.  As one police officer said, “It seemed that nature has gotten back at the victim”.

See the story here

A while back, I had the opportunity to see some cool pictures of tiger trout caught in Vermont by Maine resident Sean McAuley.  McAuley did what very few fishermen have the opportunity to do: he caught multiple tiger trout that occurred naturally in the wild.  He also took some great pictures of the fish and gave me the opportunity to post them here.

The tiger trout (Salmo trutta x Salvelinus fontinalis) is a sterile hybrid cross between brown trout and brook trout, and is very rarely seen in the wild.  Instead of looking like a typical hybrid with some coloration characteristics from each of its parents, the tiger trout looks completely unique.  It doesn’t just have the distinguishing spots and parr marks that other trout have.  True to its name, the tiger trout has extensive vermiculations along its sides that somewhat resemble the stripes of a tiger.   

It is believed that the cross between the two trout species results when a male brook trout fertilizes the eggs of a female brown trout.  While they spawn around the same time, brook trout and brown trout usually segregate during spawning, and do not share the same type of microhabitat for laying their eggs.  It is believed that brook trout typically tend to seek groundwater inputs for spawning while brown trout simply target suitable gravel.  Research has shown that brown trout and brook trout spawning redds seldom overlap, but in some cases they do spawn together, and tiger trout are documented in the wild from time to time. 

One of the reasons that the tiger trout is so rare is that the two species forming this hybrid are each in a separete genus, and have different numbers of chromosomes.  In other words, they aren’t as closely related as many other species that hybridize.  Brook trout have 84 chromosomes, while brown trout have 80. 

Tiger trout have become a popular tool for fisheries managers in a number of states, where they are bred and raised in hatcheries and stocked in lakes or reservoirs to provide a unique sportfishing opportunity.  Fish culturists have been successful in breeding tiger trout by heat shocking brown trout eggs, which adds an extra set of chromosomes and greatly increases survival rates.  Survival rates from fertilization in the wild are very low.

Because it is so rare in the wild, hybridization between native brook trout and introduced brown trout has not often been discussed as a threat to brook trout populations, while competition and predation by brown trout are believed to pose a more significant threat to native fish.  The tiger trout is truly a unique fish, only found in rare instances where brown trout and brook trout coexist, and I envy anyone fortunate enough to have the opportunity to land one!  

Bait it! Hook it! Eat it!

I picked this hat up from the riverbank while doing field work a few weeks ago.  I was counting brown trout redds in one of the spawning locations in my study area and just saw it lying there.  The funny thing was, the hat was on the banks of a special regulations section of water, which doesn’t allow the use of bait!

Fishermen, outfitters and biologists all expressed serious concerns about water drawdown in Lake Cumberland to repair Wolf Creek Dam last year, but surprisingly, their worst fears didn’t come to be.  Instead, the popular tailwater fishery for trout in the Cumberland River below the dam is fishing better now than anyone ever expected. 

Somehow the trout made it through extremely high water temperatures this summer, and are now providing an excellent winter fishery despite the low water.  In a recent news article, Gary Garth describes the great fishing in the Cumberland and why it has left experts surprised. 

Read the story here

I ran across an interesting press release today regarding the use of federal money to help Native Americans become competitive in the fishing industry.  It turns out that the Canadian government has committed $20 million over the next two years to provide assistance in the way of business knowledge, skills, and equipment to allow First Nations tribes gear up and get fishing in the Atlantic. 

Canadian law states that aboriginal people have a right to make a living via hunting, fishing and gathering. 

Ongoing research at Washington State University continues to focus on answering questions important to the fish culture and minimizing impacts on native fish populations.  Professor Gary Thorgaard’s Center for Reproductive Biology raises thousands of cloned juvenile rainbow trout.  Scientists at the center study disease resistance, stress response and growth rates, all of which may have important implications for the future of fisheries, particularly in the northwestern United States.

Read more about the research laboratory here

Volunteers are rescuing fish from California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta after a federal agency lowered water to repair a levee.  The lower water has resulted in the death of thousands of fish, and fishermen are reported to have caught over 1,300 striped bass and released them into deeper water. 

Read more here