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3. One for the table, Page 2

funny how almost something reasonable can be taken too far, isn't it? there are small children who come home from school and take Daddy to task for drinking a beer before dinner. the school district decided that students should be taught that alcohol can be dangerous, but no one thought to wonder why a 6-year-old needs this lecture as much as a 16-year-old.



there are always a few folks who cannot understand another's amusement. just ask a baseball fan...in Green Bay.

Hi Ben (and all..): I basically agree with Ben's take on the matter, even though it has been a long time since I have gone trout fishing with the intent to harvest. My reasons are twofold: 1) I make a point of fishing almost exclusively over wild fish. My current location and the good graces of my wife to allow me to disappear for days at a time to faraway waters (4-5 hour drives) allow me this good fortune. I have a hard time killing wild trout. From poorly managed extraction practices to urban sprawl to too many guys on the creek, wild fish already have the deck stacked somewhat against them. The fact that they can flourish despite all we do to make it difficult for them is testimony to their resilience and natural resolve. They have it hard enough without me trying to kill them. 2) I am a consumptive and obsessive angler. When I take off on one of my 3-4 day toots, I'm fishing every instant I am not driving. I don't have time to fadiddle around cleaning fish and wrapping them for placement in a cooler. That cuts into my fishing time. So, to not have to bother with these things is actually a burden removed and allows me to fish more.

Still, the decision to harvest fish is: 1) personal, there is no better or worse or right or wrong so long as done within the law 2) subjective to the stream and the condition and overall health of the fishery in question. Some streams, even wild trout streams, in fact especially wild trout streams, need to have some fish harvested from them because they have too may fish and this situation is bad for the overall health of the fishery.

So, do what you will and what seems right to you. So long as it is within the law, its all cool...

It's ok to keep one to eat now and again. Sometimes it's OK to keep several. The religiously hardcore catch & release diehards don't really have sound science on their side; it's great for people to practice that if they want, but nobody should be getting self-righteous about it. For that matter, I haven't actually met anyone who takes that zealous view. I think it might be sort of a straw-man that lots of people like to complain about but that doesn't represent many real-life opinions.

Anyway, just use some common sense in harvest. Some places you really shouldn't keep fish, like on heavily fished streams supported mainly by natural reproduction, because if you put that fish back others will have fun encounters with it again and again. Some fish just don't make sense to keep, like big females during spawning season.

On the flip side, there are lots of "put-grow-and-take" fisheries where states put in a bunch of stockers in the spring and don't expect many of them to survive to the next year. In some cases, the stream couldn't even support them and they'd almost all die anyway if people don't catch them. In those fisheries, it's fine to take whatever you'll eat fresh.

There are also pristine, out-of-the-way streams that hold lots of little trout and only see a few anglers each year. Again, no problem taking a few fish there.

You can't really use regulations to tell you how many fish it's okay to keep. Obviously never keep more than is legal, but sometimes you really should take less. For one thing, state management agencies have rarely considered the best regulations for each stream 1-by-1 on the basis of sound science. Management biologists will tell you as much. The biologists don't have the time or data to set the perfect numbers for each stream, and even if they did, the politics of state regulation rarely let the scientists have their way 100%. Finally, they decide on these regulations under the assumption that most people won't be fishing the stream all that often and won't be limiting out every time. If the limit on a stream is 5 trout per day, and you hit the same mile of stream every day for a season and keep your limit every day, you'll probably deplete the stream, and the manager won't be to blame.

Harvest should be responsible and sustainable for conservation purposes. Sometimes it's good to go even further than that to maximize the future enjoyment for yourself and other anglers; throw back a big one in a stream you fish regularly and you might catch him again. The population might get by without that fish, but the stream will give people a better experience with that fish in it.

Try to meet your table needs with stockers and fish from healthy populations, and spread your harvest around. If you do those two things, nobody has any right to complain.

I agree with Jason, at least in theory. But here in Pennsylvania, for example, if all anglers (including the state's battalion of bait fishermen) completely embrace a "it's fine to harvest trout" mentality, populations of wild trout will most likely suffer. That's why I'd prefer to see a more general catch and release mentality promoted widely, at least in the East. Peer pressure has some effect, as does the culture that is established by those who ply the water. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I'm thinking of those who don't go to this church.

Real nice Spence,

#1- trout streams in my area cannot hold all the stockies. They would starve to death.

#2- If the stream were in jeopardy the DNR would step in, at least I hope.

#3- I have to believe in the the DNR, they are the only ones that can protect our resources legally.

#4- I don't smoke

#5- I believe you will always have people with conflicting ideas......but we should try to get along

#6- I don't have a spear or a five hundred dollar fly rod, But like I said I do not eat fish anyway

Ben

Ben, as you may have to do for me sooner or later (see my reactions to the post entitled "Cosmo adds?"), you'll have to pardon Spence for going off on his rant. I do consider him a friend and colleague - after all, he turned me on to some fabulous smallmouth waters downstate (see his post, "What did you do on Sunday evening" for a photo of me holding a big fat one). However, he is a self-described misanthrope (I have those tendencies too) who apparently feels that too many newbies are invading "his" waters" (on the Au Sable and perhaps the Huron) and catching "his" fish (so I gather from his posts and private messages to me). He apparently isn't too fond of the MI DNR either (then again, so aren't a lot of folks)...

Hey, we all have to share this planet whether we like it or not, and that includes trout waters. The mere fact that you're asking the question means that you're thinking about it, which some people don't. We're never going to be able to get rid of all of the "barbarians" in this world, much as we rail against them. I don't think that characterization includes you or in fact the vast majority of fly fisherman, so don't take it too personally. Also, apparently, it's not too easy these days to tell when Spence is kidding or not (as he found out himself recently).

I for one also use neither a spear nor a $500 fly rod, in fact my currently favorite graphite wand only costs $50 (also much to the annoyance of certain folks on this site, so they tell me). And Spence, you KNOW what I smoke...or should I say, to paraphrase the CIA, I can neither confirm nor deny those allegations...

Go ahead and whack a couple over the head once in a while, I'm pretty sure the heavens won't open up and hit you in the ass with a lightning bolt.

Jonathon

Jonathon,

Not trying to make enemies, being fairly green on the site I guess I don't know how to take what people are saying.

I use St. Croix Avid series rods and Lamiglas fiberglass rods. I'm not a big spender either. All of my rods save three have come from ebay @ very cheap prices.

I really do love fly fishing, I love nature, and do want it to be there for my children and my children's children.

I too fly fish small mouth and plan to do more of it. Here in Iowa we have excellent small mouth fishing. I wouldn't eat those either:)

I wasn't trying to start anything just clearing things up.

Ben

I'm not much of a bass eater myself (think I mentioned that above). I am however interested in the St. Croix Imperial rods, especially since I'm getting a steady paycheck these days...

Jonathon

This topic is like talking religion or politics, one shouldn't do that with friends that he/she wants to keep.

Ben,

First off I really didn't mean to offend...I tried to preface my remark with, "In all due respect"...

Secondly, If you are just another reincarnation of our old friend (fshkllr) I take my appology back, if you don't know what I'm referring to I suggest you re-read my post, not taking it personally, and respond to me in a PM and I'll discuss it with you.

I think that you are being a little disingenuous when your post had phrases like the above, "holier than thou" & "being jammed down our throats". That leads me to believe you came to the table claiming to want to share ideas with your "peers" but with a presupposition that catch-and-release is bad...From your point-of-view.

I want to be upfront and say that I am a long time member of the Angler's of the Au Sable and a Life member of Federation of Flyfishers so my bias' are on the table...I left TU decades ago when I got pissed off when they were advertising Mepps Spinners in the pages of their Trout magazine and didn't suppost no-kill on the Au Sable.

The TU thing was very difficult for me since I fish in front of the Barbless Hook from time-to-time where TU was founded in 1959 and when Mr. Griffith was still alive I would tip my cap to him sitting up in his picture window and out of respect not fish in front of his place. I am still very, very close with many an angler who belongs to TU and spend my winters tying flies with the chapter I used to belong to because they are the real deal and love wild Trout and the rivers they live in...My beef is with the national I guess...I really don't think about it much any longer.

The Anglers of the Au Sable were formed in 1987 in an effort to bring no-kill regs to the Mainstream. At that time, believe it or not, the national TU wasn't interested in helping in this regard. So, the Angler's are affliated with FF.

I don't want to drag this out...But when you say "jammed down our throats" it basically sticks in mine...I don't know anything about Iowa, but here in Michigan we are blessed with many a mile of river. We only have a few miles on the Mainstream & the South Branch of the Au Sable, a few on the Pere Marquette, a few on the Huron, and Wakeley Lake dedicated to no-kill regs in this state...How is that jamming anything down someone's throat?!

These few miles set aside as catch-and-release and we still get complaints that we are somehow depriving someone their rights to toss a Brook in to their frying pans...They own the cabin by christ and they can do as they please...I have also explained elsewhere where a lovely state rep forced a law down our throats, since he owns a place on the river, that allows children under a certain age the right to catch & keep a trout by any means they wish...This after Rusty Gates offered to completely outfit and teach his boys how to fly fish...I think the guy had another agenda...His own.

I guess I'll leave it at that.

Spence

That's true. People might think a stream can withstand some harvest it actually can't, especially if they underestimate how much other pressure it receives. It's a tricky balancing act: we have to acknowledge the fact that many systems can support some harvest, while promoting caution and a "better safe than sorry" attitude in people who might not realize what's acceptable harvest and what's not. Plus, some people are going to keep fish, and it's worthwhile to educate them about the most low-impact ways to put a trout on the grill.

I'm with you on #3, but not on #2. I don't know the Iowa DNR's situation specifically, but management agencies generally don't have the money and personnel to closely monitor every fishery at all times. Even if they did, the scientists who know how to interpret that information don't always have the political power in the organization to make the necessary regulation changes. There are many good scientists in state management agencies (and some lousy ones, too), but there are also many limitations and a lot of government bureaucracy.

The net result is that you can't rely 100% on management agencies to prevent disaster; users of the resource have to shoulder some of the responsibility, too. Sometimes that means just managing your own harvest well, and sometimes it might mean reporting problems to the DNR or organizing with TU to advocate some changes.

Jason,

Crawford County in Michigan besides the Au Sable running through it has a bunch of feeder streams and lakes and the Manistee river nearby and only one officer...In the summer months he's on the larger lake, Lake Margrethe, handing out boating tickets.

These poor souls are on the short end in just about everyway...Short staffed they can face dangerous situations usually alone and usually a good distance from any help.

Someone above said I have a problem with the MIDNR which is untrue. I'm on very good terms with the head of our fisheries division. If they had read my post a little more slowly they may have understood that one of my issues is, for lack of a better phrase, niche management. I don't always understand attempts at managing nature just so humans can exploit it and that this exploitation is the raison d'etre of that management.

Let's cut down this old growth forest so the habitat will improve for grouse so we can hunt them...or improve the deer herd in a place that prior to the logging days held few whitetails...or lets throw some trout in marginal trout water to satisfy the trout whacking natives. I hate the term "resource management"...We humans have to objectify everything...If I can't use it in some form it means nothing to me.

Just leave it be for a frigging change...I will admit that I'm a little hopped up because a few years back the powers-that-be drove logging trucks in to my beloved Mason Tract on the South Branch of the Au Sable and clear cut under the ruse of somehow improving the place...It was paradise for christsake yet it somehow needed improving???! When George Mason left that property to the state it was to return to its "natural" state...It would of given enough time.

Anyway...I'm rambling here...What was the original question? :) Could someone just leave me a postage stamp sized area where you haven't pissed on it in one way or another?


Spence

I thought I'd chime in. Since I started flyfishing 30 or so years ago I've kept exactly 1 fish that wasn't hooked really poorly. That was the first one I ever caught. My Grandfather insisted on it. I don't flyfish for sustinence, I fish for solitude, for meditation(I doubt anyone here can say that they dont lose themselves while fishing), for they joy that is found in nature,for that feeling you get when you get a strike, and for the knowledge that I(of all people)managed to out smart a fish. With that being said, if I hook one really bad I'll keep it. I figure I owe the fish that much.

In the interest of fair play:

The license fee is the same whether you fly-fish or not; yet the fly fisher can fish anywhere; not so the bait and spin casters...

What ya saying Tim? Because the precious few flys only miles in Michigan are limited to whatever constitutes a "fly" on the end of our terminal tackle we are discriminating here...Treating the lowly bait-boys like smokers and shunning them off to smoke outside in the cold. :)

There used to be an old cabin owning sport on the Mainstream who used to walk down the middle of the river with a spinning rod with a glob of lead wrapped around a large-ish hook shank fancied up with feathers...He was perfectly "legal"...He used to tell me, "that since the no-kill the rivers never been the same...I have owned this damn cabin here since the 30's and no one's going to tell me what I can or cannot do! Especially that gang up at Stephans Bridge."

I had a wonderful dinner with your buddy and another friend after the Fly Tying show down in Canton a few weeks back. The other guy's a retired biology teacher from Ohio. The conversation got around to the no-kill regs and was for me a very interesting conversation. The bottom line from both sides really was that we need some real science and not simply observational data (i.e. "it use to be better in the good old days")...

You and I know the state is broke, no flat broke, and there's no money for it really. We all have these great arguments about single hook vs treble, bait vs artificial, creel limits vs catch-and-release, fly-fish or not...I can't remember the last time I saw a real scientist walking around the Au Sable unless he was part of an electro-shocking DNR crew.

Someone said somewhere here recently that some of this stuff is like discussing religion or politics and this is probably true...When someone feels that someone is doing something that they don't approve of, or not doing it the same way they do, they cry foul...They accept everything that agrees with their own personal view of the world and disparage the rest. I guess we are just stuck with this...We all think we know everything when in reality we know next to nothing.

I would support your bifurcating of the fishing license here in Michigan if it would be extented to rod & reel and not just "fly" I guess...That way I could dress myself up like an old English gent with my cane rod and brace of wets and fantasize that I'm doing it the "right & proper" way...Oh...Anyone I see pouching or not dressed appropriatly in their tweeds at dinner I get to shoot in one of their knee caps...:)

Spence

Speaking of the MIDNR...I am 57 years old, have fished since I was a little tot with my dad on Chesapeake Bay, and with my great-uncle off the breakwalls at Manistee & Frankfort, and I have never been asked to see my fishing license anywhere! Not once...

Tim. You and I know it's basically katie-bar-the-door out there...Always has been, always will be. These humans just don't give a shit.

Hey Spence,

I've been thinking a lot lately, and I've come to the conclusion that you are right. In Iowa we have streams that will not support natural reproduction so stock those and let the baiters go crazy. The streams that do support trout, make them a no kill. But lets go a step further, no barbs no treble and use the appropriate rig. If the stream is noted for 24" fish do not bring a 1 wt. You've seen these guys, can't get the fish in until it is dead with exhaustion.

I believe what you said, man has mucked up everything he has touched. I'm not saying this to conform it's been my opinion all along, but if we do want to change things it has to be slow. There are too many old schoolers out there a lot in government that have a lot of decision making power. I just hope we have time....

Don't tell Dad and Grandpa I said this,
Ben

I met a rather rich fellow some years ago up here when I used to live over in the West Branch area, as a friend of mine in the area had plumbed his (huge) house for him. This guy pissed and moaned that the size limit was too high on the Rifle River - 15" minimum for brookies, browns, and rainbows. Here was a guy who could afford to fly almost ANYWHERE in the world, let alone this country, to fish in practically any body of water, and yet he couldn't stand the fact that he was not allowed to kill an 8" fish on the Rifle. I thought, and still do think, what a f*cking PIG.

Too bad the "good old days" are gone. GET OVER IT!!

Jonathon

Sounds like you need to come to Alaska, Spence. So much of it is untouched compared to the lower 48. There are still gradual, global effects like climate change, and the animal population dynamics are often governed by human harvest, but the bottom line is when you're out off the road up here the gut feeling is that you're in a place that's still what it's supposed to be.



Sure they can. They just have to use a fly rod and fly.

Restricting methods is not like restricting people. There's not a bait fishermen in Michigan who couldn't save up enough to afford cheap low-end fly gear if he really wanted to fish those reaches.

Dividing people up based on their chosen actions leads to bad places. For example, you could argue in the same way that C&R fishermen get to fish anywhere, but meat fishermen only get to fish certain places and have to stop after a certain number of fish. You could even argue that spear fishermen are being grossly abused nationwide, since their methods are only allowed in a handful of situations.

Spence's analogy to smokers is a good one, too. Smokers can go into any establishment that the rest of us can. They just can't smoke in all of them.



That's a pretty sorry situation. I've been checked at least once in every state where I've lived. I know it's been getting rarer and rarer in Wisconsin, though. The game wardens are also in charge of all sorts of unrelated enforcement like snowmobile traffic, and they're horribly understaffed. People want "small government," so this is what it gets them... both the science and enforcement ends of state DNRs lack the personnel and funding to do even half of what they want to do and should be doing. Many of them do a great job with what they're given to work with, but they're perpetually starved for resources.

Jason,

Maybe I should of stayed up there back in 1973, eh!? Or maybe in Montana on my way home.

Aren't you supposed to be studying, man?! Spence will be ok. He's just blowing off some mid-winter blues. We need to get this snow to melt so Gonzo with come down off the hill and keep me in line. I miss him.

Actually I should re-visit your bug photos. Thats what brought me here in the first place and stop all this babbling and whining...It's not really my style and besides I need to tie a hundred dozen to stuff my already over stuffed fly boxes. You just never know when those strange looking spinners that everyone claims never seem to fall, finally decide to...I'll be ready. I've been carrying around a pretty near dead-nuts imitation of them for years...I'm a very patient man. :)

I love chasing "wild" trout with homemade bugs, whipping them around with a fly rod and visiting the woods and thats just about that...Everything else is just distraction.

It maybe colder down here in Detroit tonight than up where you are...

Take care...Greetings to the Frau.

Spence