Excited about my first hatching of trout eggs!

[Frank Castle]

Well I don't agree with you guys, but of course I'm biased as I do taxidermy for a living. It's an art form and it's plenty challenging. Colors have to be put back in with an airbrush. Best part is I don't have to take orders from a boss, although some of my customers can be demanding.

The replicas have to be molded off of real fish that's expired t'd so I don't really see the point. And most trout in this country are managed as put and take anyway. And yes the flesh can be eaten before a fish is mounted as none of it is used in taxidermy.

As far as catch and release: I believe an angler that practices catch and release exclusively kills more fish than an angler that mounts that once in a life time fish. And many of the large old fish I mount for anglers are close to the end of their life span. Also not very fecund anymore if not sterile.

Most planted trout have a max life span of bout 3 years. Why waste the resource and have them die of natural causes?

i'm sorry but i can't agree w/ majority of this. It sounds like biasedness based on a business stand-point.

Do you mind explaining how myself, a catch-and-release angler that only keeps fish that are farmed or stocked "kills" more fish than whomever?

The whole point of catch and release is to keep fish alive and not exhaust our natural resources. I know TROUT are hemophiliacs so if you catch one and it's bleeding you might as well keep it, but this doesn't apply to many of the other species.

Also i don't agree w/ the 3 year lifespan either, it completely depends on the body of water they are living in, quality of water, diet, etc. Stocked trout living in deeper lakes can live to 10 years or more.....The European Brown Trout are ALL stocked outside their natural range so that's a completely inaccurate assumption when these fish are reaching 15-30lbs. Are you saying these fish are "not planted"?

Similar situation w/ Rainbows as well. They're originally native to extreme western states, yet here on the East Coast they easily live 5-10 years or more and grow well over 10lbs.

 

[Cecil B.]

Be happy to explain how an ardent catch and release angler can kill more fish than a guy you keeps a fish to eat once in a while or mounts a fish on a rare occasion. And I've see this in my own ponds. Regardless of how careful you are with fish there will be a small amount of mortality. As a taxidermist I get in a large musky once in a while, that no matter how hard the avid musky angler tried, he couldn't revive the fish after it was caught. And these musky guys are fanatics when it comes to releasing a musky. They use special nets and live wells etc. to make sure the fish is in the right condition to release. If they decide it's not going to make it, it's not going to make it.

Furthermore I lived on a lake and observed the mortality rate of largemouth bass up to 3 days after a bass tournament. This lake had a bass tournament every weekend which is not unusual in my area. I saw the fish dead in the water. Even with a 5 percent mortality rate after release, if a bass angler releases 400 bass a year that's 20 dead bass. Many avid tournament bass anglers release 2 or 3 times that much in a years time. So a guy that finds the time to fish a few times a year and keeps them is killing less bass. And don't forget that 8 pound 15 year old bass a guy patted himself on the back for releasing was like granmma running a 400 meter run. May have swam off and become turtle food without the angler even knowing it. Ever see the internal parasite loads in some of these old fish? I have.

As far as the trout surviving longer than 3 years some of them do. And yes some Salmo trutta do live longer than rainbows. But having worked for the DNR, and with a degree in fisheries science, and looked at the data, most trout even in a good environment just don't last more than 3 or 4 years after they are planted. Many of the females in a lake environment attempt to reabsorb their eggs which is extremely stressful. They mill around looking for the right conditions and don't find them.

Brook trout except for the northern wild Canadian strains are lucky if they make it past 3 years -- period. Mine start croking at three years of age. Again there are exceptions but that's the average.

 

[Cecil B.]

i'm sorry but i can't agree w/ majority of this. It sounds like biasedness based on a business stand-point.

Do you mind explaining how myself, a catch-and-release angler that only keeps fish that are farmed or stocked "kills" more fish than whomever?

The whole point of catch and release is to keep fish alive and not exhaust our natural resources. I know TROUT are hemophiliacs so if you catch one and it's bleeding you might as well keep it, but this doesn't apply to many of the other species.

Also i don't agree w/ the 3 year lifespan either, it completely depends on the body of water they are living in, quality of water, diet, etc. Stocked trout living in deeper lakes can live to 10 years or more.....The European Brown Trout are ALL stocked outside their natural range so that's a completely inaccurate assumption when these fish are reaching 15-30lbs. Are you saying these fish are "not planted"?

Similar situation w/ Rainbows as well. They're originally native to extreme western states, yet here on the East Coast they easily live 5-10 years or more and grow well over 10lbs.

First of all native fish in their native ranges that naturally reproduce are a whole different ball game than planted trout in lakes. And as I indicated I did not say all of them only live 3 to 4 years.

As far as the browns that get to be 15 to 30 pounds I would bet if you could see the number planted and the number that get that large you may find it's not as many as you think. In Alpena, Michigan where browns were planted into the Thunder Bay of Lake Huron back during my college days, although it produced some monsters there was only a 1/10 of 1 percent survival rate last I heard. I fact I believe they no longer have their brown trout festival.

I had a biologist in Wisconsin on Lake Michigan of the Wild Rose hatchery tell me that one of the reasons the See Forellen strain got so large was their late sexual maturity, and of course the forage base. He floored me when he said many of the males die after spawning just like salmon.

 

[Frank Castle]

Be happy to explain how an ardent catch and release angler can kill more fish than a guy you keeps a fish to eat once in a while or mounts a fish on a rare occasion. And I've see this in my own ponds. Regardless of how careful you are with fish there will be a small amount of mortality. As a taxidermist I get in a large musky once in a while, that no matter how hard the avid musky angler tried, he couldn't revive the fish after it was caught. And these musky guys are fanatics when it comes to releasing a musky. They use special nets and live wells etc. to make sure the fish is in the right condition to release. If they decide it's not going to make it, it's not going to make it.

Furthermore I lived on a lake and observed the mortality rate of largemouth bass up to 3 days after a bass tournament. This lake had a bass tournament every weekend which is not unusual in my area. I saw the fish dead in the water. Even with a 5 percent mortality rate after release, if a bass angler releases 400 bass a year that's 20 dead bass. Many avid tournament bass anglers release 2 or 3 times that much in a years time. So a guy that finds the time to fish a few times a year and keeps them is killing less bass. And don't forget that 8 pound 15 year old bass a guy patted himself on the back for releasing was like granmma running a 400 meter run. May have swam off and become turtle food without the angler even knowing it. Ever see the internal parasite loads in some of these old fish? I have.

As far as the trout surviving longer than 3 years some of them do. And yes some Salmo trutta do live longer than rainbows. But having worked for the DNR, and with a degree in fisheries science, and looked at the data, most trout even in a good environment just don't last more than 3 or 4 years after they are planted. Many of the females in a lake environment attempt to reabsorb their eggs which is extremely stressful. They mill around looking for the right conditions and don't find them.

Brook trout except for the northern wild Canadian strains are lucky if they make it past 3 years -- period. Mine start croking at three years of age. Again there are exceptions but that's the average.

First of all native fish in their native ranges that naturally reproduce are a whole different ball game than planted trout in lakes. And as I indicated I did not say all of them only live 3 to 4 years.

As far as the browns that get to be 15 to 30 pounds I would bet if you could see the number planted and the number that get that large you may find it's not as many as you think. In Alpena, Michigan where browns were planted into the Thunder Bay of Lake Huron back during my college days, although it produced some monsters there was only a 1/10 of 1 percent survival rate last I heard. I fact I believe they no longer have their brown trout festival.

I had a biologist in Wisconsin on Lake Michigan of the Wild Rose hatchery tell me that one of the reasons the See Forellen strain got so large was their late sexual maturity, and of course the forage base. He floored me when he said many of the males die after spawning just like salmon.

Still sounds biased from a business standpoint. IDK where you got those number and percentages, but I don't kill fish when I fish catch-and-release except my bait and one fish last year. No need to estimate or guess, I know I accidentally killed ONE fish out of THOUSANDS I caught last year that was intended for C&R

 

[Cecil B.]

Just remember just because the fish swam off doesn't mean it survived. They can still die up to three days later.

I don't think either of us are going to convince each other of our point of view. So I guess we just have to agree to disagree.

Cheeers!

 

[Cecil B.]

My nitrites and ammonia were zero this morning! Keeping my fingers crossed but after seeing both readings day after day with my API tests this is a relief! I said a prayer of thanks!

I'm still going to add 4 more cubic feet of media (another moving bed blue barrel) in line with the present one. Due to my cold water, more surface area for the bacteria can't be a bad thing.

 

[Cecil B.]

Ammonia back up a little. I think I just need to add more media to compensate for the lower temps. Hopefully doubling it next week may do the trick.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

Here's my input:both planted rainbow and brown trout will live approximately 15 to 40 odd years in proper enviorments assuming they do not get harvested,with proper methods such as using barbless hooks and treating any bleeding with Mountain Dew the survival rate(based on recapture or resighting a week or more after being caught,fish not re sight or relighted are considered dead in my studies) was extremely high,with only a maximum possible mortality of .4 percent , and in my studies of largemouth bass and sunfish there was a even smaller mortality rate (using barbless hooks,and proper handling methods even fish who swallowed hooks showed extremely low mortality).

 

[Cecil B.]

Do you have a link for that as in data of tagged fish? I can provide links for my contention if you wish?

 

[Cecil B.]

Here is a quick pic of a few of my fingerlings. Can anyone tell which are tigers, browns, or brooks yet? They average about 2 inches. I think they started hatching in December. Will have to look at records.