Poor trout

[deewy]

Hi guys

I have a few questions regarding stocked or still water trout. Trout is a river fish, am i correct in saying this, they need running water, ie river, to spawn, please correct me if I am wrong. Then why do we stock them in ponds or lakes or dams and they will never ever be able to spawn, to such an extend that when you catch a hen, the eggs wil just run out of her or they can become infected inside her because she cant lay them...Wouldnt it be better to stock them in water where they can actualy breed naturally and ensure a more healthier and stronger strain of genes?

Why cant we take some big cocks and hens from let say Lakies and stock them on the small streams that have a healthy trout poulations? And in return, take some river caught trout and stock them in lakies? A sort of a trade...you will widen the genepool in the streams and grow some strong and decent wild stillwater trout. This should also ensure bigger stream fish.

Just a thought I had, I would like to have your views regarding this.

[srt007]

yes Dewald, ek weet nie hoe mens dit verby Nature Conservation gaan kry nie, hulle wil mos al die visse fo!en poison, so om groter trout in te sit mag n probleem af gee met daai spul....

[dlampert]

Hi guys

I have a few questions regarding stocked or still water trout. Trout is a river fish, am i correct in saying this, they need running water, ie river, to spawn, please correct me if I am wrong. Then why do we stock them in ponds or lakes or dams and they will never ever be able to spawn, to such an extend that when you catch a hen, the eggs wil just run out of her or they can become infected inside her because she cant lay them...Wouldnt it be better to stock them in water where they can actualy breed naturally and ensure a more healthier and stronger strain of genes?

Why cant we take some big cocks and hens from let say Lakies and stock them on the small streams that have a healthy trout poulations? And in return, take some river caught trout and stock them in lakies? A sort of a trade...you will widen the genepool in the streams and grow some strong and decent wild stillwater trout. This should also ensure bigger stream fish.

Just a thought I had, I would like to have your views regarding this.

Hi Dewald,

Wolf is probably the best person to answer this but here are a couple of points.

We typically stock trout in stillwaters as they tend to grow larger than they would in rivers due to more food. It also allows us to fish for trout during winter when the rivers are usually closed for spawning plus they are normally too high to fish safely. Most lakes and dams are fed by streams or rivers and trout will run up these rivers during spawning time and often spawn successfully. This does happen in Lakies although Lakies is still stocked on a yearly basis to ensure a high enough fish density. If the trout can't spawn then they may reabsorb the eggs or become egg bound as was previously said. This applies to rainbows and browns whereas some other species like lake trout will happily spawn in stillwaters. You can also stock with triploids which are sterile and prevent egg problems etc.

Why would you want to stock large stillwater fish in the rivers ? The reason the trout in our rivers tend to stay relatively small is due to less food, less space and more competition amongst other factors. Stocking large fish would throw out the natural balance in the rivers and the large fish would soon lose condition due to lack of food. If these large stillwater fish managed to spawn in the rivers, their offspring would not grow any bigger than existing fish as they would still be constrained by the same factors which currently keep existing river fish smaller. Another point worth considering is that over the last 100 years or so our river trout have adapted to tolerate much higher temperatures and unnecessary fiddling with the genetics would not be a good thing.

In America and Europe some rivers are stocked for a number of reasons including no C&R, very high fishing pressure or due to the fact that some of the rivers freeze over winter killing everything. These large stockies are often pretty dumb and easy to catch and most fly fishermen not fishing for food would prefer to pit their skills against a 6" wild fish.

My 2c,
Darryl

[deewy]

thanx darryl

much appreciated.

I was just wonering last night. it makes sense what you say about the way the fish have evolved to tolorate the temperature ect.

I think that it must be frustrating to have a female that wants to get it on with you, yiu can touch her and everything but you just can't do the deed. hehehehe

anyway thanx for the replies

[Byron]

Having fished 2 different stockie venues recently I have a couple of questions about stockies.

The one venue had stockies with perfect fins as if they had been raised in a lake (one or two had clearly come out of a concrete tank but these counted for 1 in 4 fish in the smaller ponds). The other venue had fish with terrible tails and fins, they were all rounded and worn down.

Having see a couple of hatcheries I know most keel the trout in concrete tanks and pools - one or two have earth canals that they raise the fish in.

The question are:
1. Do the fins ever recover? If they do how long does it take?
2. How do they raise the fish in the one venue so that they have a better fin condition (would these be from canal dug into the ground?).