Brook trout are an invasive species from the east coast, they should go back to New York like all the people from that state. Why don’t you go catch brookies in Pennsylvania, I hear it’s the brook trout capital of the world. Up with cutts, down with brooks!Invasive? You must be young. (Lucky you). Brook trout are the most welcome invasion there is to our alpine waters in my and hundreds of other’s opinion. Our forefathers stocked them in about every alpine lake in Utah. I understand that they can stunt and overpopulate, but in the right circumstances the brook trout specimens are much more impressive in size, strength and appearance than either cutts or tigers. There is a history and nostalgia with brook trout here in Utah that goes back many years. Places like Boulder Mountain have world-class brook trout waters, and need to be preserved. The DWR is doing a fine job on Boulder balancing the trophy brook trout waters and still sustaining the possible historic CO cutthroat population.
There were no trout in the high Uintas until the white man came, so native species is a non-issue. I just feel sterile brook trout would be a better option than tiger trout. Some cutts are fine too, just so I can avoid them.
Brook trout may not be a “native” species, but they darned sure belong here!!
Fishing for brook trout in Pennsylvania instead of Utah would be like fishing for goldens in California instead of Wyoming.
I’ve caught some seriously weak cutts in spots where the DWR plants a lot of sterile fish. Cleveland Reservoir, Huntington, Strawberry. The problem as I see it is that sterile fish will always have an advantage over native fish because their life cycle doesn’t include making eggs and ignoring food a month out of the year, in addition to simply not dying from spawn stress.
Couple weeks ago I was catching some Colorado cutthroats in a managed stream on #4 test and they were some of the funnest fish I’ve caught. One of the fish busted a hook off of one of the trebles on my F-3 rapala, same fish fought and peeled line for at least 10 minutes. It was only a 12 inch fish but it had vspirit.Were you reeling it up a waterfall? You need to try some Nanofil and quit over stressing them poor little cutts!
I may have exaggerated the time, it was probably less than 5 minutes and a larger fish too, maybe 14 judging by the pictures. Not to worry about the stress, that fish became dinner. He was still fighting when I picked up the stringer.
Hats off. Those are some healthy Cos. Now have some serious respect for my incredible salvilinus fontinalis!
PBH you are in the know.
Are the stocking number accurate?
The brookies are definitely one of the fish God took some time on. You catch one in the fall and they look like a jewel and then taste as good as they look. Makes me feel like caveman eating a flower.
PBH you are in the know.
Are the stocking number accurate?
I have no specific information on the stocking in question.
However, there are numerous things to respond to in this thread. One is cost. Is this a waste? Certainly not! You have to consider what the quota’s for planned stocking was prior to production of the tiger trout. If production yields are higher than quotas, then you end up with surplus. What do you do with surplus fish? You stock them! That is certainly not a waste of money, but rather benefit! Anyone claiming otherwise is foolish.
The costs of raising fish to “catchable” size is significant, so sending these fish out as 2" fish, especially if they were surplus, is (again) a smart investment.
I do not know if these stockings were from surplus fish or not, but it kind of sounds like it.
Also, as has already been mentioned, survival rates are low with fish this small. So high numbers are stocked fully knowing that most will not survive. Again, that’s not a bad thing.
Finally, the great thing about stocking sterile hybrids is that you can control numbers. So, for those worried that the stocking numbers are too high, fisheries managers will certainly be watching those populations. Next spring we’ll see if the survival was too high or not. If it was too high, don’t expect to see any additional stocking for a year or two. Hybrids are a great tool for managing population numbers.
With every thing PBH has said, there is one thing that I would really fear on these lakes in the Unitas–and that is high survival of stocked fish. These fry will/could have exceptional survival in the Unitas compared to schofield or Strawberry or other places mentioned because they may have less competition with chubs/minnows/suckers and fewer predators to avoid. If a high percentage of those stocked tiger trout fry do survive, a mess could certainly be the result. These lakes could eventually be loaded with little skinny tiger trout tha are not too appealing to most fishermen because they are too small and skinny for eating and for sport fishing fun. In such a case harvest could be low and long term survival likely…this could hurt fishing fo an extend d period even if further stocking is eliminated. Personally, I would hope if I frequented those waters that survival of stocked fish is low. Personally, though, I have some doubts!
With every thing PBH has said, there is one thing that I would really fear on these lakes in the Unitas–and that is high survival of stocked fish. These fry will/could have exceptional survival in the Unitas compared to schofield or Strawberry or other places mentioned because they may have less competition with chubs/minnows/suckers and fewer predators to avoid. If a high percentage of those stocked tiger trout fry do survive, a mess could certainly be the result. These lakes could eventually be loaded with little skinny tiger trout tha are not too appealing to most fishermen because they are too small and skinny for eating and for sport fishing fun. In such a case harvest could be low and long term survival likely…this could hurt fishing fo an extend d period even if further stocking is eliminated. Personally, I would hope if I frequented those waters that survival of stocked fish is low. Personally, though, I have some doubts!Exactly! That is why I feel a controlled number of sterile brook trout is the right answer for the Uintas.