64% of Tennessee stocked trout including all brown to go away

[Rodonthefly]

Originally Posted by waterwolf

Just a side thought, but with proper management the clinch could more then likely sustain itself. However, it would take a massive shift in regulations, and a complete clean out of the anderson county human gene pool to be
successful.

I say the state should manage our hatcheries, and sell a trout harvest license. This license should cost enough to support the hatcheries, and the funds solely used for those purposes.

Here's another thought, stop stocking catchable sized fish, they are more expensive to raise. Stop stocking sub par rivers/streams as put and take. Raise only fingerlings, and only stock them in waters which can support trout year round with no exceptions.

Seems simple enough to solve if you ask me.

Interesting points Jim, I'll over look the "complete clean out of the anderson county geen pool" part. In regards to the harvest license that would take more inforcement to up hold that. However stocking fingerlings would be a good move, but you know as well as I do dumb *** people would try to keep them a mess of those little guys aswell. I have seen it!

Why not lower the number from 7 to 4? You can't tell me that the normal size family can sit down and eat 7 trout at one supper. Also, move the slot limit size down or make the river from say Millers island down a catch and release only section? Or **** give the freezer filler folks the weir pool to catch their dinner and leave the rest of the river alone.

Delayed harvest has proven to work well on many of rivers as well. But with all that said its going to take a lot of work from our local wardens to up hold some of these ideas and with only two wardens covering Anderson county that would be hard to do. In the many many years of fishing the river I have only been checked one time.

[whitefeather]

Originally Posted by waterwolf

Just a side thought, but with proper management the clinch could more then likely sustain itself. However, it would take a massive shift in regulations, and a complete clean out of the anderson county human gene pool to be
successful.

I say the state should manage our hatcheries, and sell a trout harvest license. This license should cost enough to support the hatcheries, and the funds solely used for those purposes.

Here's another thought, stop stocking catchable sized fish, they are more expensive to raise. Stop stocking sub par rivers/streams as put and take. Raise only fingerlings, and only stock them in waters which can support trout year round with no exceptions.

Seems simple enough to solve if you ask me.

Waterwolf,

I don't know how many of you folks are familiar with hatchery operations. My wife and I were going to buy a hatchery in southern NC , near Hayesville back in 2007. Then the drought hit and we backed out.

But, I had to do a lot of research on the operations of it before hand to make a sound decision. We we're going to upgrade the tanks and fresh water flow system, and things like that to make it more viable.

What I found out was the enormous amount of labor and around the clock care that absolutely had to be given to the fertilized eggs and hatchlings.

Antibiotics at precise times to help them survive, and proper nutrion, come **** or high water. Certainly, from there, raising them to 10 or 11 inches was also expensive.

But a viable hatchery operation must rely on fertilized eggs from brood fish, because having them shipped in leads to a lot of dead eggs on arrival, not to mention the ones that die later on, and its expensive.

So you need to raise a percentage of the eggs to mature stocking size anyway. Then, there is only so much life span left in a mature brood fish, so you have to turn them back to nature, which puts trophy size fish in the rivers, and start new with maturing brood fish. Its a never ending cycle of birth and rebirth.

Now I can't tell you what the costs are down the road in a stocking program, but I can tell you that there will always be stocking size fish that need to go into the wild, rather than keep on feeding them at an ever increasing expense.

But I agree with you in that put and take seasons on non-viable rivers only serve to shore up the idea of entitlements, if you get my drift.

If the fish can't survive in their natural habitat, then why stock them. It's a waste of resources.

[waterwolf]

Originally Posted by Rodonthefly

Interesting points Jim, I'll over look the "complete clean out of the anderson county geen pool" part.

Remember I am part of that gene pool as well.

[silvercreek]

I tend to agree that trout should only be stocked in waters where they have a chance of holding over. Most trout whether wild or stocked do not survive. Mortality is very high for both. Nothing beats a wild trout, but having said that and having paid for my trout license and my taxes going for the hatcheries, it is nice to have a shot at them without driving four or five hours. So I guess I'm sort of a hypocrite. I envy folks who live close to true trout water.

[cockeye valdez]

I'm late to this conversation but want to know how serious this is. Is the local T.U. and national T.U. involved? Do we need to contact our local officials? If the amount of stocked fish (64%) is accurate then trout fishermen/fisherwomen should be discussing alternative funding streams to keep the hatcheries operating.

[Streamhound]

Hey Jon
I don't doubt you but what is the source(s) of the info? I think others would like to know too.

[Jon]

I wanted to answer a couple of questions that have come up through out this thread. I wanted to give you some info about me so you dont think I am just some random message board guy posting. I currently serve as the president of The Hendersonville Fly Fishing Club as well as the President of the Cumberland Chapter of TU which is the Nashville TU chapter. I along with many folks here in middle Tennessee work very close with the TWRA. One of the things that we in middle TN were able to partner with TWRA on is the new regs on the Caney Fork. The information that I posted is from information I collected from TWRA. TU on the state level is involved and working on this from many different angles. I do not want to see the hatcheries close and do not want to even think about the impact that it will have on our tailwaters. We need folks to write letters, send emails and make phone calls to our state and federal representatives and ask them to keep the hatcheries open.

I hope this information helps.

Thanks,

Jon

[Knothead]

Keep in mind that the Federal hatcheries supply fish to places outside of Tennessee, including Indian reservations. If the TWRA were able to take over the hatcheries (which they can't afford), where would the places without hatcheries get fish? There are no easy answers. It will be interesting to see what happens.
BTW, by raising your hand, how many of you have contacted your US senators and representatives about this?

[waterwolf]

Originally Posted by Knothead

Keep in mind that the Federal hatcheries supply fish to places outside of Tennessee, including Indian reservations. If the TWRA were able to take over the hatcheries (which they can't afford), where would the places without hatcheries get fish? There are no easy answers. It will be interesting to see what happens.
BTW, by raising your hand, how many of you have contacted your US senators and representatives about this?

My senator and representative has much more important issues to focus on rather then hatcheries IMO. He should not be involved with fish stocking, and neither should the federal govt.

I think I may contact him, to let him know there is another area they can cut spending out of the federal budget nationwide.

When did fish stocking become an entitlement program that everyone expected the feds to do?

[silvercreek]

Established in 1871.