What If?

[dlaffin1]

***I don’t claim to be an expert on this, the following is just for discussion and educational purposes***

There is a really strong wild population of brown trout in many tailwaters in the east. Why can’t the Farmington support a better population? When I was in Tenn. last spring I fished the South Holston and the Watauga Rivers. They were both amazing tailwaters like ours but they receive no stocked brown trout. The SoHo in particular lacks spawning structure because of the terrible didymo but both rivers have it bad. They have less bug diversity, poorer hatches and a ton of wild trout, including fish that push 30”. They have a slot limit to protect spawning sized trout. I can’t speak about the water temps or the chemical makeup of the water; maybe that has something to do with it. Something of note is they also close the rivers down in the fall in order to let the browns spawn and then again in the spring for the rainbows.

What if…and I mean what if…they stocked survivor strain browns and bows only for a few years? And then closed the river in the fall (one of my favorite times to fish) to let the browns spawn freely. Stock only rainbows in the spring, and make it mandatory to release all browns for a while. Could we have a sustainable, wild fish tailwater? I’m sure there are plenty of other options. But if we as a state are looking to save money, maybe investing in a naturally sustaining fishery would be a good idea.
Again, I’m not even remotely an expert but wanted to open this up for my own education as well as discussion.

Thanks,

Dan

[southpaw526]

Great idea, but there are plenty of mandatory rules and regs already in place that plenty of people don't abide by. More rules and regs won't do anything but put additional limits on people who already play by the rules and who already employ more sustainable fishing practices. The problem we're faced with up here is overpopulation and lack of education. You can't police everyone, and there are far too many people who take advantage of that. A handful of years back I fished the tailwater section of the Smith River in VA and was amazed by the quality and quantity of strong healthy fish. It's a very similar river to the Farmy in size and water temps. The big difference was less pressure. I don't know whether or not they have a closed season, but I was on that river for 8 hours, in early Summer, on a Saturday, and saw one other angler the entire day. I've been fishing the Farmy for 14 years now, and fishing all day and only seeing one other angler is nearly impossible to do, even this time of year on a weekday. When we first moved to CT, it was definitely easier to find a stretch of solitary water than it is today. I used to do 75% of my trout fishing from October through March for that particular reason. These days, its not worth it anymore. The pressure never dies down in the northeast. Down south, there are a lot less people fishing for trout. Also, there are mostly fly fishermen doing the trout fishing down south. In the south, most spin fishermen tend to fish for bass and other warm water species. Just a few observations without getting too analytical. I'm no expert either, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

[Eric L]

The major issue for wild trout in the Farmington is recruitment to age 1+. Habitat for trout fry is limited. Since there are not alot of sizable tributaries suitable for spawning most reproduction occurs in the river proper. The river floods almost every year from the junction with the Still downstream. THis scours the streambanks and removes woody debris while also preventing the growth of streamside vegetation. Without good cover the fry are very vulnerable to predation from birds and adult fish. That said, obviously there is natural reproduction occurring in the river. The question is whether without stocking there would be sufficient natural production of fish to maintain a high quality fishery.

[southpaw526]

True, but I highly doubt the Farmy trout would survive without managment. The fish can't reproduce fast enough to keep up w/ the people who keep them. You'd start seeing a lot less of those 18"+ bruisers, that's for sure.