Thought for food:

[Steve]

Stocking presence

[Jonathan P. Kring]

If you take that to heart, not exactly a "feel good article about the attributes of fishing".!!!

[RAM]

I'm a creek smallmouth fisherman by legacy. Have fished for exotic stocked fish in an artificial environment (rainbows and browns in the Caney Fork, a tailwaters fishery once a smallmouth and walleye stream), but no longer. Numerous reasons why I quit. All creek SM here are wild native fish, but produce few fishing license sales. Rarely will you see another angler on a smallmouth creek here.

Realistically, the stocking of those exotic speces comes down to the fact that they are money makers for the wildlife resources agencies. They do need income. They sell a lot of trout stamps in Tennessee, far more than you would imagine. Big source of revenue.

Too old now to put up a fight. Besides, more anglers on the tailwaters means fewer on the creeks!

Bad Bob

[Brian F.]

Save a trout, Eat a Trout!

[Steve]

Brian, you can't have your trout and eat it, too.

[stidog]

Not sure what to make of that article. I am sure there is a counter point to it. I myself prefer catch and release. Growing up on Seneca Lake in upstate NY we fished for pike in the winter, trout in the spring, smallmouth, crappie and perch in the summer, then it started again. Would environmental impact make me change the way I lived my life? There is something about being a kid, fishing in the Lake Trout Derby on Seneca Lake every Memorial Day weekend. Just dad and I on the water, the Indy 500 on the radio. Sawbellies running and waiting for the line to run on his Mitchell (3rd gen I know now ) or my Daiwa when a lake trout inhaled it. My brother and I hooking northern pike after northern pike on red devils so often, dad never got to wet a line. Memories from 30 or 40 years ago I still carry to this day.

In 1986 I left for the Navy. One of the few times I made it home on leave, dad and I took my 3 sons out perch fishing. We put crawfish on their rods and tossed them in the water, and they were hooking fish before dad and I could get a line wet. They still carry those memories to this day. 20 years in the navy, another few years bumping around and I moved back to where we can be a family again. The question last year for Fathers Day was what to get him.... I bought a fishing lisence and asked if he wanted to go fishing. He said it was the greatest Fathers Day present ever. He just turned 80 this year and yes, we will go fishing again. I'm traveling back to NY this summer to visit the most beautiful lake in the world, the aforementioned Seneca Lake. A friend of 30 years is now a single mom. I asked if I could take her son fishing with me. He asks if I'm still coming every day, he has no dad that will take him fishing.

WHile I understand the environmental impact that the author theorizes, I don't believe I would give up any of those memories I retain, or will build in the future because fish poop wasn't run through a treatment plant.

//Kicks away the soap box and drops my 2 cents. Happy casting.

[john elder]

Is coffee bad for us or good for us....this week?

[Don Champion]

John - Only in California. Out there it may give you cancer.

[Mike N]

I believe in catch trout, smoke trout, and eat trout. I also grow red chile peppers every year to dry and put in the smoker with the trout. I am sending our president some smoked trout pics to add to this post.

[Robin Sayler]

Looks good Mike!

[Midway Tommy D]

I am sending our president some smoked trout pics to add to this post.

OMG!!!! I think I hear PETA comin' round the bend.

They look YUMMY, Mike!

Tom

[Ron Mc]

there are two ways of looking at a resource - this is my resource, or

this is my children's and grandchildren's resource.

The former is what got us here. It's our responsibility to save everything we can for our children and grandchildren. That means saving the natives everywhere it makes sense

Bob, the southern tailwaters are a good thing. Within a bracketed environment, the natural warmwater ecosystem has been displaced and isn't working, so a contained coldwater fishery in its place makes sense.

What keeps me po'd is that the state messes with our natural warmwater ecosystems in the name of better fisheries. We have an endemic river bass that should be federally listed as endangered and protected. The species is genetically polluted by smallmouth stocking by the state in the 70s. The Blanco River strain is extinct. There are two small A-strains remaining in two small creeks, one protected by aquifer recharge, the other by a waterfall. The state has hatcheries, their approach is to stock fish westward where there are no native bass species, and inundating the biologically polluted waters with massive stocking effort. But once that stocking effort ends, the species will be extinct. Also, the strains that develop in the treeless west will be nothing like our native endemic fish for which God made cypress tunnels.