NDR - Rainbow trout book reviewed

Ray

Ray

Well-known member
An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World
by Anders Halverson

http://chronicle.com/article/One-Strange-Fish-Tale/64348/

This should be fun for Matt and Jay.

At Yale "I came to realize there is a real paradox to the way so many fisheries are managed these days," he says. "Like most fishermen, I see fishing as a way to escape civilization and industrialization, and a way to sort of make peace with the natural world." Yet most rainbow trout, being either the products of hatcheries or the descendants of hatchery fish, "are in many ways a product of that industrialization."​

The review touches on some pretty serious points about the US wildlife agencies and the various points of irony that presented themselves over the course of managing fish stocks.
 
Thanks Ray for posting, I will have to get a copy and read about the sins of my youth..

When planting many of those slimely little rainbows in my youth working for the Utah Fish and Game (before the name change) I often wondered about why we were planting non-natives when the streams and rivers once supported native cuts. I was told.."the natives wont support the fishing pressure..."

Matt
 
Bill,
If the proposal is passed by the Board this spring there will be a ban on felt soles in Southeast this season and state wide next year. So bring your Aquasteath or what ever sticky rubber stuff you want.

Do you hit the spring fish in Yakutat? or just the fall runs?
 
Those chubby little "stockers" that get squirted into a million streams every year are about worthless. The ones Indiana stocks last about 3 weeks with very few exceptions. Some of the hatcheries...like most of the steelhead hatcheries for example obtain brook stock during spawning migrations of course. I may land a 35 inch stallion of a hatchery Skamania hatched from eggs that were obtained from trapped adults and two casts later land a gorgeous Little Manistee strain wild fish. None of them are native but I guess by now the LM strain is at least well naturalized having been stocked in Michigan 125 years ago. The irony is they thought they were stocking standard issue stream rainbows and not a hodgepodge of Cambell's Creek, McCloud, Klamath strains of resident rainbows and steelhead. Apparently there were more steelhead genetics in that first trainload because they haven't stopped since.

Thanks Ray...I'll delve in later on. On my way out the door to speak to the Cub Scout troop about being a naturalist/conservationist/guide type. By the way, I'm sure some of have this book but if you don't it's a great way to learn more than you ever wanted to know about native trout in the west.

http://www.amazon.com/Native-Trout-Western-America-Monograph/dp/0913235784
 
Ray- I am lucky enough to guide down the Peninsula at the Sandy River Lodge. Its nice pea-gravel so I wear rubber bottomed breathable waders. It gets cold enough some mornings to freeze the wet felt so we don't recommend them, jumping in a jet boat.
One of these days I'm going to fish the Yakutat. A few of our clients have said good things about it.
Nothing like native sea-run rainbows.
Rumor is felt soles are to be banned everywhere some day. That is not going to go over so well on some rivers. The ones I guide on here in the Adirondacks are deadly without felt.

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I've heard the same thing about felt. I use both...usually rubber cleats this time of year. Some of these other gooey deals mark the rocks real bad from what I've seen. That'll be the next thing....massive die-offs of caddis and stones from ingesting polymer remnants. We'll have to trade them in for felt.

One thing that is really starting to chap my ass is that these manufacturers are slowly cutting out the boot foots. I've been wearing the Bailey's boot foots for years and I love them. I get a season out of them and then I rotate the worn ones into a hunting because they don't weep in non-current situations. When they really get worn out I use them for field hunting..keep the mud off. I blew a pair of boots out last year on a newer pair of Bailey's...the ones with the new boots and they requested that I send them in to be examined. Turns out the Chinese are having a hard time with boots because they use so much filler and don't mold at the right temps etc. A bunch of wader companies basically stopped production because of the reliability factor. So I started calling around. I guess it's Simm's now and I'm going to get the virgin rubber Hunter boots. I haven't worn a pair of stocking foots in over 5 years. I guess I'll have to get the Chota boots out of mothballs and swing for a pair of Patagonias so I don't wear the boots out on my bootfoots during the summer. Basically, if it says "guide" or "pro" now I pretty much stay away. Oh the guide life.....
 
I've had great luck with the studded non-felt waders. The unstudded ones are pretty good for a season, but get slicker and slicker as time goes on.

I'd like to see the shoe company genius types do some work on a non-absorbent/quick dry felt-like substance. The problem is not the felt--it's that the felt holds water, and that can keep spores from Didymo and other exotic plants and critters alive long enough to get from one watershed into another.

Another option is to soak all your gear in salt water every time you move. I keep a capped 5 gallon bucket of salt water the back of my wagon. When I get in the car, the wading boots get tossed in, and taken out when I get to my next spot.

Don't forget it's not just the felt soles that can carry exotics around. Laces, gravel guards, the tongue of your boots, etc are all also possible vectors.
 
I use felts, studded felts, and grippy soles. My personal preference for most of the streams and rivers I work in is the studded felt, this old fart prefers to be standing up while carrying survey gear. All of them get a good bath in a high bleach / salt solution on occasion (a bit hard on boots if the bleach is to strong). I also have multiple pairs and alternate use between work locations and let the previously used ones dry out.

Most likely the prevention of invasive species moving from one watershed to the next will be about impossible in the long run. Not that we should not try. Just to many non-controllable vectors, wild critters move this stuff around, human activities move it around. Look at the spread of noxious weeds and stuff like whirling disease, zebra mussels and so forth...The more humans move around the greater the number of opportunities. In the last 25 years the number of people playing in the back country has increased considerable in the Intermountian West; thus, it is probably not a case of if, but when, where, and what invasive.

The Feds do not even have the guts to take the invasion of those lovely Asian carp into the Great Lakes serious enough to go beyond a band-aid fix of the canal system that would allow the carp access (electric fences will fail over time).....commerce and dollars are more important than the potential collapse of the fisheries in the Great Lakes. You might ban felts but you wont remove a series of canals and change to rail transportation for moving grain....banning felts is easy.

OK that's my rant HAHAHA!!!

Jeff, I have never been overly impressed with the grippy soles...what brand/type do you use? I wade in some nasty high water in the spring taking discharges (use a safety line) and many times the velocities are 7-9 fps, one false move and you are wet.

For the guy that mentioned using felts getting in and out of a boat was dangerous...
I jumped up on a cat rowing frame once wearing a pair of felts...I forgot I had them on as earlier in the day I was wearing neoprene booties and working of the cat..took a nasty tumble into the gear, lucky that I did not break the laptop we were using to run the sonar gear..
 
Jeff, Matt, Bill, and Jay,

Since I take my daughter with me on many trips the felt becomes a huge safety issue. While researching what our options were I found some deeply discounted Korker Wetlands boots in mens size 5 and 6, which will work for her for several years. I will have to buy the Aquastealth studded soles directly from Korkers since this small size is not carried in many places. After buying the two sizes of boots and a set of studded soles for each one I am just above the cost for one new pair of boots.

The majority of the reviews I have read for the Korker boots have all been positive, and with a sole that changes out fairly simply to a variety of different materials they might be the best option for anyone that hikes or boats and then wades.

For about 4 years now I have been wearing a set of Rock Dog spiked/felted overshoes over my boot foot breathables. They are not fun to hike in with the golf spikes, but they don't slip on anything. Korkers makes a similar "jetty" overshoe that is not felted. Their changible wading boot soles also have the spikes as an option.

I also think that a ban on felt will only take out a portion of the problem. We are covered with a variety of porous materials that might not dry out between watersheds. I look at it as a stop gap measure to prevent tourists from bringing more than their money up here.

Bill, I have heard of the Sandy River Lodge and that river's steelhead before from a bio that did a series of river surveys. There are more steelhead on the AK Penn than people can imagine, just too hard to access. That has always sounded like a nice set up for fish and spring bears. BTW - McAfees fly shop just changed hands and one of the workers has reopened it as Mossy's Fly Shop.
 
Ray,

Maybe I am wrong but it seems that the Board of Fisheries that pass such stuff in Alaska did so and the ban in the southeast is supposed to go into effect Jan 1, 2011.. I have fished around the road system in Juneau and the streams for the most part did not seem super slick on the rocks.....but I have not fished them all (I did not fish it but Montana creek above the rifle range looked like it might be a bit slick, was sighting in a rifle for my daughter at the range and just drove to the end of the road to take a look). I have caught most of my salmon there fly fishing the salt.

http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/021810/loc_564577077.shtml


Matt
 
Matt, the proposal and its approval is a little confusing. The ban will take place this season in SE with it going state wide in 2011. The BOF will vote this month on all the statewide proposals and pass them on to F&G to enforce.

I typically don't have an issue on Montana creek, but when my kid is with me she does and needs the felt soles. Most of the time she ends up hanging on my arm as we cross and then I need felt to keep her from pulling me over. It is a fun place to go later in the summer and does not get too nasty from the dead fish and warmer water. The Willow creeks are mostly gravel until you get up higher. I have yet to need felt on any stream below the Parks highway.

The real issue for me is on the Russian from mid summer on. With the warm water coming from the lake and all those dead reds the rocks are just alge slime. There are several sections of the river that are fairly easy to wade early on but after July you can barely stand up. Even at almost 12 years old my kid is still fairly light and she floats too easily so having some felt on her boot soles helps keep her confidence up.
 
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