hello fellow fishermen,
how has the fishing been lately? i am writing in regards to many of the comments i have read concerning catch and release. i am not a frequent follower of this web page, however,the few times i have dropped in i am usually amazed at the number of people who feel that catch and release is a healthy alternative to catching and killing wild fish. lets start here: rainbow trout or steelhead being the anadramous form, evolved about two million years ago, a creation of divergence somewhere between the columbia river and snake river valleys, the rainbow diverged from what we now know to be a cutthroat trout. recently, work in russia, indicates that steelhead and cutthroat trout probably originated (in the evolutionary sense) somwhere in siberia, probably due to a combination of advancement and retreat of glaciers during the miocene glaciation, this is important, most american biologists currently feel that north america is the evolutionary birth place of our salmonids, this is not the case. now, further into the subject, if steelhead evolved into the form we recognize now around two million years ago then the steelhead we fish for now contain an enormous resevoir of genetic potential to draw upon. this is very important, because humans have only been scientifically researching the fish for about 75-100 years, a very short time span compared to the two million years of evolution that followed several more million years of evolution that lead to the cutthroat trout. almost done here, now i would also like to say that in russia, up to 75 % of the steelhead return to spawn twice, up to 50% of the steelhead return to spawn 3 times, and 35 % of the fish spawn 4 times, wow! and incredibly they have recorded fish that have spawned up to 8 times. this is not shocking, our streams used to have the same genetic potential to draw from, the russian studies are current, we are talking about steelhead directly across from canada that spawn several more times than our fish and have significantly higher survival rates. why? well, lets knock out commercial fishing, it takes place on both coasts and russia does not have a sport fishery, this was closed in the 1980's because of a decline in the fish population, we now know that PDO's (pacific decadel oscillations) could have played a role in the decline of fish populations. so, why do they still have fish left, well, 1. the streams in siberia are nutrient poor, even more so than our coastal streams, but, THEY DO NOT DESTROY HABITAT AT THE RATE AMERICANS DO, example: we continue to log up to stream banks and leave minimal, if any at all, buffer zones. destroy the habitat and you destroy the ability of the fish to adapt to habitat change because the millions of years of evolutionary adaptations do not account for logging! understand.
2. THEY DO NOT HAVE HATCHERIES! this is huge, the russian fish are the only salmonids not affected by gene flow or direct ecological competition from hatchery fish. ps. read article in "fishin hole magazine regarding steelhead sex" the fish are genetically unchanged from millions of years ago

3. MISMANAGMENT and this is why i wrote you BOB, catch and release is a good step for fisherman, however, catch and release is now being researched and the work indicates that a fish being caught one time and then released has a 5% mortality rate, so if we have one fish being caught several times throughout a season then the mortality rate could increase significantly, especially considering the high level of stress the fish are already under when they enter a severly degraded river system. we no longer have healthy population structures in our river systems, we have little or no jack steelhead, and the largest fish( the largest female fish carry more eggs, larger eggs and those larger eggs produce larger fry, the larger fish are more likely to survive in the natural system, the larger fish are usually more agressive also, thus, more likely to be caught, and how many of YOU GUYS out there would release a 30lb fish, not many i bet, well you better start, in fact we should close portions of the river down during the time of the year that steelhead and other salmonids are getting ready to spawn, spawning fish are agressive and already facing an enormous amount of stress and protein depletion due to the physical exertion required for survival in our streams. UNDERSTAND< CATCH AND RELEASE IS ONLY AN EXCUSE TO FURTHER DEPLETE THE ENDANGERED POPULATIONS OF SALMONIDS WE HAVE, LET ALONE JACK ASS LOCAL GUIDES WHO FEEL THAT BRINGING IN PEOPLE FROM ALL AROUND THE NATION TO HAMMER A SPECIES OF FISH WHO IS ON ITS LAST LEGS, IF YOU ARE A FISHERMAN, OR A SPORTSMAN, LISTEN, WE HAVE ALL PLAYED A ROLE IN THE DEMISE OF THESE FISH, LETS LOOK AT OURSELVES, AND THE PEOPLE WHO PAY MONEY TO KILL WILD FISH, PEOPLE WHO CONTRIBUTE NOTHING TO THE HARD WORK THAT GOES INTO CONSERVING AND RESEARCHING THE FISH, THEY ARE JUST THE KIND OF PEOPLE THAT MANY SMALL TOWNS CLAIM TO DISLIKE, BIG CITY, BIG SPENDERS WHO ARE NOT CONNECTED TO NATURE IN ANY WAY, THEY DRIVE 40000$ CARS AND USE THE MOST ELABORATE AND EXPENSIVE GEAR, HOWEVER, TO MAKE A BUCK, THE LOCAL GUIDES ARE WILLING TO SELL THEIR INTEGRITY AND HONOR TO HARASS THE FEW REMAINING WILD FISH, WAKE UP MAN.......


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gotta big one!!!