Jm1984

I don’t think Gambler is saying the sky is falling, he’s pointing out a concerning trend. It’s a trend that affects lake and trib guys. This shouldn’t be an us and them situation. Both sides of this should be after the same end goal here. It’s likely going to mean some give and take on both sides.

The goal is six weeks in the pens, this year, we had to release a bit early due to water temperature. I can ask one of the guys that I help out at the hatchery with I think he would know where to find it if it is accessible.

I can offer a bit of insight on the Ontario pen project numbers, there is a couple of locations that skew that weigh up. The harbours there have active flowing creeks that feed them and wash a lot of food into the net pen area. These locations average a 1 to 1.5 gram higher average weight every year. The location that I help with has average numbers inline with the US average.

If you read it more carefully, he’s not suggesting only harvest fish over 33 inches he suggesting limit limit the harvest to only one fish over 33 inches.

This is the first year that the Ganny hasn’t had fishing during the run. Previously, it was shoulder and shoulder for the entire run. It was the most heavily fished of the Northshore tributaries. From all of the data that everybody is talking about here this has been ongoing for sometime. It’s not like we’ve gone from seeing 40 pounders consistently to all of a sudden this year barely seeing anything over 30. It’s likely something that has multiple facets. I think next year’s mature class is going to really give us a better indication as to which way the fishery is going.

I think it comes down to selection both natural and influenced has selected for the smaller fish to have “greater” reproductive success. If smaller fish are able to tolerate warmer water than larger matures, in theory they would be able to better deal with running the tribe under a variety of conditions. Then if you look at fishing pressure and the associated harvest selection bias of bigger is better, the larger matures would be disproportionately targeted by angling pressure. So if this continued for a number of years then in theory the average size of the fish would decrease because more and more smaller fish are achieving success in spawning and passing along those genetics.

So because it works in one small section of a large river it therefore works on the entire system with no repercussions? There’s a catch and release section for the fisherman to appease them, not because it’s good for the fish.

The issue isn’t with the depth of the river or creek. The issue is the wear and tear on the fish when they’re already degrading and then they have to deal with the fight. The strain that the fight will put them under is going to lead to higher mortality

I disagree. There is a problem with catching release. The fish are already in a weaker state when they run up the rivers to spawn so if they get snagged or even hooked in the mouth, the amount of energy that they’re going to expel fighting is gonna lead to higher mortality pre-spawn so therefore you’ve just defeated the entire purpose. I live on the North Shore and I can tell you that tributaries that are closed are closed for the reason that they have high natural runs, and it is to protect those natural runs. I have to agree with Rick that the more fish you can allow to reproduce naturally in the streams that are conducive to reproduction the higher odds you have of seeing more big fish. It gives the highest chance for genetic variation to produce larger fish.

It’s not even 7am and we have witnessed the murder of the English language.

Not to any significant degree. It happens like any hybrids in nature to a very small percentage. It would be a great addition given the typically hyper aggressive nature of hybrids and accelerated growth.

I agree with chin-ho, that would be a great addition to the fishery.

The reason is likely the extra work it takes due to the different number of chromosomes for each species. To have decent hatchery success they have to heat shock the eggs to create and extra set of chromosomes to boost survival.

Congrats, no time wasted on that one