Excessive Catch?

[TahoeJeff]

What do you guys think of the amount of fish kept and killed by these guys?

http://imhooked.com/cgi-bin/forumsyabb/YaBB.pl?num=1313715834

Fantastic Goldens for sure, but all those fish were eaten by 2 people?

[Mike M]

just the two of them? yeah- that's seems excessive by my standards anyways

take a quick pic of the bigger ones and let them go- the smaller ones eat better anyways

[Mark Ries]

It made me sick and I noticed they horse packed in part or most of the way. Things that come to easy are usually not appreiciated. Alot goes through my head when I see pics like this and I already have the guy and junior steriotyped which maybe does not say much about me. Alot of people look at those pics and see the beauty in it and there is alot of beauty there. I see greed, almost rape and pilage. I hope its more like just ignorance, maybe what I see is totally off. Maybe they are all stocked that big. Maybe Im just a drama king. So what does every one else see in his pics? The great white hunter? He wanted to pass this on to his son I think would have passed on a lot more if he had done what Mike Moore just said. I dont care if I offended anyone but to me this is not LEAVE NO TRACE This is worse than finding a pile of $h!t by the trail as the pile will decompose or someone can bury it. This is how the "Fish of the Gods" is valued. Oh well I must a drama king cause after all they are just fish

[Stephen Barber]

Damn shame! I don't have a problem with keeping one or two for the pan, but in that environment, harvesting all those breeders is over the top.

[John West]

Thats WAY excessive, especially for two people. Ridiculous.

If I go fishing when backpacking, I will usually keep two fish to eat for a dinner, nothing more.
Reminds me of one time in the White Clouds here in Idaho. We hiked up way up to an alpine lake where the fish were just crazy! Almost every cast would catch a decent cutthroat. We kept 3 for the two of us to eat along with some rice for dinner. The next morning a group of "fisherman" came up and were just slaying them. They were using bobbers and catching tons of fish, and keeping them all. They had a trash bag full of them, with about 50 fish (not exaggerating). There was 6 people in their group, so that means each person was eating about 9 fish?! The fish were not huge (average fish probably 12") but I felt that was way excessive.

[Pilate de Guerre]

No sure of the validity of this poster's assertions, but here it is:

"Don't think that over fishing is the real problem here. I fished this area nearly 50 years ago and traffic and conditions were much as they are now. The problem is the back to nature movement. The trend in the natural parks is to remove non native species from all waters and FYI Goldens are not Native to most places you catch them now days. Heck trout aren't even native to the Sierra east of the divide and south of the Walker River drainage. If Gene is fishing where I thinking he is I suspect that Goldens are not native here as well. The real enemy of these fish are not the occasional brave mountaineer who fish for them but the USFWS, frogs, newts, various minnows and the state and federal courts."

Captain Tahoe goes on to mention that his uncle was there and that, "we ate ten fish." Considering they were out there for 6 days, that doesn't sounds excessive to me.

[Dale Wambaugh]

"The next morning a group of "fisherman" came up and were just slaying them. They were using bobbers and catching tons of fish, and keeping them all. They had a trash bag full of them, with about 50 fish (not exaggerating). There was 6 people in their group, so that means each person was eating about 9 fish?! The fish were not huge (average fish probably 12") but I felt that was way excessive."

Yeah, keeping more than you will eat in a sitting in the backcountry is bad sportsmanship at the least.

They were probably carrying machetes too, right? ;) [ducking from possible flack]

[Justin Reigle]

Based on the report… looks like they had 10 fish between 2 and 3 people over the course of 9 days from several different lakes with about 100 released. While I rarely keep any trout I catch, I don't think this is excessive and certainly not as outrageous as others feel.

[Dave T]

i'd say putting hooks in the mouth (or face) of 100 fish and dragging them around for entertainment is pretty excessive.

[Justin Reigle]

Dave, fishing is not for everyone.

[Dave T]

dunno what that means.

cruelty for entertainment just ain't for everyone?

[Justin Reigle]

Dave, as I said, fishing is simply not for everyone. Catching any fish at all that you do not intend eat could very well be considered a cruel action. For many of us, fishing is enjoyable. Catching 100 fish amongst 3 people over the course of almost 10 days is about 3 fish per day per person.

Is that a cruel catch rate? Where do you draw the line? Is your line better than DFG regulations? Or is it simply a moral objection with you?

[Anonymous]

"Catching any fish at all that you do not intend eat could very well be considered a cruel action."

Yes, it could be. Call it a moral judgment if you will, but in my mind making sport of another beings's life energy is immoral. If you catch it, eat it. Respectfully. Period. I say that as someone who was raised in a family that fished to put food on the table because we couldn't afford very much meat. If we caught it, it ended up on the table. It never would have occurred to us to hook a fish, play around with it and then let it go. If this starts a flame war, so be it, but what those jerks did was disgusting.

[Mark Ries]

The stringer of five fish hung by the gills that had to have weighed 10- 12 lbs maybe 15, that is atleast 3 and 1/2 and maybe 5 PPPPDay and thats alot of trout. He does have pics showing him releasing the small ones though. I love the comment about the "brave mountaineers". I cant believe that they deleat the negative comments on that site, thats like us only being able to say good things about gear. Anybody ever get suckered into an Amway meeting/convention? So I guess that the appropriate thing to do here is start a thread on catch and release

[Anonymous]

"So I guess that the appropriate thing to do here is start a thread on catch and release"

Or maybe catch enough to eat and call it a day?.

Mike Moore was right, BTW, when he said the little ones are better eating.

[Mark Ries]

Tom thats really a great idea and would maybe be best in alot of circumstances as some fish die with catch and release. But some lakes that are overpopulated benifit from thinning, this is usually not the trophey lakes though. I started a new thread that Id really like to hear everyones ideas on this and hopefully not fight and I hope to hear yours and alot of others comments Its entitled catch and release but you are wecome to comment against the idea as well. Im really just want to hear all opinions as Ive based mine on readings ive done and that does not mean that its right either.

[Arn Aarreberg]

I came across this same post on another fishing forum and at first was pretty amazed that you can still find goldens like that. These lakes are truely a special place. But to keep that many fish of that size is just down right disrespecting the resource. Whether from 1 lake or 100 lakes. One fish, half that size would have been enough. Any of those fish would of been a fish of a life time for me and I would have released it instantly. Respect the fish, respect the resource, and let them go. I work in the fisheries field and I can tell you in a lot of place where you take big fish like that out of the population it can have major effects. Especially places where the growing season is only a few months. Big fish mean a lot to the future success of the population in those small lakes.

Rant complete.

[Nick Gatel]

@ Tom said,

Call it a moral judgment if you will, but in my mind making sport of another beings's life energy is immoral. If you catch it, eat it. Respectfully. Period. I say that as someone who was raised in a family that fished to put food on the table because we couldn't afford very much meat. If we caught it, it ended up on the table. It never would have occurred to us to hook a fish, play around with it and then let it go. If this starts a flame war, so be it, but what those jerks did was disgusting.

---

Have to agree with you on that one. Doesn't the DFG now stock a lot of Golden trout? Also aren't Cottonwood Lakes 1-4 closed to fishing?

[Anonymous]

"Doesn't the DFG now stock a lot of Golden trout? Also aren't Cottonwood Lakes 1-4 closed to fishing"

Hey Nick,

Welcome back.

I don't know if DFG is still stocking in the NP's, but they used to. That is how Goldens came to be in places like Darwin Canyon, Martha Lake, etc. Their original range was in the Kern Basin. I don't fish anymore and therefore don't follow current practices closely but, the last I heard, Cottonwood Lakes 1-4 were closed. As I understand it, they are used as a source of genetically pure Golden Trout for planting elsewhere and to preserve the species. I ran into a very knowledgable fisherman a few years back as I was heading into the Kern Basin. He worked part time, gratis, for DFG and his assignment was to fish as many lakes as possible where "Goldens" were found and take tissue samples(fin clippings) back for DNA analysis to determine the range of genetically pure Goldens. He said that almost everywhere he fished, the fish were hybridized Rainbow-Goldens, and that Cottonwood Lakes and a few streams(unnamed-don't ask, don't tell) emptying into the Kern River were the only places where genetically pure Goldens could be found anymore. Tough job, huh?

[Frederick Heath]

I am thrilled to see so many amazing fish. Horrified that so many were clearly wasted. I for one will never use that guide.

[Author]

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