Fishy Question

[TedderX 0]

Does a stream that is not stocked necessarily mean "native" or "wild" trout?

 

For instance, I know of a particular stream in north Georgia I have caught rainbow trout on, but I know the stream is not stocked. Yet, I thought brook trout were the only native trout to Appalachia. So... how did that fish get there? Is it truly "wild" or "native"?

[vicente 0]

Probably made its way there from since place that is stocked our it's ancestors did, so I would say would yes, native not really. It's usually easy to tell stocked fish they are usually pretty fugly and never look quite right even after a few years.

[DrVette 0]

Wild. In truth i do not think that any true native fish survived in Colorado through about 1920-1999. I think by then every last native had succumb to infections, over fishing or other stresses. Some were re-introduced from hatcheries elsewhere, Are they still native?

 

I don't think that question has had a clear answer for about as long as i have been alive.

[Rocco 0]

I am under the impression that all rainbows in the East initially were planted from stocks introduced from the West. Just as all browns originally came from Europe. Granted, most of the original stockings were of wild fish and propagated as wild fish. But since then, stockers have been liberally strewn in non-native waters -- especially in the south's warmer waters where the stocked strains are more tolerant of such conditions than the 'natives and where deep discharge dams have created trout fisheries where non existed before. We have several local waters where stocking has stopped and stream improvement [projects have created respectable self-sustaining trout populations w/o worn fins and addiction for pelllets but they are still of hatchery origin. Could still be some true 'natives' out there but I'd bet most are brookies.

 

Rocco

[mikechell 0]

... but I know the stream is not stocked.

Perhaps a better statement would be, "it hasn't been stocked, that you know of".

Obviously, if there are fish in there that aren't native ... someone put them in there.

 

Supposedly, wading birds can carry eggs from one body of water to another ... but I've read other reports that say this doesn't happen.

I have, personally, watched an Eagle try to steal a fish from an Osprey, causing it to drop the fish back into the water. I suppose this could happen, but I doubt it's a way of propagating a population.

 

Then again, as smart as trout are rumored to be, maybe they just hopped a bus and transplanted themselves.

[Bimini15 0]

Let me tell you the story of the Wells Catfish in Spain. Certainly not native to the area, brought from Eastern Europe by a tourist in the water tank of his camper. Dumped the minnows in a reservoir in the river Ebro where they had no natural predators. The rest is history. There is a River Monsters episode about it.

Wild? Yes. They are thriving on their own. Native? Never.

[FIN-ITE 34 0]

Wild is a fish hatched and raised in a natural environment.

Native is a fish indigenous to that natural environment.

 

Native trout species indigenous to North America.

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Types-of-Trout-Native-to-North-America&id=4237950

[phg 0]

Here in the south east, back in the 1940's and 1950's, a lot of streams were stocked with browns and rainbows to create local trout fisheries. As a result, there are several legendary streams that have reproducing populations of non-native fish. The South Holston in east Tennessee, and the Smith River in southern Virginia are both know for their brown trout, which resulted from stocking that took place over 50 years ago. These are two of the "success" stories, where stocking did what it was supposed to do. (Both of these are tail waters where the natural ecology of the stream was altered by cold water discharges from a dam.)

 

In various small streams in NC, SC, and I suppose GA, rainbow trout were introduced the same way and at about the same time. Some of these streams proved marginal, but a number of them have sustained a reproducing population of trout. Your stream seems to fall into that camp, a non-native, but self sustaining population of stream born wild trout.

[Cold 0]

.

[DrVette 0]

Here in Colorado i got to watch most of the main drainages and tributaries suffer complete die offs over the years. During the late 70s the entire Arkansas drainage suffered a complete die off from whirling disease. From the absolute highest head water to the Kansas border(and well beyond i am sure). Only a few introed Brookies survived that. I quit fishing for about 5 years because it was so bad. It was a very bad time. Now the entire drainage is almost opposite of what it was before the disease. While it was all Browns above Canon City and mostly Bows below...Today it is reverse. It took me a year or two to catch onto that.

There is nothing left that wasn't stocked anymore. The DOW has admitted it quietly a couple of times. So i got to see the very end. Was too young to comprehend it though. Now i honestly have to admit there are probably no native species of trout left in Colorado. I never saw a cut-throat in Colo untill they started stocking them around the San Isabel National Forest. They had all been gone for a long time. I am sad to admit that Colorado has some of the greatest trout rivers and streams in the US, but they killed all their trout by the 1990s and are now hiding behind the stocked skeleton in the closet.

[islander727 0]

After my first trip to Helen, I emailed the DNR with some questions I had about the fishery. I received a very lengthy, detailed email in response.

 

Perhaps they would be the one's to ask?