If I can't keep fish I catch - WTF is the point?

[Dax420]

I'm a bit PO'd so forgive my ranting.

I'm a "new" fisher who is soon to be an ex-fisher. Let me tell you a story.

Like many kids my dad took me fishing as a kid. I never really enjoyed the "sitting still waiting for the bobber to move" part so I never perused it as a hobby later in life.

Fast forward to today.

My friend buys a house on a creek feeding into a lake, there are lots of fish jumping in this creek. I'm not going to mention the lake, but it's within Region 2. This creek goes right through his backyard and we both thought it would be great to enjoy a few cold drinks, sit on a lounge chair and catch some dinner. So off I go, I purchase a fly rod, reel, fly line, flies, a vest, a bonker, a couple books. For me fly fishing solves the "waiting for the bobber to move" part of the sport I never really liked. It seems more like hunting with a hook, which sounds good to me. I spend a week watching videos learning how to cast a fly rod. I spend hours standing in a park casting a piece of yarn back and forth. I go online, buy a freshwater license. No salmon tags, I'm not interested in that, I just want a few pan fry trout for the dinner table. At this point I'm out several hundred dollars.

I sit down and read the regulations, I want to make sure everything I'm doing is legal. Barbless hooks, sure I have no problem with that. Hold on, catch and release of all wild trout... Ok, I don't really care if it's a hatchery trout or a wild trout on my plate. So lets keep looking through the regulations to find out how to identify wild trout vs hatchery. Nothing. Zero. There is nothing I can find that shows how to identify hatchery trout. So I do some googling.

Yeah, it turns out we don' stock rivers/streams/creeks/sloughs with trout in region 2.

So unless I'm missing something here, I can't catch one of the numerous trout in this stream and eat it. If I want to catch a trout and eat it, I have to go to one of the "family fishing lakes" that gets stocked with lake trout.

WTF?

Am I totally out to lunch thinking that I should be able to catch a fish and eat it for dinner? I don't want to catch 50 a day, deplete all the fish or whatever, but not even 1 fish for supper? This place has tons of trout, you could chuck a rock in the water it would hit 2 of them.

I have to admit that maybe I should have done this backwards. I should have read the regulations before buying gear. But honestly I never in my wildest dreams imagined that you can't keep the fish you catch. I understand catch limits and have no issues with that, and I know that many people voluntarily release some of the fish they catch which is awesome. But again, not even a single fish? You have got to be kidding me.

It seems pretty stupid to say you can't keep wild trout, but not have any hatchery trout that you can keep.

I'm tempted to phone up the MOE and demand a refund for my fishing license.

 

[Aces]

Nice 1st post!!

[B)]






BTW... i'm being sarcastic

Let us know how that phone call to MOE went [)]

 

[Dax420]

Nice 1st reply, really added a lot to the discussion.

You all might be too young to remember this, but back in the day the powers that be were actually against catch and release. They thought that releasing fish after they have been hooked would just cause them to die, resulting in wasted fish. If you are going to hook him, eat him. Catch and release was "too cruel".

Now catch and release is all the rage. Forget about the fact that a fair percentage of the fish you release will still die, either from being fought too long, stress, or injury.

It seems pretty stupid that if I hook a fish in this creak, reel him in and I can tell that he is going to die, ripped lip or whatever I still have to send him back or risk some massive fine.

If these streams are really so fragile that a 1 trout per day catch limit is going to result in a collapse of the population then they should just be closed to fishing period. As I mentioned, catch and release still kills fish. I would much rather see a system where you could buy a "creek trout tag" or something and keep the odd fish, which would allow them to regulate the number of small trout being caught while still allowing you to keep fish that are obviously just going to die anyways.

 

[Bassblaster]

I can understand your frustration but before you chuck the sport take a deep breath.

For starters, to identify the difference between wild and hatchery fish you look for the adapose fin. This is a small fin located along the top of the spine of the fish between the dorsal fin in the middle of the back and the fish's tail. If the fish has this fin it's wild. If it's missing then it's hatchery stock.

Second, you said this creek runs to/from a nearby lake. It's entirely possible that fish stocked in the lake (a list of stocked lakes is available through the DF website and are also shown in the regs) have made their way into the river/stream system.

Third, fishing is supposed to be a RELAXING form of recreation, the food on the table is a side effect which happens on the odd occassion. I've fished lakes and rivers where you could see the fish so thick you could walk on them and still not taken one home. When this is the case you'd be better off with the rock you mentioned. If you got into the sport to put fish on the plate rather than experience it for the shear enjoyment of being out doors away from work, either alone or with family and friends, you will be sadly disappointed and never really get the real benefits that spending a day on the water has.

Fourth, unless I'm mistaken there are more than just two places to fish in area two. If you want to catch and keep your fish, just pick a body of water that allows you to do that and enjoy catching and releasing most/all of the ones at your buddy's place.

If you really want to get the enjoyment out of fishing, go to your buddies place, fire up the barbie,throw on some steaks, pop some cold ones, and fish your a** off knowing you can come back and catch them over and over again.

Extinction is Forever

 

[Bassblaster]

My last reply posted at the same time as your second post.

You're right, there is some mortality with catch and release no matter what. But as one of the other members here posted to a different topic:

"You can't let people keep injured fish or a lot of people would just say that the fish they caught was too badly injured and they had to keep it."

If not being able to keep a panfry trout is frustrating, the writer I quoted was talking about throwing back biga## salmon! OUCH!

Sad but true. The bad apples out there have forced legislation to be enacted that hurts us all. If you don't believe it, how many hunters are there out there that wound an animal, lose it in the bush, and then don't punch their tag so they can shoot another one?

There's other ways and places to catch and keep your fish. It's up to you to want to make the effort.

Extinction is Forever

 

[Charter Tofino]

Try some more "wine" with your trout.But seriously if you only want to fish in order to eat the fish then the grocery store is much cheaper.

 

[Dax420]

Thanks for the reply Bassblaster.

I can totally understand the whole "whoops, I ripped his lip (accidentally on purpose)" problem. People suck!

I don't mean to come off like I don't care about responsible use of resources. If I didn't give a crap I would just be whacking fish and throwing them on the fire in buddy's backyard right now. Private property, no one would be the wiser. However I *do* care about playing by the rules, but when the rules don't make sense I get frustrated.

Obviously there are streams that are in trouble and shouldn't be fished, and there are streams that have plenty of wild trout that could be selectively harvested. Lumping all creeks together and having a blanket ban on stream trout in region 2 just seems silly. Especially as we all agree that C&R is not 100% effective. Allowing people to catch and release 20 fish a day, with a 5% mortality rate has the same net effect as allowing a 1 trout per day catch limit. At least with my math. Pretending that every creek in the lower mainland has the same population level might make it easier for the people at the fisheries office, but it's not even close to the truth.

And yes, there are plenty of *lakes* in region 2 that I could keep fish from, but to me there is a MASSIVE different between stalking a shy rainbow in a creek and casting randomly into a lake and waiting for a nibble.

Oh, and this lake isn't stocked. It's just full of invasive non-native plants and fish. Another thumbs up for the government's "conservation" plan.

 

[Dax420]

quote:Originally posted by kelly

Try some more "wine" with your trout.But seriously if you only want to fish in order to eat the fish then the grocery store is much cheaper.

It's way cheaper to buy fish at the grocery store, but that's hardly the point.

I hunt, and I can assure you that eating an animal that you caught, killed, cleaned and cooked with your own hands is a million times more satisfying than anything you can buy wrapped in cellophane from the grocery store.

I feel like I've woken up in bizarre-o-land. "Oh, you want to eat the fish you catch? What a wierdo. Don't you know you can buy a Fillet-o-fish from McDonalds for $1.29?"

I should point out there is no "catch and release" deer season, and we seem to be doing just fine with a simple tag system to manage population levels. I don't see why the same system wouldn't work for fishing.

And yes, I'm ranting. Backintheday, getoffmylawn, uphillbothways and all that jazz.

 

[Island Fish Lifter]

Well, my 2 cents is simple.. sometimes bending the rules is not a bad thing. Id be eating trout.

Fill the dam tub!

 

[Halilogger]

Your such a rebel IFL

There is a lot of satisfaction in catching then safely releasing fish, did you ever think that maybe the reason that creek is teaming with trout is because of the regulations. What happens when someone finds a good spot they tell someone then they tell someone, and 1 to 2 yrs later no fish.
I would never advocate another fee for a trout tag, like all of the other fees they collect, it would go into general revenue, and not into management, conservation and enforcement, but that's another topic.

 

[Peahead]

I tend to agree with IFL. Rather than have the creek be open for the public to retain trout and eventually deplete the creek of trout - just self regulate yourself on your own creek/ private property( buddies property) Its a private back yard ...enjoy a fish or two every now and then on your/his/her own property and forget about it being a problem.....cause its not. I doubt Fisheries will be performing a sting operation and be hiding in the back yard ....

Logic is sometimes just too complicated for fisheries.

 

[spring time]

you say you hunt do you go and shoot a spike buck in a 4 point season, its the same thing regs are there for a reason. if your not going to follow them then phone moe and get your money back because you are a poacher and thats not in the term of how your going to cook that illegal fish

 

[Rodney Hsu]

Can't really help you without knowing specifically which stream it is, but here are some generic information regarding hatchery trout in Region 2 streams.

The Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery, which is operated by the Freshwater Fisheries society of BC (funded by your freshwater angling licence), produces and stocks anadromous cutthroat trout. These trout are part of the Fraser River cutthroat trout program. Most of the fish are stocked in Harrison River, Stave River. Although not stocked at other stream, it does not mean there would not be hatchery marked cutthroat trout. Once released, anadromous cutthroat trout travel along the Fraser River and all tributaries, depending on where their prey are.

Some other streams also have stocked hatchery marked cutthroat trout.

Chilliwack River has hatchery marked rainbow trout, but these are juvenile steelhead. Most of these fish will undergo smoltification as they move into the Fraser River, while some fish choose to remain in the river and become resident rainbow trout.

Here is a hatchery marked cutthroat trout (note the absence of adipose fin) caught from of the the tributaries of the Fraser River between Mission and Agassiz.

http://www.fishingwithrod.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=40

Good luck.

Rodney Hsu, Fishing with Rod, My blog, My YouTube channel, My Facebook page

 

[Rodney Hsu]

Was that last response to mine? Just in case it was, the fish in the photo was released as I have no interest in retaining trout in streams, regardless if they are wild or hatchery raised.

Rodney Hsu, Fishing with Rod, My blog, My YouTube channel, My Facebook page

 

[Jughead]

quote:Originally posted by UNKNOWN

...stocked cutthroat in streams that feed a main artery to the ocean, hmmmm - not what I would consider the best idea where salmon and steelhead spawn if we are to be at all concerned about certain stock abundance. I guess if all you are looking for is short term fun as a goal, then what ever.

I'm assuming your are suggesting this because anadromous cutthroat are a piscivorous species and prey upon juvenile salmon and steelhead?
We have heavily enhanced salmon and steelhead for decades, I bet that has had an effect on cutthroat survival through juvenile competition.
Salmon, steelhead and anadromous cutthroat trout existed in perfect balance before we ever diddled our fingers in things.

Very good argument Unknown, I've been confused on where I stand on this one for years.

Here's another good one: no kill fishery for non-native brown trout in the Cowichan? Their #1 diet is coho fry and steelhead parr.
Is the brown trout sportfishery more important? So many questions...