While us Californian’s dicker over whether Striped Bass are the root of all evil, and while federal scientists determine whether the Delta should be sucked or flushed southward, our esteemed pals across the pond are enduring their fair share of neo-science for hire.

To wit, a scientist aligned with the farmed fishing industry claims us anglers have simply killed too many wild salmon, in the process removing too much genetic diversity from the population, and therefore a kind of “genetic drift” has lead to an indolent population of fish that prefer Twinkies and energy drinks. *

“We, at Callander McDowell, think that…the loss of genetic material rather than being the result of one big accident has been the repeated loss of genetic material from the rivers over the last 150 years and possibly even longer. This loss is due to the rise in recreational angling for salmon, whereby anglers take home their catch. Each fish kept and consumed is one more part of the genetic jigsaw that has gone missing. Even in recent years, the loss to the gene pool continues despite attempts to stop it through the introduction of Catch and Release.”

-via fishnewseu.com

The core of the issue being how escaped farmed salmon can interbreed with native stocks and weaken the population with their test tube genetics. As in the US and Canada, numerous ills have been blamed on escaped fish and their ability to interbreed, despite the industries efforts to contain their slippery crop.

Recent information on hatchery fish and their effect on wild populations would suggest that the progeny of fish that thrive in a concrete canal where pellets of food are shoveled in their direction, might not survive very well in the wild.

Hatchery fish themselves could be having an impact, too: recent studies have found genetic and behavioral differences in hatchery-born and wild salmonids. Hybrid offspring of hatchery and wild fish may have a lower chance of surviving and reproducing than purely wild offspring do.

- via the NY Times

Most anglers would acknowledge our collective sporting carnage. We’ve enjoyed driving great distances to scenic venues so we can kill many millions of fish. The fishing industry has taken it a bit further with large nets and electronics, and what they didn’t get has been doomed by the rest of us and toxic runoff from industry, cities, and attachment to fossil fuels.

I’d think moderates and liberals would have as much trepidation about believing Science as conservatives, given how much of it that makes the papers has been bought and paid for …

* I get to add some knee jerk half assed flavor of science too …

Our study involving largemouth bass provides the
first direct experimental evidence that vulnerability to
angling is a heritable trait and, as a result, that
recreational hook-and-line fisheries can cause evolutionary
change in fish populations.

- via Selection for Vulnerability to Angling in Largemouth Bass

A twenty year study on Largemouth Bass yields an eye-opening conundrum for anglers, as the research suggests that Bass pass the likelihood for being caught from one generation to the next.

A 20-year study, led by University of Illinois research David Philipp, provided the first direct experimental proof that vulnerability to angling is an inherited trait.
Beginning in the 1970s, Philipp and his colleagues tagged and released largemouth bass in a pond in central Illinois. Some fish were caught up to 16 times a year. But when the pond was drained in the 1980s, they found that 200 of the 1,700 bass that were tagged had never been caught.
From that stock, the researchers bred groups of "high-vulnerability" and "low-vulnerability" bass. Then they stocked those fish in the same pond and repeated the experiment. Through three generations, the offspring stayed true to the parents’ tendencies.

- via Red Bluff Daily News

Years ago, US anglers took great exception to the practice of killing wild trout that was common on managed water in Europe and the UK. Angling restrictions required the fish be kept, as the prevailing theory was, “once it’s felt the hook – it’s not likely to eat an artificial again.”

The document mentions that Rainbow Trout have been used in similar research but fails to mention any conclusions of their use as subjects.

While the above conclusion is limited to Largemouth Bass, if it were to hold for most gamefish, then killing fish that take any fly, lure, or bait, ensures only the antisocial, cagey fish are left to breed, thereby ensuring that the fishery is ruined for us beer drinking vacationers …

Of interest is the description of the Largemouth’s vision, it can see about 50 feet with a resolution quality of about 10% that of a human.

Several lure companies have come out with highly touted lures with intricate paint patterns designed to imitate baitfish. But many of those baits proved to be a disappointment and never did sell the way manufacturers hoped they would.

The problem? They might have been too accurate.

Too much realism can make the bait invisible to prowling bass, based on distance and diminished vision quality. A bass might miss the movement should the lure be at sufficient distance (water being murky) whose camouflage was simply too good to be detected.

"The bass uses its eyesight and lateral line in combination when it is feeding," Jones said. "The lateral line is very effective in feeling local disturbances one to two body lengths away."

The full research paper was published in 2009 by the American Fisheries Society, and is available in PDF.

Now that we understand all those “red-state conservatives” no longer believe in Science, we can go down there and kick some tournament ass.

Only

… and while they readily admit that most of the science on American Shad has been done on the East Coast, and very little is known of our Western invasive cousin, now that we’ve extincted the Pacific Salmon, we’re sure to find the American Shad had a hand in it.

All of which causes me to burst into tears, given that Science can never bring themselves to admit we paved, screwed, and ate, anything that was tasty – and are even now grinding up and coloring everything that isn’t  ..

So the last big anadromous fishery left on the Pacific Coast, needs to be kilt off because they weren’t invited? How about you restore some urban stream to a healthy population of salmon and then we’ll talk – and not before.

This month Fisheries Magazine features a couple of articles on the American Shad, the first relating the efforts to get them here, and the second relating to how their spread along the Pacific Coast might have altered the environment for our Pacific Salmon, how they may have had a hand in both helping and extincting same.

Young shad dine on similar freshwater foods as young salmon, young shad may provide more food for known salmon predators like my beloved Northern Pikeminnow, allowing them to survive in greater numbers to prey upon young salmon, and Shad may have been host to saltwater parasites that spread to both salmon and humans in freshwater.

But they’re not really all that sure of any of it …

In fact, it is out of concern specifically for salmon that biologists now seriously contemplate the ecological role of shad in the Columbia River. For some, the “scientific” response has been “guilty until proven innocent” (Simberloff 2007), with calls to eliminate shad above Bonneville Dam (Snake River Salmon Recovery Team [SRSRT] 1994; National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS] 1995). Though some hypotheses have been advanced to suggest that shad may negatively affect Pacific coastal ecosystems (e.g., Haskell et al. 2001; Harvey and Kareiva 2005; Hershberger et al. 2010), the specific interactions with salmon remain largely untested hypotheses, and the a priori vilification of shad in the absence of supporting data constitutes speculation and opinion, not established fact (J. H.Brown and Sax 2007). The presence of shad in the Columbia River may actually be a mixed blessing.

… and on the converse, because young shad are numerically superior to any other life form in these rivers at certain times of the year, science suggests they may have a beneficial role – serving as a food source for young salmon.

One thing’s for sure, something is eating something else – and we’re eating that …

What science there is on the Pacific contingent of the American Shad is focused on the west coast’s greatest rivers, the Columbia and the Sacramento. While much of these articles dealt with impoundments of the Columbia, some insights into local fish were new (to us anglers) …

Specifically, Smith (1895) reported the tendency
of Sacramento River shad to remain in the San Francisco Bay
region throughout the year, with some proportion of the population foregoing the typical marine migration altogether. Smith (1895) also reported San Francisco Bay shad to be in spawning condition from December to August. This is considerably longer than the source stock used for introduction.

Outside of being enormously fun to catch, ask any two anglers about Shad behavior and you’re liable to get mostly rumor and innuendo, exposing the dearth of information that exists on our favorite saltwater racehorse.

/end Science.

/begin Opinion.

I can’t help note how restoring fisheries always starts with us killing something else. Actual restoration is bestial hard, nor can I point to a single river or pond and say, “ … this was once terrible and has been completely restored.”

There’s a reason for that.

If we are ever to be successful restoring anything, then we have to manage it for eternity, not for some well meaning conservation organization to cut a ribbon, dust its hands and pronounce, “we’re done.”

Restoration is never done, and as soon as you lose resolve or run out of money, all your hard work slips into the Abyss.

… which is why when I hear the Rotenone call, “Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure” – I get all squirrely, as killing has always been the easiest part.

It’s my belief that all of our conservation organizations added together, combined with all the awesome might of the federal wildlife agencies, have restored  … nothing.

Not a single lake, stream, or rivulet.

Surely, they are busy restoring all kinds of things, but they will never be done – and so long as they allow us fishermen to fish, or developers to build, we’ll being spilling something new into the water that’ll prove bad for fish, and trigger some new species collapse that’ll need yet another task force, and even more money.

… yet every so often we get an evolutionary “lucky.” Some unloved, unwanted cockroach that repopulates water too poor to sustain what used to live there, and we gash ourselves and claim, “ … how goddamn dare they.”

Science busies itself uncorking Death Rays and Rotenone to rid itself of the interloper, knowing all the time that it’s easier to nuke some bland filet than muster the political clout to cite the BP refinery upstream that kilt all the old stuff …

Scientists in aggregate are smart as hell. Unfortunately within the gleaming walls of their laboratory they practice Hollywood Science, pure, pristine, and untrammeled. Reality-based science is called “politics”, and those fellows aren’t so smart, and are often careless and greedy.

Now they’re not so sure.

Recent studies suggest the adipose fin is crucial to fish, aiding it in navigating turbulent water.

With the tiny fin removed, he says the fish need to use much more energy to maintain position and speed in the water.

- via CBC News Canada

Given that the practice is especially prevalent with salmonids, which re-enter fresh water when it is most turbulent, it may have been one of many reasons why hatchery fish have never adequately replaced indigenous populations.

Makes you wonder whether we’ve been our own worst enemy, accidentally even. 

The short version is that a panel of 11 scientists from Colorado State University, Trout Unlimited, the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, have released a study of four trout species that suggests we’ll be losing half of all trout habitat over the next seventy years.

Most of that loss will be attributed to rising temperatures and global warming, and depending on which warming model is chosen – will dictate how much and how fast – and determines whether we care whether girls use saddle hackles or mule dung in their hair …

Congress is adamant the size of government must be reduced, given we owe most of the GDP to those countries still able to buy our debt, and depending on how much we decide to divest, will be eager to prune wasteful dollars funding watchdog agencies and trout planting – areas that hinder industry from creating  millions of jobs, or serve only the privileged few … us fishermen.

Trout Unlimited and every privately funded conservation group added together couldn’t save  a single river, especially so due to the waves of genetically-superior invasives outcompeting historical residents. Carp might be able to survive a couple of decades longer, but standoffish salmonids have no chance whatsoever.

Mostly because you guys balked when AquaBounty insisted they could insert the gene for sharp teeth and claws – which would’ve allowed them to go toe to toe with all those foreign regiments climbing out of the bilge water.

Instead you left their fate to boards of directors filled with well meaning retirees gashing themselves over “how come they let them trout’s die,” whose wailing lent wings to global warming.

This being the age of Tea Parties, Beauty Queens from Alaska, and indistinguishable political parties, who’ve got no reason to keep industry in check, or slow their exploitation. Well meaning types weakened by foreclosure and the enforced idleness that comes with 24 months of unemployment, are likely to let down their at the lure of lasting and permanent jobs. Most of those will be cleaning the Pristine because BP fracked it, or something equally poisonous.

That’s more than likely the causal agent of most of the habitat loss, only the body scientific is reluctant to confess and endanger additional grants.

Should the globe warm a couple of degrees as science is predicting, that’ll clear both coastline and interior so they can pave and erect great glass edifices proclaiming our victory over Nature; how we booted Bambi from crapping on all that real estate – and gave her a spacious suite at the Zoo as reward …

They’re hurting, these men of a certain age. Losing their livelihood isn’t the only “transition” they’re going through. Dr. Jed Diamond, author of Surviving Male Menopause and The Irritable Male Syndrome, calls it a “double whammy.” The first: “a change of life, hormonally based, affecting our psychology and emotions from 40 to 55.” The second: unemployment. “It’s devastating. The extreme reaction is suicide, but before you get there, there’s irritability and anger, fatigue, loss of energy, withdrawal, drinking, more fights with their wives.”

- from Dead Suit Walking, Newsweek Magazine

Newsweek calls our demographic the “Beached White Male” (BWM), suggesting the real casualties of the recession being middle aged college educated white boys. Add in all them guts spilling over waistlines and the Type II Diabetes epidemic that’s about to leave the streets paved in corpses -  and our generation will have destroyed most of the tillable sections of the globe, as well as eliminated any need for (non televised) sports, the out of doors, and John Wayne …

… then paid the price in one spasmodic orgy of cholesterol.

Which I find strangely appropriate, proof that despite all the advances of science we’ve never listened to anything other than our reproductive organs and our gut – settling the whole issue about whether we read it for the pictures or the articles …

As most of you already know

Now researchers claim they can render us completely invisible to the hosts of blood sucking insects by giving us a repellant that will cause complete sensory overload to all the creepy crawly things that are determined to make the out-of-doors experience miserable and demeaning.

… to the gals mostly, us real woodsmen delight in bleeding profusely, and show our scars at the least provocation …

The good news is that it’s “1000 times more powerful than DEET.” Which was removed from shelves due to its propensity to lower your kid’s IQ and cause numerous birth defects. A thousand times more powerful suggests that probability may be inching towards certainty, which may make sales to those under 65 illegal.

… not to worry, fly shops will sell little crack vials to them as able to reproduce, for six or seven times the normal markup … Or I will, in the parking lot … for even more.

We’ll have to wait a bit longer to be atomized and reassembled, but the burgeoning field of “3D Printing” should have the capability to crap solid objects out of the ether …

… so long as there’s plenty of “ink” in your printer, maybe even a fly rod or two …

As we’ve already got our expectations for junk food flavor set as low as possible, you can imagine how Madison Ave will insist on your 9 PM telly being dominated by flavorful and steaming, lush rich colors – and while your forebrain will warn you as you swipe the debit card through your computer, it’ll be too late.

… the flaccid, greasy, thing is already winging its way to you, burping itself into your outstretched hand …

It’ll be a bold new world when you press the “Dozen Adam’s” key … and I’ll be glad I’m able to skip the sodden result …

We’ve not heard words like

As has been well documented, science has issue with bovine flatulence and is determined to save the ozone layer at the cost of your filet mignon. Dutch scientists are postulating that insect meat has everything necessary to sustain humans, and what’s better is they lack that big flabby mammalian abdomen to bust musty …

No, they didn’t ask you to vote on flank versus feelers, they just assumed you’d eat what was put in front of you. More “felt sole science” – slap it on a plate – legislate your allegiance, and hope the science eventually lives up to the marketing.

Whether insect meat actually exists is a topic of much debate. Our West Coast insects are comprised of flimsy exoskeleton containing yellow goo – which alternately compresses and fragments when harvested by car windshield. I’ll assume the ersatz-beef made of insects will only be realized when the nutritionists from McDonald’s mix the soft jam-like innards with wood chips – or something similar.

I’m willing to bet that both flavor and texture might well be solved quickly, given our penchant for already-cooked cardboard dinners. “Rare” might be a thing of the past, but only because the scaly wings and most of the eyeballs burn off in the “well done” variant.

For us fishermen it’ll test our resolve. Which of us wouldn’t be tempted to bust a corner off our burger to start the hatch at 2:30 …

… and aren’t we glad that fish have scruples?

Californians are known to house most of the native crazies, much of the lower 48 exports their antisocial types to the coast, where we hose them down and provide a change of wardrobe, before returning them as Presidents or members of Congress…

In other related news, British researchers now have proof that all the gender bending chemicals released into the watershed via sewage treatment – actually bend gender, affecting fish reproduction and inducing as much as a 75% failure rate.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) disrupt the ways that hormones work in the bodies of vertebrates (animals with backbones), including humans.

They can be found in everything from female contraceptive drugs and hormone replacement therapy pills, to washing up liquid, with the most well studied EDCs being those that mimic estrogen (female hormone).

EDCs have been seeping into rivers through the sewage system for decades and have an observed effect on fish, altering male biology to make them more female – hence the ‘gender bending’ reputation of these chemicals.

- via PhysOrg.com

All this research puts us anglers in a bit of a quandary. As many of our planted fish have been gargling EDC’s by the bucketful, imported into the watershed from numerous federal “gladiator academies” – which requires us anglers to adhere to the “Don’t ask and don’t tell” statute.

Which explains why the fish are so damn tight-lipped when my fly floats past.

“Extra labeling only confuses the consumer,” said David Edwards, director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization. “It differentiates products that are not different. As we stick more labels on products that don’t really tell us anything more, it makes it harder for consumers to make their choices.”

Which is exactly what troubled me about the “Mercury-toxic-no-eat-sign” featured prominently at every junction of the creek nearby, why would you go to all that trouble to label something genetically identical to the healthy specimen?

It must be more of that government waste I hear so much about.

The FDA defends its approach, saying it is simply following the law, which prohibits misleading labels on food. And the fact that a food, in this case salmon, is produced through a different process, is not sufficient to require a label.

We’re simply reminding everyone that this is the week the FDA rules on genetically engineered fish, our thoughts on the matter being well known, yet it’s still a landmark case with impacts far beyond the current focus.

The company has several safeguards in place to quell concerns. The fish would be bred female and sterile, though a small percentage might be able to breed. They would be bred in confined pools where the potential for escape would be low.

What concerns me outside of the obvious, is where is all that water going to come from? Most of the known world is already using its potable water multiple times between snowpack and faucet. Trucking saltwater in from the ocean would be cost prohibitive, yet terrestrial fish farms located close to market implies yet another water-craving industry determined to siphon those last few droplets from native fish.

Close to market means Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and a host of other desert cities, no?

Nestle and the bottled water crowd may be a blessing compared to the the rich soup we’ll soon see in our spigot. The agricultural industry has locked up the rights for any source of significance, yet the aquaculture crowd will insist on something “clean” to grow salmon in – and that combined payload of antibiotics and fertilizer should follow whatever slope is available to mix with local waters or intermingle with groundwater.

If they mix in salt you can add toxic to that blend.

Yummy.

The upside could be a gene or two added to all them roman nosed fish lying doggo in the salmon wastewater pond. If we get lucky we might wind up with sea-run Carp, or they’ll get white faces like the Joker – sight fishing would be so much easier.