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 …

Dire news on climate change

The demise of the whitebark pine trees is the most noticeable result of climate change. Warming temperatures have allowed the mountain pine beetle to thrive in previously inhospitable, high-elevation whitebark forests turning the mountains in every direction brown. Aerial surveys have established that whitebark pine die-offs are approaching a staggering 85 percent. A recent study concludes that climate-induced beetle kill will render the pine species functionally dead in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem within the next seven to 10 years.

-via the Bozeman Daily Chronicle

As the Whitebark Pine offers precious cover to delay snow melt, it suggests that Spring runoff will be quicker and potentially much more violent, and summer flows smaller and warmer than those of the past.

Studies indicate that within the next 50 years the Yellowstone River between Livingston and Laurel-one of the world’s great trout streams-will likely become a warm-water fishery.

So B.A.S.S. can add both Lake Tahoe and the Yellowstone River to their ever-increasing list of exotic venues.

The National Park Service has released a 36 page response to the impacts of climate change to the national inventory of parklands. As you might expect it is a roadmap to handle the effects and adaptations anticipated, as they cannot stop the process by any means. As part of the issue is carbon sequestration on park lands, I’d imagine that it’ll require vendors and visitors to adjust to a lower carbon footprint (possibly affecting their ability to enter the park, or the means by which they’ll be allowed access), and the end to livestock grazing – as it’s a known source of gases.

(… rivaled only by fly fishing blogs and their authors … )

You’re looking down at the

That’s when the cold prickly happens. Three hundred miles away from home, 20 miles from camp, and your buddy has his waders paused at his midsection looking at you expectantly, figuring you’re going to confess to an egregious screw up …

… and he’s not far wrong.

That awesome eBay score where you landed a System 6 for under fifty bucks, with an oxidized Cortland SL line in light green (which matches the color of your floating #5 on the correct reel), with a leader butt resembling a buggy whip, whose nail knot just parted when you sneezed on it …

That’s what you’ll be fishing with for the next four days.

… and if you can’t make it serviceable with the contents of your truck, assisted by a generous and overflowing parking lot garbage can, you’ve been domesticated to the point where anything involving sunshine is risky.

A nine foot leader comprised of eighteen inches of butt and seven foot of tippet might raise an eyebrow in traditional circles, but not in the pre-dawn abyss that is necessity.

I likened it to a black cloud trip, where everything you fear most shows itself in a long string of misfortunes.

By day two I actually preferred my new leader, and reeling left handed. Only a couple of fish had attempted to break the long reverie of finning, stripping, and casting, and seven foot of tippet allows unparalleled sinking for nymphs and leeches.

Swim fins require you walk backwards when making the transition from water nymph to terrestrial bi-ped. That round piece of driftwood I stepped on while backing out of the lake was an instant takedown, and trapped in fins those big feet stayed pointing North, while the rest of me landed South.

I’m laying there groaning and holding the knee that got folded under and failed to rotate with all that falling flab, recognizing that the solution set was the same as the earlier calamity of the reel …

If you can’t make it serviceable with the contents of the truck, assisted by a generous and overflowing …

As fortune would have it, side to side stabilization was affected but finning my way through the lake was pain free, permitting me to endure 14 more hours fruitless finning and much casting.

Slowly and inexorably that black cloud began to lift. It started imperceptibly with the discovery of two dozen flies bobbing in the shore grasses, still viable in their The Fly Shop container. 110 meters of fluorocarbon tippet bobbed nearby, likely both donated to Davy Jones in a fit of pique. While feeling for my unknown benefactor, I helped myself accordingly.

The final straw was the hour-long nap under the shade of the bank side bushes, completely forbidden, a hideous and shameful luxury, and I’m woken by Kelvin’s involuntary cry – who’d paddled over to see why them big feet protruding from the brush hadn’t moved in a fortnight – and something large and wild had ate his bug and delayed my rescue.

… nice to know that eventually someone would find the body.

Why you resist the urge for 6X

It’s as brushy and formidable as the willows and pines lining the bank. A  lush green forest both above water and below.

Matching tippet to conditions yields more hooked fish, but it leads to even more heartbreak later. The scene at left demonstrates why swimming a nymph between those underwater “pines” might make 4X the better choice.

Freshly invigorated from my nap and in twenty feet of water, my innocent little bug was inhaled by something fierce and predatory.

A couple of throbs on the rod and it was dormant – intertwined with the fibrous vertical weed. The adrenalin of the initial grab quickly wears off with grim reality replacing it, yet the resolve of sticking with the heavy leader means there’s a chance…

Slim, made even slimmer if you don’t test your knots frequently.

Clearheaded and resolved to shake chance from the equation, and emboldened by the momentum swing in my direction, it had been my first thought once back on the bridge …

… and I thanked my vigilance, as I wrenched up a big yellow-bellied brown with a yen for deep, no match for momentum shift, 40 winks, and fresh knots.

We revisit the Old Gal in her Dotage

Kelvin and I snuck over to my alma mater to pay the old gal a bit of respect. With the lake fishing slow, and Hat Creek only a bit further, it was a nice opportunity to stretch the legs while I revisited the creek that had aided me in learning flat water – and how easy a spring creek can humble even the best angler.

Change was everywhere, starting with empty parking lots and new bathrooms, and magnified by a forest fire that had ripped through the watershed.

Gone were all the placards espousing wild trout and CalTrout’s involvement – replaced by run of the mill lectures from DF&G or PG&E. As CalTrout’s website lacks any mention of the creek or the wonderful project they initiated, I’m left wondering whether Hat Creek isn’t some soiled dove they’re attempting to disavow.

Bank stabilization efforts were dated 2004, and while all those wading feet had removed 100 feet of the Powerhouse stretch – dumping it into the flat water below, placards at Carbon Bridge suggested the consortium of CalTrout, Pg&E, and Fish & Game was still active.

I keep thinking of all those cleated rubber soles and how they’ll accelerate the problem, in the very places we revere most.

Carbon Bridge was as menacing as ever, but the slug of silt that played havoc with the creek many years ago was still very much evident. This former Holy Water was responsible for thrown rods, complete and total frustration, and was an inescapable draw for those that fancied a single grab from large and difficult fish.

I spent summers on the far bank, mostly walking away muttering that I’d never return, but stubborn would get the best of me each evening.

Now it’s home to small fish, who were evident as they dined on the light smattering of spinners that comprised the morning grab.

We turned tail and ran.

The entire stretch below Hat Creek Park had been burned badly and showed the effects of salvage logging.

I showed Kelvin the fish weir that marked the end of the trophy water, and even the sign had been consumed by flames.

Absent the shade of all those pines, the march back to the parking area was a blistering hellish moonscape. All the slopes leading down to the creek are matchsticks and once logged of the evergreen timber, will take many years to restore, if ever.

The oaks that give shade and cover to the creek were mostly intact, but even these weren’t spared.

It was a bit melancholy for a homecoming, but that was shortlived. Memories of all those good friends and better times were ever present, as every tree could still boast of owning a half dozen of my flies in the lower branches, there to rust with those of pals, now gone.

… and I still had a trick or two up my sleeve.

Momentum was on my side, or perhaps it was the Ghost of What Once Was. The Old Gal is burned and wounded, perhaps a bit neglected, but there’s large fish left, as the above “hero” shot describes.

If I had squeezed in a nap they’d have been twice as big.

Four days and a couple of memorable book-ends to the expedition, good company, and explains my silence of last week. I’ll have a bit more on the experimentals that slayed these dragons, but have to craft a note to friend Chandler – who’s halfway across the country while I’m pillaging his backyard …

Then again, it may be a world wide angling issue and like all asexual invasives, it just takes a little time to gain a foothold in more rarified venues.

Instead it may be the colonial thing, what with New Zealand entering the fray with an e-zine featuring horribly colorful and obese trout whose obscene lust for feathers will make you shield your child’s vision, lest they be tainted forever …

We missed the first issue, but it’s available online.

Flyfishers Inc. is in the stunning photography coffee table mode, where you quickly leaf through the pictures in awe, yet there’s little text to accompany the work. Each issue features a reader poll, which is a hint of interactivity, something not yet seen in the US versions.

Something to consume with your lunchtime sandwich.

Anyone who’s held a stonefly in still water has seen the gyrations it goes through to force oxygen over its gills, but what is less well known is how nearly everything else changes its behavior in light of warming water and less oxygen.

The probability of the stonefly presence increased significantly with current velocity in summer, but not in winter. Because current influences oxygen renewal rates, our results suggest that the distribution of the insect could be restricted by oxygen.

It’s thought to be one of the triggers for benthic drift, wherein an aquatic population lets loose of their former haunts and drifts to find better water (more food, more oxygen, different temperatures) often during the cooler evening hours where they’re less vulnerable to predators.

Therefore, mayfly nymphs must restrict themselves to a narrow range of habitats where behavioral regulation of oxygen consumption is never required, or they may utilize
less than ideal habitats, changing positions when
necessary during periods of lower oxygen availability.

… and as a response to diminishing oxygen, both mayflies and caddis will crawl out from under to perch on top of the rock – exposing their gills to the full force of the current, versus the lesser currents under the rock.

Experimental investigations in a small artificial stream showed that the positioning of mayfly nymphs (Ephemeroptera) on stones varied with dissolved oxygen concentration (DO). At low DO levels nymphs moved to current-exposed positions, presumably to increase the renewal rate of oxygen at respiratory exchange surfaces.

Making them readily available to foraging fish, and more apt to become dislodged and tumble around, something we love to exploit.

While the nuggets abound poring through the scientific papers, trout season precludes exploiting all of them:

Recorded as a percentage of the total number of items recovered per month, stoneflies account for 47% (December), 82% (January), 70% (February), and 57% (March) of the items consumed. These findings demonstrate the importance of stoneflies in the diet of eastern populations of trout during the winter months.

January appears to be the month for the “fattened calf” as the bigger stoneflies appear to be markedly favored by trout. Perhaps the turbidity associated with winter storms makes all but the larger bugs less visible, but 82% is a mighty compelling number.

Tags: Stonefly nymphs, benthic drift, mayfly, caddis, dissolved oxygen, trout fishing, fly fishing

… which has no parallel when imitating a drowning Chuck Roast.

Knowing my coworkers will be demanding ants by lunch hour, and armed with a half dozen photos from yesterday – whose details are still fresh, I eyeballed a couple of the larger catalogs and noticed every ant was an upright aquatic insect … none were tied as a dead bug, and fewer yet were tied screaming in terror.

The Gods had smiled ever so briefly, and while it may be five or six seasons before I need them again, I learned my lesson.

First of all terrestrial insects don’t ride the surface upright like mayflies. Most of them are dead, the rest are struggling to free a big terrestrial wing from the water’s surface and will expire on their back or curled on their side, and there’s nothing neat and orderly about it.

Wings aren’t gossamer as they’d get in the way. They’re stubby thick affairs that once dampened lose most of their aerodynamic qualities, trapping the insect in whatever position was first contact.

Fish (bless them) are entirely unsophisticated when the equivalent of a Virginia Ham is struggling on the surface, and it’s likely that color and size is all that’s needed.

… and something that allows you to see that flush-in-the-film imitation so you’ll know when to strike.

I dubbed the traditional ant profile using black deer hair, which left fibers poking in every direction looking like big black legs. I slapped some brown and black permanent marker on the lettuce bag from the trash, posted some closed cell foam upright and wound a brown-dyed grizzly hackle around it to add a bit more brownish tint to the overall fly.

Those wings will flop onto the surface and stick as the saran is so light it won’t hold its tied-in shape.

Contrast the dead ants with the live picture at the top. Orderly and shipshape versus cold and curled – wings splayed. This was the look of the wet insect we fished over Sunday.

Surely, if a large Adams was all it took to fool the fish we’re splitting hairs, yet if you’re taking the trouble to imitate something lose the live bug bias and get disjoint and nasty.

Coifed and combed is for that sweet smelling fellow with the droopy backcast, and was never meant for the bait …

I lack the Warden-aint-looking-Velveeta “rod holder”, the depth meter, but more importantly I’m missing that gracious and relaxed look that comes with consistent success.

I was too busy sulking to notice. Fishing is five grabs – and if you’re lucky enough to hook most of them it’s a good day; sunburn hurts less, dinner tastes better, and the mosquitoes bother some other unfortunate.

Me. Mostly.

I flopped around trying secret and double-secret, figuring with each new color I’d unlock the lake and its secrets, but it was for naught. The weather was friendly, yet the fishing remained deathly.

Not a Factor.

Why you keep a #10 Adams in a box of #16’s

After the sixth or seventh honey bee floated by I was rethinking the McGinty – and why hadn’t I been smart enough to have a half dozen at the ready…

Everywhere was “Pizza” water. Toppings included every terrestrial not supposed to be there, a smattering of everything that belonged, throw in some midges just to confound everyone and a rise was something to dread, not its normal welcome quickening.

Two fish over was the fellow that likes mayfly, and I’d just cast at the fish that prefers Ladybug…

… and that welcome breeze, the one that adds enough cooling to your burnt forearms so’s you won’t notice – suddenly delivers enough protein to wake up everything downwind plus sending the sunbathers screaming.

It’s the reason you have that one bedraggled #10 Adams in your box of sixteen’s – where you pray you used lots of black thread, because having tried everything earlier, you know you’re lacking ants of any shape or color.

A deft use of the nippers – a bit of artistic license, and sent on its way with a prayer. The first fish shakes it loose in midair, and with only four grabs left …

… that satisfying feeling of a solid hookup. Large meat heading for the weeds and suddenly 5X is too thin, gossamer even.

Suddenly everything looks better. The girls are prettier, the sky bluer, dinner is strictly gourmet, and there’s still some fish working. No one’s noticed – none have crept closer, and after those two Canada Geese trail past my fly …

NO. He did not just eat that…

(The honker is making a wry face, beak and tongue suddenly active)

… and the line is moving smartly from the slack position to nearly taught.

Time freezes.

The little Devil on my left shoulder says, “ Dude, figure she’s nearly eight or nine pounds, that bitch can peel line …”

The lesser Devil on my right says, “True, but you’ve got about 60 small children and parents on the beach to your left, that Honker is going to scream bloody murder, likely go airborne – and while you’re flying that kite with your click-pawl pointing its ugly finger right at you, the entire National Park Service is going beat you to death in a really public way.”

… so I feed slack as fast as I can, the Goose is still mouthing frantically and I’m praying the last of my five grabs is a clean miss.

Ptui … and the fly drops safely into the water.

Left shoulder Devil isn’t done yet, “Dude, that counts. It’s aquatic, it lives here – it’s natural, and it was a clean take.”

Right side responds quickly enough, “ An asterisk at best, what’s important is that as the National Park Service has recently converted from wheel guns to the Model 92 – featuring 15 in the clip and one in the pipe – they’ve stopped counting until the slide locks at empty.”

We all agreed that was a good point.

Now I’ve abandoned any pretense of tradition – any thoughts of skill or science, instead I’ll fin myself around the Pristine on a soft inflatable recliner and tow flies into the waiting maw of Them as Would be Fed.

… and if that don’t work, there’s always the California nouveau cuisine luncheon – featuring the caviar Velveeta sand. I’ll let the wind blow me out of visual range and add an obligatory marshmallow indicator.

Friday I’ll be headed North to try some of my favorite lake venues. Streams are shot, rivers are worse, and I’m tired of fishless fishing trips. Maybe a month of dry weather will restore some of the local water to a semblance of their former selves.

I’ve got the traditional lake fare covered. The Calibaetis mayflies – dry and wet, and the generalist flies that resemble most of the other fare. Float tubes and breeze means you’re going to hook as many fish with the fly being towed as being cast – and those searching patterns are lake fishing staples.

Modeled on the J.Fair Wiggle nymph, a proven lake pattern of long standing, featuring a wisp of marabou for a tail and some sparkle chenille with a hackle rib, it’s the fly of choice for twitching over weeds, or simply finning from one side of the impoundment to the other.

These are dressed very lightly compared to a traditional Wooly Bugger or Leech, using just 5-6 strands of marabou and a pencil thin body. I’ve always assumed it was a combination of damselfly and small baitfish – in between asking pals if they could spare another handful.

I tie them in Olive, Black, Peacock, Brown, and the tail is left intentionally long – so you’ll get the occasional short strike. Shortening the tails makes them less effective, so endure.

I use the bead version so I can merely lengthen the leader and fish them with a floating line. In between the morning, midday, evening, mayfly activity I’ll use the lull following to tow these over weedbeds.

The darker colors are perfect for deeper water and sinktip fishing. A slow retrieve to seduce those reticent fish that are busy digesting an early insect snack and don’t expect to see a steak this close to home.

Tags: J Fair Wiggle Nymph, fly fishing stillwater, Wooly Bugger, leech, Calibaetis, lake fishing, trout

The most recent and exhaustive study of trout fishermen and their habits has been released by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for the calendar year 2006, and trout remains fifth behind them padded numbers enjoyed by our warmwater brethren.

Brownliners fall under the “Another Type of Freshwater Fish” – as those summer interns didn’t dare get close enough to learn what we were really fishing for … or with … and with our lack of social graces, a big stack of clean white paper at the trailhead has a more fundamental use than make-work for the eggheads in statistics lab.

… thankfully there’s 12% less of us.

the number of freshwater and trout anglers 16 years and older in the U.S. has decreased. The number of trout anglers has decreased from around 9 million anglers in 1996 to 6.8 million in 2006. Diminished trout populations due to whirling disease and habitat destruction may have contributed to some of the decline in angler participation. As for freshwater anglers, their numbers have declined from 29 million anglers in 1996 to 25 million in 2006. Between 2001 and 2006 participation declined by 3 million freshwater anglers.

Not surprising was the vast surge of anglers flocking to coarse fishing. Likely a response to the ravenous hordes of Asian Carp headed deep into the interior, fish fleeing the Gulf of Mexico – figuring a sewer drain in Sheboygan cleaner, and the fact that the Roughfisher had a couple of offspring during the census  …

Gender
Fishing continues to be a male dominated sport. Females make up a quarter (25 percent) of all freshwater anglers and even fewer trout anglers (21 percent). This is disproportionately lower than the U.S. population where women are the majority at 52 percent (Table 7).
While many women 16 years of age and older participated in freshwater fishing (6.3 million), this comprised only five percent of the female population in the U.S.

Not to worry lads, the continual bikini posts from the likes of Trout Underground and Moldy Chum represent the vast uncounted population of single, buxom women – less than sixteen years old …

… and if you do anything but look, it’s the last trout you’ll see that’s not wearing trousers.

Age
Trout fishing is popular at any age (16 years or older). At least 21 percent of freshwater anglers in every age category fished for trout (Table 8). However, about half of all trout anglers (49 percent) are between the ages of 35 to 54 years old.

Which is why your extreme angling e-zine whose every page dripped garishly with energy drink ads – vanished. Trout fishing is what guys do when they lack the reflexes for anything else – there to wax poetic until the Grim Reaper baits the hook …

Though trout fishing is predominately made up of a middle-aged generation, the trend is moving toward older participants.

Which is why those music video posts are wasted space. You’re thinking Johnny Larnyx and the Expectorants, and your audience is keen for Sinatra, Noob.

Overall, trout anglers tend to complete more years of education than freshwater anglers and the U.S. population.

They’re smart and discerning, yet claim their quarry smarter – making them humble too.

Twenty-four percent of trout angler households earned more than $100,000, compared with only 17 percent of households in the U.S.

I’ll have to add an asterisk to the above. Twenty-four percent (24%) earned more than $100,000 per year, most were spending in excess of $200,000 per year, went late on their house payment – tapped their 401K, and realized their house was underwater to the tune of $250,000.

As they’re smarter and hold more advanced degrees, most “jinglemailed” the house keys back to their mortgage broker, and are now living with Mom & Dad, complaining about the quality of the local Frappachino …

… collecting unemployment and fishing more often, the bastards.

More importantly we find the valuation in net economic benefit of a trout stream, and the arcane methodology by which pollution of same and the disappearance of all life results in a pittance fine and slap on the wrist for industry …

The difference between what the trout angler is willing to pay and what is actually paid is net economic value. Therefore, for this example, the net economic value is $175 [(($55–$20) ×10÷2) (triangle bcd in Figure 6)] and angler expenditures are $200 [($20×10) (rectangle abde in Figure 6)]. Thus, the trout anglers’ total willingness to pay ($375) is composed of net economic value ($175) and total expenditures ($200).

Net economic value is simply total willingness to pay minus expenditures. The relationship between net economic value and expenditures is the basis for asserting that net economic value is the appropriate measure of the benefit an individual derives from participation in an activity and that expenditures are not the appropriate benefit measure.

Expenditures are out-of-pocket expenses on items an angler purchases in order to fish. The remaining value, net willingness to pay (net economic value), is the economic measure of an individual’s satisfaction after all costs of participation have been paid. Summing the net economic values of all individuals who participate in an activity derives the value to society. For example, assume that there are 100 trout anglers who fish at a particular stream and all have demand curves identical to that of our typical trout angler presented in Figure 6. The total value of this stream to society is $17,500 [$175 × 100].

… despite a home on the banks of the now dead same creek being worth $6.5 million.

At $20 Billion for the entire Gulf of Mexico – I’m thinking those government negotiators was tough as nails.

The net economic values can be used to evaluate management actions that would have an impact on trout fishing. For example, the impact of dam construction, dam removal, and other human activities along trout streams can affect trout angler participation rates. Also, dams can negatively influence trout fishing by creating physical barriers to spawning areas or increasing water temperatures. Let’s assume that in 2006 the state of Maine proposed a policy action to remove an old dam from a trout stream to improve its water quality to blue ribbon status. If a fishery manager knows the number of days Maine residents go trout fishing on a blue ribbon trout stream with no dams over the whole season, 1,000 days for example, it is possible to develop an estimate of the fishery gains from the dam removal. This estimate is accomplished by multiplying the net economic value per fishing day ($30 from Table 13) by the days of participation, resulting in $30,000 ($30 x 1,000). If the fishery manager had data on the number of in-state and out-of-state anglers then the numbers could be adjusted to reflect their appropriate values.

… except it takes $4.5 million to remove the old dam, restock the native plants and historic populations of fish, another $60,000 because some well meaning angler likes Rainbows more than native Brookies, and you’ll get a net return on the investment in about 135 years.

Which is why dams aren’t being wrenched from their foundations by a gleeful mob of contractors.

Tags: Fish and Wildlife Service, trout angling statistics, fly fishing humor, damn lies and statistics, trout, trout fishing, Jinglemail, Sinatra

The true game-fish, of which the trout and salmon are frequently the types, inhabit the fairest regions of nature’s beautiful domain. They drink only from the purest fountains, and subsist upon the choicest food their pellucid streams supply … [It] is self-evident that no fish which inhabit foul or sluggish waters can be ‘game-fish’.’ It is impossible from the very circumstances of their surroundings and associations. They may flash with tinsel and tawdry attire; they may strike with the brute force of a blacksmith, or exhibit the dexterity of a prize fighter, but their low breeding and vulgar manner of eating, betray their grossness.”

“An Entirely Synthetic Fish” is not a fishing book, rather it’s the chronology of the foibles, accidents, egos, and planned strategies that resulted in the Rainbow being the trout of choice for the Americas. It’s a surprisingly good yarn written deftly by Anders Halvorsen, (Yale, Ph.D Ecology), who has gathered together the milestones, personalities, and the ramifications of wadding an increasingly foreign species into every body of water conceivable.

One simple question sealed the fate of trout fishing the world over…

An eastern fellow steps off the stage in San Francisco, straightens his bowler and says, “where’s the salmon at?” – and via the miracle of a desolate stretch of the McCloud and assisted by the transcontinental railroad, the McCloud River Rainbow became the savior of the east coast and the known world.

… at the expense of everything that was living there already.

It was nip and tuck which would inherit, fish cultivation was in its infancy, with most of the eastern fish hatcheries owned by hobbyists or were for-profit, merely raising the Eastern Brook Trout for later sale at market.

The Good Old Days weren’t … and the East Coast was faced with increased pollution as a result of a burgeoning population. Many of the eastern watersheds died horribly, with the Atlantic Salmon the first to go. In an effort to restore their numbers an embassy was sent to the west coast to bring salmon back to raise and release in eastern rivers.

The McCloud river obliged them and the hatchery created there sent Pacific Salmon eggs packed in moss, whose fry were dutifully released – never to be heard from again. The salmon transplant may have been an abject failure, but the feisty nature of the McCloud River Rainbow was duly noticed.

The author warns us about our continued reliance on the planting of a single species, and how desirable characteristics of the Rainbow, its ability to thrive in warmer water, and willingness to eat artificials, set the stage for massive fisheries collapse when they’re exposed to an invasive or even domestic pest.

Like Whirling Disease – which the Eastern Brook and Brown trout can survive – but decimates the Rainbow trout as it’s especially vulnerable. The narrative of how Colorado infected 13 of its 15 watersheds by accidentally, then intentionally, planting Whirling Disease infected Rainbow trout being moot evidence.

“It was not until 2003, in the face of overwhelming evidence, and after spending well over $10 million to decontaminate only some of its facilities, that Colorado finally stopped stocking fish from hatcheries infected by the M. cerebalis parasite. By that time, though, it was too late. The disease had established itself in the wild, and the department’s policy of stocking diseased fish , Nehring later declared, was the primary cause.”

Whirling disease has been a hot topic of late, troublesome because of the thirty year lifespan of spores in stream sediment, and one of the Big Three invasives that conservation organizations have blamed on us anglers.

Trout planting and quality watershed are synonymous in hatchery circles, and the introduction of invasives as well as hatchery trout have had a profound effect in many states, not just Montana and Colorado. The story of hatchery induced plague is one of many ignored by the conservation literature, as was Colorado’s solution; adopting the “Hofer” strain Rainbow for production, a rainbow trout developed in Germany that is entirely proof against Whirling Disease.

In contrast, Montana fisheries were handled differently. The introduction of rainbows destroyed the indigenous populations of trout, and when Whirling disease followed on the Madison they ceased trout plants entirely, allowing the Brown trout to encroach on the much reduced and ailing population of rainbows, and waiting out the collapse with an eye towards Mother Nature. Which obliged them with a whirling disease resistant strain of Madison River rainbow trout that developed on its own.

… as it had in other states, and with as much mystery.

“But when I asked Vincent what Montana planned to do about the disease and specifically whether there were any plans to introduce resistant fish, as Colorado had done, he demurred. ‘I’m a little reluctant to just start whaling around out there, personally,’ he admitted. “’I’m somewhat leery  that it may backfire on us.’ “

It’s as much a tale of the men behind the fish as it is of the fish itself, which allows the book to be part narrative, part science, part history, and an engaging and fun read, especially the sections on WWII bomber pilots and the first attempts at aerial stocking.

But I’ll leave all the really tasty tidbits for you to learn, like how the Rainbow trout is intertwined with the Charge of the Light Brigade and how it was the popular choice to restore America’s flagging manhood.

“Put and Take” still weighs heavy in the mind of Fish and Game officials and most states manage their fisheries to suit the need of the casual angler:

“Take, for example , a sunny Sunday morning in May. Mr. Los Angeles looks out of his window and for no good reason at all discovers that there has been a cloudburst  on the desert the night before and there is water in the Los Angeles River. By 9:30 o’clock, 20,000 telephone calls have come to the Fish and Game Commission to come out and plant some fish because there is water in the Los Angeles River. Since we have one of the most efficient departments in the country, by 10 o’clock a truckload has started out. We carry a siren on the trucks, by which , at the end of planting, we let everybody know that the planting has been accomplished. By 11 o’clock the fish are caught out of the stream, and at noon the river has dried up again!”

It marks the current state of fisheries management whose early beginnings were about establishing viable colonies of fish, and have degenerated to emphasize “catchables.”

… and we love ‘em, or so the government thinks.

“Every dollar spent growing and stocking Rainbow trout resulted in thirty-two dollars of economic activity through everything from worm sales to airplane fees.”

Success and failure in fisheries management is tied to many of the unique tenets we’ve always associated with fly fishing. While eager to claim our efforts as a causal agent, many of the unique regulations stem from failures in management, and how we capitalized on some inadvertent or timely trauma. A watershed whose fish collapse due to disease makes a reduced bag limit feasible, and sick fish are undesirable as table fare, and can be caught and released without the drama of declaring a river so by regulation.

I found the book alternately encouraging and fraught with despair. It’s plain we’ve learned nothing in a couple hundred years regarding tinkering with native species and the “put and take” notion of modern fisheries management – but it’s also encouraging that we’ve faced these same problems many times – and despite the state of our modern fisheries and their continued decline, a body of work remains that may assist us in pulling some back from the brink.

Full Disclosure: I purchased this book from Amazon.com for its suggested retail price ($17.16)

Tags: An Entirely Synthetic Fish, rainbow trout, McCloud river rainbow, whirling disease, brown trout, hofer rainbow, Atlantic salmon, McCloud river, pacific salmon, Anders Halvorsen