With all the genes being sprayed at the tasty fish we should’ve known eventually we might get something other than a soft docile lump, content with pellet feed and milling aimlessly within its concrete lined habitat.
All the gnashing of teeth and mention of asterisks will be done away with … and by them that protested the most. Mother Nature’s version of the Brown, Rainbow, or Brookie won’t be able to compete – and we’ll be writing congressmen insisting our stream should be the next stocked.
Ten years of research has conceived the genetically super strain of Rainbow Trout, complete with six pack abdominals, broad shoulders, and capable of peeling 400 yards of backing in a single run, adores mayflies, and can chew through dams and fallen logs.
According to Bradley, the number of muscle fibers in mammals is limited after birth, but in fish, muscle fiber numbers increase throughout their lifespan. Since inhibition of myostatin increases the numbers of muscle fibers, it had been a mystery as to whether inhibiting myostatin would cause an increase in muscle growth in fish.
-via University of Rhode Island
The problem is us. Once ova are commercially available and the barest of research is complete, some land owner will insist on adding “Bonehead Rainbow” to the upper reaches of his property – or some big city charismatic with visions of dollar signs will lease some drainage ditch and start selling memberships.
What fisherman could resist? Plentiful and enormous, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound, and a known weakness for Peacock herl.
Twice the musculature as the normal fish and a viable breeding population that’ll shoulder the hatchery fish aside while racing up the Mississippi to eat all them scaredy-cat Asian Carp, then clean the beaches of small children, wino’s, and miniature poodles …
… while we clap and shout encouragement.
It’s in our nature. We’re practitioners of a classic blood sport, callous to pain and disfigurement, willing to complain loudly when something tastes bad or smells poorly, but in this we cannot be trusted.
Didymo looks like Goat puke, but if we could smoke it – or it had some form of innate beauty, I doubt we’d wrinkle a brow over its invasive qualities. Big muscular salmonids are what we’ve dreamed about for the last couple hundred years – and we’ll be complaining with great fervor should someone take exception to their spread.
License sales will soar, tackle will be obsolesced overnight, vendors will be ecstatic, and the rarified experiences of the pricey remote lodges will be available to the newly frugal.
Trophy lakes with named fish will lead the way, IGFA officials will be in a tizzy – and the former purists will find themselves alone with a dusty rack of salmon eggs, while the rest of us troll T-bones and wonder which of our neighbors is worthy of a ripped, muscle-bound fish whose delicate flavor is reminiscent of Tang mixed with stale bread.
Having posted on this subject two years ago, the only surprise is they’re here already.
Tags: genetically superior trout, superstrain, IGFA, Peacock herl, Bonehead Rainbow, Donny Beaver, goat puke, salmonids, genetic engineering, rainbow trout
Patronizing my local fly shop has never been a issue. Guys like me always look for the rack of shopping carts when we enter – despite already owning everything.
Small shards of humor are intruding into flu enforced idleness – sure signs of a return to sparkling good health. 
Rifle poses and the one-handed grip featuring a 22” fish whose spleen is annealed to it’s spinal column predominate. Naturally they were dropped two or three times before the fetching colors shown perfectly.
DNA testing proves the fur used was one of the many predatory cats that roamed the area, perhaps a lucky kill considering the flint spear points and unsophisticated hunting gear consistent with that era.
The evidence has always been there – but most of us lack the proper venue to espouse sinister conspiracy theories. I’ve been lax on this front for many months, but even the halls of respectable Science are suggesting we may have visitors …
Her icy gaze punctuated by the bony digit pointed in my direction …
Me, thinking I was a Ninja Master was part of my undoing. The rest was the horrifying discovery that sink strainers contain Polyester.
You’ve watched them gash bosom and plea with club personnel at every meeting. Each plaintive cry falling on deaf ears – and then some poor SOB that’s not there nominated to be the “Youth Coordinator.”
Most of us anglers are oblivious to what goes on in all those streambed nooks and crannies. We’re content so long as it emerges at dusk and exists in enough numbers to keep fish fat and healthy.