Category Archives: science

The hoary spectre of precise imitation rattles its chains

They compare culinary notes...I’ll unleash a storm of precise imitation, a half dozen tell-all manuscripts, and turn both coasts of fly fishermen on their collective ear…

… and I’ve always wanted to do that, just once …

Having fished for American Shad for many years I’d always subscribed to the “attractor” theory; they smack flies out of spite/anger/curiosity but they didn’t feed in freshwater…

Conventional wisdom said, “Shad feed on krill and plankton in saltwater, but don’t feed while migrating…” This is “fishing wisdom” talking and after you get a similar response from the first nineteen fellows that know more than you – you stop asking.

A recent article in the American Fisheries Journal suggests Shad do feed in freshwater, but neither regularly or with much gusto..

(Extract follows – the article body is available only for purchase)

We evaluated the feeding habits of American shad Alosa sapidissima on spawning grounds in the St. Johns River, Florida. Feeding intensity in freshwater was generally low but highly variable. The items consumed were mainly pelagic (cyclopoid copepods and woody debris), although benthic (mollusks and sand) and surface (adult insects [Coleoptera, Hemiptera, and Odonata]) organisms occurred occasionally. The stomach fullness index varied by location for males, suggesting that ingestion is related to prey availability. Feeding by females also varied by location and continued during final oocyte maturation and active spawning. Egg cannibalism was suggested by the presence of some eggs morphologically similar to American shad eggs in the stomachs of males and females collected when females were running ripe. The results from diel sampling suggested that individuals consumed approximately 1.727 kJ/d in freshwater, which represents only a small fraction of the estimated daily energetic expenditure during the spawning run. Unlike iteroparous populations, Florida’s American shad probably do not conserve energy for out-migration. While this low incidence of freshwater feeding did not maintain fish weight, it may increase available energy and thereby increase fecundity.

Gives us something to think about. Shad don’t feed much and when they do eat mollusks, wood, shad roe, moths, damsel/dragonflies, and midges.

…which neatly explains why Shad are attracted to florescent flies with eye-watering vibrancy and dripping shiny … after completing a thousand mile journey to an exotic locale they’re sampling the local cuisine – same as we would.

shad roe Before you run out for eleven dozen egg flies of steelhead vintage, shad eggs are about a size 20.

Calf liver would be a close approximation to an egg sack – but the bait issue would send you mincing about gashing yourselves in mock horror – so I’d go for a couple packs of rubber dogshit and shape it with a paring knife…

… that shouldn’t offend them delicate sensibilities too terrible much.

It might be a Space Peanut, you never know what tumbles down a gray water cataract

The way it ought to be I remember many years ago reading how Salmon meat coloration was a by product of its diet, and I can’t help feel for the Ph.D in the art department tasked with turning discolored and mushy salmon fillets into vibrant orange flesh.

Scientists are jubilant over the nearly vegetarian (contains chicken) diet they’re shoveling at pen raised fish – but I’d prefer just leapfrogging the normal fare – ignoring the things we can make them eat, and feed them the “end game” of culinary science, which is human waste.

“Fish have an amazing capacity to adapt very quickly to a new taste,” Obach said in an interview. “Salmon eat what you give them.”

Forget all that “sustainability, superior product”, nonsense – all we want is whatever follows in our wake to not impinge on the stuff we like to eat. Chicken is pretty darn tasty – there’s no way I like Salmon enough to share, and Rapeseed may make the best Oatmeal cookie ever – until I sample it I can’t be sure.

I know the cash-strapped waste management districts would leap at the chance to show their “green” fervor; touting their massive fishery just outside of New York, Los Angeles, or large urban venue, replete with green lawns, families on picnic – and Poppa heaving yet another 20 pounder onto the bank for dinner…

I’d call it “Sani-World” or “Six Flags of Poilet Taper” – something that’ll jam the parking lots full of eager families and restore angling as a full on tradition.

Brownliner’s would be overjoyed – each sewage outlet home to thousands of gleaming Salmon – shouldering Carp aside to fight over sanitary napkins and medical waste. With only a manhole cover separating you from a trophy fishery, it would decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, perhaps increasing our dependence on Tums, but they’re sourced locally and little issue.

The real measure of fish quality is whether the Fillet O’ Fish sandwich holds its shape absent the bun, and while we cram deep fried Snickers and Ice Cream, we’re confident that fillet will be met with great anticipation and your kids bursting with important Omega-3’s and Estrogen.

A blend of urbane and outdoor architectures, with concrete abstract boulders, sweeping lawns, and overhanging Eucalyptus lining septic pools connected with gray water cataracts – featuring olden names like the Mill Pool, the Coachman, and the Tweed…

Waste matter recycled by each pool’s inhabitants, the grilse would be frolicking in clean water with only the insolubles to digest; peanuts, tubers, and plenty of raw fiber – just the kind of nutrition to imbue tone and musculature to flaccid flesh.

Squeamish?, practice Catch & Release – no one’s forcing you to eat the darn fish.

The next great freshwater gamefish, and we all get to play

At times the news seems insurmountable, searching through the Internet for fish related topics yields a flood of extinct, dying, and on-the-brink stories – interspersed with articles on how to cook what’s left.

Like most fishermen I don’t eat as much as I fish – but there’s times when I get the feeling I should eat more fish just to get my fair share of the condemned.

Instead let’s focus on what’s doing just fine, which fish are enjoying explosive growth and how advanced mathematics and supercomputers can assist you in gear selection, what flies to stock heavily, and what the future gamefish scene will look like…

The Range of the Next Great Freshwater Gamefish

Both Europe and North America are experiencing a “changing of the guard” where former indigenous species are giving ground to the Next Great Freshwater Gamefish.

The green triangles show known captures, brick red describes the areas with the highest chance of supporting a significant fishery (where they’re headed next), and as the colors fade to white – where we can expect a lesser presence.

It’s comforting to know Mother Nature will repopulate all those salmon and steelhead streams once we’ve finished cooking the last of the holdout fish. When the pristine gives ground, swarms of fish will replace trout – and the guides in Montana have little to fear, the entire Northwest is “brick red” and the Yellowstone drainage will continue as a trophy fishery long after “Old Faithful” is firing methane blanks…

Toss those silly five weights as you’ve no need of them. Watersheds that supported 14″ fish in quantity will be supporting as many fish in the 20 lb class – so start dusting off the seven’s and eight weights. Trout iron will straighten – so while you’re at it, stock up of #8’s, #6’s and above – and extra stout, in stainless and black nickel …

It’s gold – like the scarce and rarified Golden Trout, grows to enormous size like Taimen, and is a muscular brute in both fast water and slack, akin to the Mahseer – only much more plentiful and perfectly suited to most of the globe.

Behold the computer model of the spread of the next great freshwater gamefish, the Golden Bullet of the Weed Water, the Common Carp.

A little garlic and a dab of dill … but save room for the Grass Carp (the entire east coast), the Black Carp (the entire South), and our pal the Silver Carp … busy claiming whichever waterway it feels like.

… plenty for everyone, and the depth of color suggests they’re destined for naturalized citizenship, losing that silly invasive label once they outnumber everything else.

Hooks don’t rust like once thought, but there’s still a bronze lining

Rust is slower than once thought Nobody likes busting a fish off despite it being an annual Opening Day ritual. Hammy hands and adrenaline results in that sinking feeling where the knot can’t be blamed, the tippet was new, and only your Gorilla-like reflexes turned success into a shameful ruddy blush.

It’s the “Nine Trips a Year” syndrome, it’s been three or four months since your last combat, and the presence of your buddy only adds to the anxious heavy-handed hook set.

There’s good news for all of us, recent research has shown how Largemouth Bass once caught are more likely to be caught again, and from Australia research on 249 species and a quarter million anglers – claims that leaving a hook imbedded in fish gives you an 18% better chance of it taking a lure again.

… assuming it survives.

Hooks decompose much more slowly than once thought, and tests in saltwater on larger circle hooks suggest it may take 3 or 4 months to decompose to the point it loses integrity.

Our smaller freshwater hooks may take as long or longer, as freshwater contains little corrosive agents to assist the process.

My personal best was recovering three flies from the mouth of a 13″ rainbow on Hat Creek, it’d developed a yen for Copper John’s (2) and a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear.

Take it from someone who knows, anything tastes better’n mashed mayfly with a side of Elodea…

I’ll confess to being tempted to try a swallow

Considering the number of scientists working feverishly to combine the proper amount of glitter, motion, color, and scent, a 65% “eaten” rate isn’t bad. Unfortunately, tank-raised Brook Trout have the IQ of bar soap -which may skew the numbers a trifle, and adds a little urgency to the bulletin.

Gummy Lizard

Maine would prefer you not drop worms and grubs in the water any longer – and if possible, retrieve those that you do ..

Take a tank full of 14 year old humans and toss in a combination of Rice Crispies, Chex, Corn Flakes, and Raisin Bran, along with a shovel or two of Gummy Bears, and you’ll see “natural selection”, where the healthy crap is trodden under in a rush for sweet goo.

Given that soft plastic lures are the product of countless hours of painstaking research, materials from the Space Program, and millions of dollars of seed money from the likes of Rapala and Shakespeare, now that they appeal to all kinds of fish they want us to stop using them?

Thirty-eight brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis were fed a commercial trout diet mixed with a free-choice assortment of soft plastic lures (SPLs) over a 90-d period. Fish growth was recorded and compared with that of a control group. The brook trout readily ate the SPLs from the water’s surface as well as from the tank bottom. At the conclusion of the study, SPLs were recovered from the stomachs of 63% of the test fish. Several fish stomachs contained multiple lures. Twelve percent of the fish voluntarily ingested more than 10% of their body mass in SPLs. These fish lost a significant amount of weight during the study, had a significant decrease in body condition factor, and began displaying anorexic behaviors. For these reasons, anglers should be discouraged from discarding used SPLs in trout waters.

After a lifetime of careful testing, observation of trout feeding patterns and entomological behavior – I finally develop “King Solomon’s Mines” – the fly that catches a fish everytime it’s thrown. Whilst enjoying my new found stature (I haven’t paid for a drink in weeks), some bespectacled fellow in a white lab coat admonishes me for dropping them in the water?

Here’s a better solution; consider growing a Brook Trout that can distinguish between a dog turd and a tootsie roll, and eats one and not the other, then I’ll feel properly mortified.

A two hour movie is all that separates you from Lefty Kreh

Agent Smith knows Spey Casting Every guide has been there, a novice client attempting to learn fly casting while fishing, and for the want of practice no fish will grace the deck anytime soon.

The Matrix had the promise of knowledge at the touch of a button, but “wet-wiring” the cerebral cortex may take a couple more decades.

Until then we’ll have to rely on a two hour special on Spey casting and the Haptics jacket.

It shares the same tailor as those Startrek tee shirts circa Shatner & Nimoy, but science has never understood fashion – and once Simm’s or Eddie Bauer adds floor length leather and three layers of Goretex we’ll be cracking the piggy bank for sure..

The jacket contains 64 independently controlled actuators distributed across the arms and torso. The actuators are arrayed in 16 groups of four and linked along a serial bus; each group shares a microprocessor. The actuators draw so little current that the jacket could operate for an hour on its two AA batteries even if the system was continuously driving 20 of the motors simultaneously.

A couple of fish porn DVD’s with the wearer buffeted by tactile feedback and you’ll have the muscle memory of a casting professional. Add a 100 pound Tarpon thrust into your living room with a flick of the remote, and dispel cabin fever instantly.

As the entire human race is at stake, it’s certain why the jacket ends at the waistline.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Do we really want to split hairs on who’s greener

Play nice with the addicts 40 Rivers to Freedom posted a link outlining the toxic hazards of cigarette butts to fish and how researchers in San Diego want filter tipped cigarettes classified as toxic waste.

I hadn’t considered my use of foul smelling cheap cheroots as “green” – but now I’ll get to blow smoke rings and claim the moral high ground.

Everyone knows cigarette smokers are filthy creatures…

On the other hand, it begs the question “what kills whom the quickest,” as this might be self regulating. My perverse side insists that us disgusting, weed-burning, pre-cancerous litterbugs, mince about with little dog crapper bags – blushing while we stoop to capture the nasty…

Then I realize how that’ll play in the cheap seats, lending itself to more of the effete, snobbery label – which most of us despise.

For those stalwarts fishing the chemical backwater it’s essential equipment akin to wading staff or vest. A snap of the fingers and the coal of my toxic cheroot arches into the milky water ahead – if there’s no corresponding mushroom cloud or fireball – I know it’s safe to wade.

I am amused at the vitriol of even the tiniest of transgressions. Witness what transpires in a forgotten and filthy watershed, and after you’ve crapped in the creek and tossed your empty polyethylene water bottle to bob in my currents – do you really have the right to claim my cigarette butt is the root of all evil?

We’re so concerned about the symptoms – we’ve long since forgotten the problem.

SDSU Public Health Professor Tom Novotny and other members of the Cigarette Butt Advisory Group plan to recommend that filtered cigarette butts should have new requirements for disposal.

Nice. Now that you’ve settled the issue, why not focus on dead cars, leaking chemical drums, and the medical waste next to that flaccid ciggy?

… and we do so in full knowledge that it hurts

make a sea kitten winceIt’s a hotly debated topic among fish scientists, whether fish feel pain in the same manner as humans, despite differences in nervous systems and cognitive abilities.

Being a lay person, I’ve always been skeptical of the “cognitive” theory, which suggests fish cannot feel pain due to the lack of higher brain function. Knowing the efficiencies of Mother Nature, it seems unnecessary to build different versions of the same thing – when one pain mechanism would serve both plant and animal.

Simplistic to be sure, but recent research suggests that fish feel pain in the same fashion as we do.

“The experiment shows that fish do not only respond to painful stimuli with reflexes, but change their behavior also after the event,” Nordgreen said. “Together with what we know from experiments carried out by other groups, this indicates that the fish consciously perceive the test situation as painful and switch to behaviors indicative of having been through an aversive experience.”

Research on Rainbow Trout adds additional evidence the scientific community may soon reverse their belief that “pain” was merely a reflexive motion in fish – not a perceptive response.

The present study examined the acute effects of administering a noxious chemical to the lips of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) to assess what changes occurred in behaviour and physiology. There was no difference in swimming activity or use of cover when comparing the noxiously stimulated individuals with the controls. The noxiously treated individuals performed anomalous behaviours where they rocked on either pectoral fin from side to side and they also rubbed their lips into the gravel and against the sides of the tank. Opercular beat rate (gill or ventilation rate) increased almost double fold after the noxious treatment whereas the controls only showed a 30% increase. Administering morphine significantly reduced the pain-related behaviours and opercular beat rate and thus morphine appears to act as an analgesic in the rainbow trout. It is concluded that these pain-related behaviours are not simple reflexes and therefore there is the potential for pain perception in fish.

This is big news on the science front, but will be even bigger with PETA and the eco-fringe. Now that we can make “sea-kittens” cry, and knowingly maiming them for sport, we can expect another bevy of Hollywood actresses to disrobe for their defense.

Lucky us.

It won’t really change anything for us brutish fishermen unless they learn to yell. In the interim, we’ll do our best to quickly unhook the beast – and if it continues to flop around while we release it, we’ll mutter, “Man up, dammit.”

A tender release and the Darwinian refusal

After an exhaustive 20 year research effort scientists at the University of Illinois suggest that the vulnerability of being caught is an inheritable trait in Largemouth Bass.

You're showing poor form, but the guy on the far bank gets your point Science like this should stifle them yawns, as it bespeaks of vast changes in your angling habits.

Study anglers were allowed to fish only under a strict reservation system, with all fish logged and tagged over a four year interval. After draining the lake they divided the recovered fish into those that had never been caught and those that had been caught many times.

Isolating the two groups and breeding them over three generations increased the disparity, the “never been caught” group was now even harder to hook, and the vulnerable strain showed a slight increase in their already promiscuous catch rate.

For us bodycount-conscious anglers that suggests we want the catch and release ritual to be stress-free, ensuring the next generation of fish at our “secret spot” are doubly available.

It also suggests that modern vests should have a shoulder holster and special pockets for additional clips of large bore handgun ammo. Treating a caught fish with great tenderness requires us to be equally diligent in the converse, stomping the life out of anything that refuse our flies.

Note: Firing a high velocity round at a shallow angle – especially for “smutting” fish visible to the angler, will result in the far bank getting a fair amount of “skipping” ricochets. Be cognizant of your surroundings, line up both snooty fish and wading anglers – as “conservation minded” includes your ammo as well.

If the cops come don’t use any cheesy psycho lines, tell ’em Darwin told you to do it and they doubly-deserve to die.

These same researchers gave us the model for catch and release fishing, suggesting that the entire ritual take less than four minutes. Advice that Fly Fisherman’s cover-Wookie violated egregiously – as exposed by the ever vigilant Moldy Chum.

An interesting item in their research (on Bonefish) suggested that caught fish take four hours to recover from the ordeal, during that time they’re “woosy” and more susceptible to predators.

… that’s why I have my buddies fish through the hole first – they always think I’m being generous …

Carp worth more per pound than Beluga Caviar?

The science is flawless but the economy might have ramifications for their life expectancy…

A $30,000 pollution sniffing Carp is a miracle of modern robotics, like mine they’re likely to ignore flies, but with the hardship suffered by the global fishing community, what’s preventing a canny angler from upending a 55 gallon drum of fuel oil into the bay, and then running a drift net through its plume?

It's a Somali special UK scientists plan on releasing a half dozen of these finned sniffing machines into the murky waters of Gijon, Spain. If successful we could expect to see the devices deployed in both freshwater and salt.

Each robot fish is armed with autonomous navigation capabilities, allowing them to swim around the port without the need of human intervention. They also can return automatically to a charging station when their batteries run low after about eight hours of use.

Wi-Fi allows the offload of data collected and if your yacht is pumping its bilge at the wrong time, you could earn a visit by the local constabulary.

The movie shows an uncanny swimming motion, perhaps our next trophy venue will include robotic steelhead capable of snapping trees and hawser cable.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYvyiruWzYo[/youtube]

But before you clap with glee, you may want to watch Westworld a second time.