How Far Will Stocked Fish Travel?

stocked trout will travel right up until they get eaten by a bigger fish, usually a Bass!
Stocked fish are inferior. They are raised in a pen with a cover to keep them safe from predators, therefore they have no "learned response" to an osprey overhead or a larger fish approaching!

I often follow the trout stocking truck to score on a Bass feeding frendzy!

 

It depends on how far the ride back to camp or home is. :wink:

 

The river that my camp sits next to has a great native brooktrout population. I know that they stock brookies upstream every year. I've even caught trout with clipped fins as far as 10 miles from the stocking location. Always in the same hole, and never below that set of rapids. I know that they don't get stocked there because I just don't see a stocking truck making the 10 mile drive down the logging road and 1/2 mile walk through the woods to dump them there. Maine boasts a much higher success rate of stocked fish survival than other states, saying that the fish reproduce and can survive several years after stocking. In Mass they stock a lot of fish but just for example there is no size or bag limit on fish while ice-fishing. It seems that they expect these fish to be caught out and it happens pretty quick. I've tried one of these freshly stocked fish and needless to say I don't keep them any more. If I wanted to eat liver pellets I'd buy them.

 

Tom, I do have some ideas on that...

Dump search and rescue! Let the State Police go find the stupid people who wander off. State Police have the general fund to tap into and MOST of the folks who get lost in Maine are not paying into the IF&W system. Why should paying sportsman pay to find an idiot that says "Dude, I'm lost somewhere in Baxter!"

Turn Maine's stocking program over to private businesses. Maine did a study a few years back and found that private business can produce twice the fish, ( and larger fish) at 1/4 the cost. Then make trout fishing catch & release only for two years. After that, have a one fish per day limit until it is proven that the fishery can handle the take. It works for bass fishing!

I can go on but I might tweak someone!!!

 

MJ
I think you might have some pretty upset fisherman if you were to make trout fishing catch and release only. It works for bass because most guys don't eat bass anyway. Sad to say but Maine is one of the few places where you can actually have a fairly liberal bag limit. I know if I had to go two years without a good fish fry I'd get pretty upset.

 

Steve, I am afraid you are part of the majority. That's OK though, when you have to fish for pike and bass because you have eaten all the trout, you understand.

A guy once told me a long time ago, "If you change nothing, nothing will change."
I think Carlton Sheets is now using that line, but it's still true.

Used to be a time where you could keep 10 brook trout per day in Maine. That's 70 fish per week, times 20 weeks (legal season).... That's 1400 brook trout per season, PER PERSON/LICENSE!
How many fishing licenses were sold in, ...1986? Let's use 25,000 for kicks. that's 35, 000,000 brokk trout that could legally be caught in one season.

Think about it while you snack on brookies!
Just ask the guides on grand lake stream why they have to drive they're bass clients down to Lincoln to get them on fish??? Too many "shore lunches"

 

MJ
I fully understand what you are saying, but in my own defense I'm not fishing "popular" places, these are small brooks and parts of a river that you need a 4x4 to get into with a decent hike through the woods. I'm a fly fisherman and although I wish I could fish 7 days a week, I'm usually limited to 10-12 days of spring trout fishing. I do have to say that most every trip I'll keep 2, 12-14" brookies for supper. Most of the Belgrade Lakes (in your neck of the woods) are in trouble because of the idiots that introduced pike there in the first place. I suppose if imposed I would absolutely do my part if it meant recovering some of Maine's trout fisheries, but I still have to say that illegal stocking has caused more damage than restocking alone can solve. As you said earlier the pike and bass get a free meal every time the lunch truck dumps stocked fish into lakes.

 

Dang it, I just remembered all of the ugly cormerants and the purdy friggin LOONS everyone wants to save! Them guys got to eat 'round a hunard million trout per year!

Steve, I'm not blaming you, me or folks like us. It's the ones who keep 3 & 4" trout, and piles of them. If the fines went to $1000 PER FISH (short or over) and allowed the Warden Service a chance to catch the low-life thieves, we might save the species!

I fish for brookies ONCE per year, dunkin worms, cause I like to. I think my buddy and I average 200 brookies Memorial weekend (3 days). Some are only 3" and some are 17". Don't even think of asking where, cause I'll take it to the grave! God I hate worms the rest of the year.