Can't be any worse than a stocked brown or rainbow.
Cant be any better either. You and me ain`t gonna agree on any of this, because you want to change the environment and bring in invasives. I don`t.
Can't be any worse than a stocked brown or rainbow.
If the state of Georgia stocks non native rainbows and browns all over the place, how are cutthroats any worse?
Do you have a problem with Georgia stocking non native rainbow and brown trout?
.
If they had never stocked browns and rainbows, there would be a lot more native trout in GA, NC, SC, and TN now. And I like to catch browns and rainbows. They have devastated the native speckled brook trout, though. Some areas of VA have regulations where all rainbows and browns caught must be killed. They are maintaining a good population of native brook trout. I think the southern Appalachians would be swarming with 10"-16" native speckled trout right now if there were no browns or rainbows after the forests have grown back from the industrial logging from the turn of the last century. Some places like the Hooch tailwaters, browns and rainbows are probably a good thing, because the water is too cold now to support native species.If they didn't stock browns and rainbows, they wouldn't be many trout caught in Georgia now would they.
If they didn't stock browns and rainbows, they wouldn't be many trout caught in Georgia now would they.
Interesting concept, but what impact will they have on the native fish?
I went to NC on vacation this past June. While there I was able to fish in a small private stream behind our rental and caught the trout pictured below. It was over 19" and my best to date. I assumed it was a brown but after showing a few people pictures it made me second guess.
Any ideas on what type this is?
Yup,
Hatchery trout are not a problem.
Reproducing wild fish impacting native fish? Thats another story.
I’d like to see cutthroat
I’ve never caught one
Put them in the Hooch
If they had never stocked browns and rainbows, there would be a lot more native trout in GA, NC, SC, and TN now. And I like to catch browns and rainbows. They have devastated the native speckled brook trout, though.
The truth is that in 2020 if they didn't stock, we wouldn't be catching trout in half the streams we catch them in now.
I agree in some cases, others, not. I think specks could live just fine in all the watersheds in the GSMNP now after a hundred years of forest regrowth, for example. Same on most National Forest land. Elevation has not nearly as much to do with it as water quality, which is definitely not related to elevation. A lot of the higher elevation streams are worse off than the lower elevation ones now, due to acid deposition.I somewhat agree but the elephant in the room here is the fact that the rainbow and brown have filled a void and thrived in streams where the native specks won't due to pollution. Native brooks aren't found in high elevation streams more so due to the fact that there aren't rainbows and browns, but because that is where water is free of pollution, rich in oxygen and cooler.
The truth is that in 2020 if they didn't stock, we wouldn't be catching trout in half the streams we catch them in now.
And around here, you can only catch them in about half the streams you could 25 years ago.
Elevation has not nearly as much to do with it as water quality, which is definitely not related to elevation. A lot of the higher elevation streams are worse off than the lower elevation ones now, due to acid deposition.
They used to live below 2000', in major waterways, and I still catch them pretty low in places. In a lot of areas in the GSMNP, they are moving back downstream. I catch specks miles lower in several places than I did back when I was a teenager, and catch them in some main stem streams now. In those cases, it's the rainbows and browns that are the main thing holding them down. If they thrive and swarm above a waterfall, but don't exist at all a hundred feet below the same waterfall where browns and rainbows live, that tells you something. A hundred feet upstream doesn't change the water quality, it just blocks the browns and rainbows that out-compete them.