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Old 06-27-2012, 11:00 AM
baetis baetis is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2011
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Default Re: 110 Rainbow trout in one night:

When I was a kid we were on a family vacation up in N.H. We stopped at a hatchery that had a spring fed pond that you could fish. Since we were staying in hotels we didn't really want to keep the fish as there was no place to cook them, etc.

We told the guy at the hatchery that we were happy to pay for the fish, but would like to release them. He said they would die if caught. I expressed some disbelief so he said, when you catch a fish immediately put it in a bucket and release the fish into a hatchery pen that was holding 100's of healthy trout.

I ended up catching three small rainbows. Nothing over 12". All lip hooked and nothing played to exhaustion. After each catch I quickly placed them in a bucket with water and released it into the pen. Each fish seemed robust and swam off quickly.

Within a half hour of release each rainbow went belly up even though it was in a well oxygenated, cold spring water area. The fish were netted up, we paid for them and gave them to another guy fishing.

Long story short - if you are fishing for trout in the summer in anything except the coldest water possible plan on keeping the fish because they will die.
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