Quote:
Originally Posted by dakota560
Chris my opinion is just that my opinion, it's not scientifically based. But my point remains that with so few fish stocked, keeping smaller slots when the fish being stocked are already 14"-15", I personally don't believe many fish will make it to 18" or above or for that matter survive the first year. That coupled with the fact there's no natural reproduction, not allowing harvest of the larger fish won't help reproduction one bit so larger fish will eventually die due to improper handling when caught or old age. Almost the opposite of what's happening with the fluke fishery which has a large biomass but the large female breeders which are the future of the fishery have been over harvested. In that scenario as I've said repeatedly on the salt water forum, a slot scenario makes perfect sense to protect the breeders. Just don't see that scenario helping when we're talking about ~2,500 fish being stocked a year between four impoundments.
As far as growth being stunted if a higher size limit was implemented, these are the statistics on alewife reproduction.
Spawning alewives present nutrients to freshwater ecosystems in the form of eggs, excreted materials and their dead and decaying bodies. Each female produces 60,000 to 467,000 eggs annually and may spawn up to seven or eight years in her lifetime.
I don't think alewife forage will come into play if the size limit is increased to 18" based on the number of fish stocked and the reproductive capacity of alewives in the four lakes involved coupled with the amount of alewives which already exist. Their reproductive capacity is significant. If we were talking about Round Valley or Merrill Creek, I'd agree with your recommendation but only because there's too many lakers, browns and rainbows in both relative to forage and it is impacting growth rates. Don't believe that would be the case in Aeroflex, Waywayanda or Tilcon which have significantly lower or no populations of trout. Plus lakers are eating machines which three of the four impoundments stocked with salmon don't have.
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i'm not really sure how to explain my point here, but i'll try...
people who are legally keeping fish are going to keep fish at whatever the legal size is. if that size is smaller, each fish taken out is less of a dent on the ecosystem (assuming the forage base can handle the amount of bigger fish) because of how it exponentially takes more food to get fish bigger, as they grow bigger.
so in other words killing an older fish is more wasteful if the goal is to build a 'big fish' fishery... every time a big fish is taken out of a lake, all the forage it has eaten is gone to 'waste' because now it can't spawn (laying more eggs than smaller fish and possibly passing better growth genes, etc.) again this only matters if the forage population in the lake can handle it.
as it stands now, with a smaller size limit, anglers who want to help build a 'big fish' fishery can keep smaller fish instead of bigger fish. these fish have not eaten as much forage yet and represent less of an impact on the ecosystem when kept. If these same anglers are hit with a higher size limit, most will still want to keep fish and now be keeping more bigger fish that have already impacted the ecosystem more.
bottom line is... no regulation is going to help grow a big fish fishery unless people make a personal conscious decision to return bigger sized fish to the water as often as possible. bigger fish are worth far more in the water than eaten, every single time. and that goes for anyone, whether you like to keep fish every time you go fishing or never keep fish; fresh or salt... the bigger fish are more valuable to everyone in the water.
btw i've seen about 6-7 salmon over 18" up to about 25-26" personally caught or lost at the hole in just the last 4-5 ice fishing trips, so trust me, there are a good amount getting to 'big fish' size...we just need to protect them at bigger sizes not at smaller sizes.
