110 Rainbow trout in one night:

[Polelock]

Please also note that the double anchor, capt ed, hunterdon anglers, or roundvalleyfishing.com,,, are NOT affiliated with the Round Valley Trout Association (RVTA) or its website www.fishrvta.com

[baetis]

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.

[Lard Almighty]

There is lots of interesting information about hooking mortality in this thread, both scientific and anecdotal. It all has certainly made me consider the way I fish for trout. I am about 95 percent C&R on all trout no matter where I catch them, but now I have to wonder if I'm doing more harm than good by letting these fish go. Maybe keeping a limit and calling it a day is a better policy after all? There are lots of factors I have to consider in this situation, mainly:

1) Can the stream/lake support trout year-round?
2) Am I using lures that enable quick releases with minimal handling?
3) Am I using tackle that allows me to land trout quickly and with minimal physical stress?
4) Are current water temperatures within the trout's "comfort zone" throughout the water column?

It seems to me that if the answer to any of the above is "No," then it would probably be better to keep any caught trout than letting them go (however, I certainly would get sick of eating the dozens of trout I typically land in the spring). It appears that the best way to keep trout alive is to limit fishing for them to times of year or water conditions that would allow for low mortality after hooking. Getting back to the subject of this thread, playing rainbows to exhaustion on light tackle through 75-degree surface temperatures is certainly not conducive to C&R.

[AndyS]

Fishermen ought to stop and think before they believe that rainbows caught and released at night are dying in droves. that's total b.s. by jealous guys who either don't like who's catching them, don't know how to carefully release trout or simply lack knowledge.
Very few guys are good enough to catch big numbers of rainbows at night, but even all the rainbows caught and released at night in a couple of summer months is only a small fraction of round valley reservoir trout caught when you consider all the lakers brought up from deeper, colder water than the night 'bows, dragged behind a boat by trollers up into 80-degree surface water and released almost every day in june July and August.
How could lakers survive their rough treatment on the way up from very cold water when the daytime air temps get into the 80s and 90s and surface water gets to be 75-80 degrees while only rainbows caught at night from warmer water not as deep die at night?
More people catch more numbers of lakers more often almost every day than ever even hook rainbows at night. if you think warm surface water or whatever kills only rainbows and not lakers, get real. there are far more daytime trollers catching trout than anglers fishing for rainbows at night.

[bigfishy]

Originally Posted by Wilson

The report was posted on http://roundvalleyfishing.com/2012/0...double-anchor/ That's not bashing, it's reality.
They should take the post down. And from what I have read on this thread, the Hunterdon Anglers Club are the ones that need to be educated

Everyone needs education at many times in their fishing and internet posting careers....If the subject was never posted HERE , millions of ppl would be un-aware that you can get that many in one night...In turn there would be less attraction to this night time rainbow phenomenon that has gotten TOO much attention for TOO long...Its only a matter of time for the fisherie to be DOOMED...Bottom line is , be mindful of the the fact that we live in NJ, THE most densly populated state in the country...and this site while great has hundreds and hundreds of non member eyes reading things on a daily basis.....just my 2 sense

[AndyS]

FASTEDDIE once told me, I'll give you ever spot I know.

You still have to go there and catch them yourself.

If you don't know about rainbow trout night fishing at Round Valley I think you must be living under a rock. Some nights I fished 35 ft of water and got Rock Bass all night long, the next time out I fished in 45 ft. of water and caught Rainbow Trout all night long, just 10 ft difference, so if you think you can just go up there drop anchor and catch 50 or 60 trout in a night think again.

Conditions, timing, wind, location, water temp, bait are all factors, it's still fishing.

[bigfishy]

Understood.....Spot sharing amongst friends is one thing....Spot and report sharing with the world wide web is another....Free country, so do ur thang

[Michael82929]

Originally Posted by AndyS

FASTEDDIE once told me, I'll give you ever spot I know.

You still have to go there and catch them yourself.

If you don't know about rainbow trout night fishing at Round Valley I think you must be living under a rock. Some nights I fished 35 ft of water and got Rock Bass all night long, the next time out I fished in 45 ft. of water and caught Rainbow Trout all night long, just 10 ft difference, so if you think you can just go up there drop anchor and catch 50 or 60 trout in a night think again.

Conditions, timing, wind, location, water temp, bait are all factors, it's still fishing.

Can someone get a nice pillow to go with my rock please... I have never fished the waters in them parts.. learn something new every day...

[thefishermanmechanic]

After catching hundred's of trout in my lifetime and releasing most undersized fish I found that they are indeed fragile and die easly! But the part that i read that disturbs me the most is the chumming with corn? These Guys are A HOLES! trout especially small trout dont digest corn and usually die from it!

[AndyS]

There was a problem with people chumming cow corn and we hope they have stopped. I don't chum at all and I do just fine.

And as far as Spot Burning.......C'mon, it's Round Valley.