flyfisherz
Active member
So I haven't had a chance to fly fish for a while since its winter and I'm at college, so I've been reflecting on a few of my catches from this past summer.
In one particular instance, I caught a nice 14-15 inch rainbow (almost certainly stocked) with nice girth and I couldn't get the fly out and it was bleeding from the gills a little so I thought about simply taking it (I'm almost always catch and release) but decided to leave it there. I went back a week later and caught it again (successfully released), so I know it survived the ordeal which is great, but recently I researched the percentage of stocked trout that survive winter, and it seems extremely low. Apparently it's quite likely the trout I caught died over winter.
I read an article on the PA fish commission website that said even for native fish, there is a mortality rate over winter of 30% to 65%. For stocked brown trout, the mortality rate was estimated at 80% but I've read other articles that state it may be 90-95% mortality. I'm sure species/stream size/harshness of winter affects these numbers right? What do you guys think? And would the surviving stocked trout reproduce? Could they survive for a few years?
Thanks for the thoughts!
In one particular instance, I caught a nice 14-15 inch rainbow (almost certainly stocked) with nice girth and I couldn't get the fly out and it was bleeding from the gills a little so I thought about simply taking it (I'm almost always catch and release) but decided to leave it there. I went back a week later and caught it again (successfully released), so I know it survived the ordeal which is great, but recently I researched the percentage of stocked trout that survive winter, and it seems extremely low. Apparently it's quite likely the trout I caught died over winter.
I read an article on the PA fish commission website that said even for native fish, there is a mortality rate over winter of 30% to 65%. For stocked brown trout, the mortality rate was estimated at 80% but I've read other articles that state it may be 90-95% mortality. I'm sure species/stream size/harshness of winter affects these numbers right? What do you guys think? And would the surviving stocked trout reproduce? Could they survive for a few years?
Thanks for the thoughts!