Scrubs,
My only issue with any management input on the Caney thus far, as I think a 20-24" slot to keep, protected 24-30" and one above that limit would be great on Caney...
...is that all the time...everywhere....us "meat hunters" get slammed for harvesting a fish every now and then, and get labeled therefore as mindless butchers of "rare" fish...by people that aren't even aware of how to consistently catch them. Most of them anyway...
...even worse, we're labeled as the anglers with the extended foreheads who pick fleas off each other's backs as we float down the river, but hey...I didn't see any drift boats out fishing under the 22K cfs conditions, or even under the two. You may not like us, you may not care to do it yourself, but you gotta give us credit...we put in time, and we try our best to learn, and occasionally we bear pretty good fruit...at least for the little over a year and a half we've actually hit the river pretty hard [actually, that's about 7 months for me personally...I was gone to the continental fallis for a few months]. Instead of being valued as a regular reported of river conditions under a variety of conditions, and offering up some pretty valid and valuable creel information, we just get slammed. We're not the best, but hey we're out there. Kinda gets old...but whatever.
...anyways, the claims don't add up. I hear that harvest has increased as well as pressure towards larger fish, but after being gone a year and not really gaining any ground on the fishery in knowledge, I come back catching more and bigger fish than ever. Hmmmm...so apparently, harvest doesn't destroy a fishery stocked with 40,000 browns a year. And frankly, I think a good portion of those fish reach the adult size. Just because you ain't seein' them, doesn't mean they aren't there. Big trout don't live in the runs, Scrubs. They live in the holes. Just because you pop a few nice bass or muskies up on the weedbed, that doesn't mean you're aware of the school of them waiting off the first or secondary breakline [yes you heard right, muskies live in schools]
Comparing an open ocean pelagic species with literally billions of square miles and thousands of feet in depth to roam and chase baitfish and hide from lines and hooks in numbers, compared to a river with a maximum depth of maybe...MAAAAAAYBE 20 feet...only 26 miles long, and stocked with over 120,000 trout a year...I'd say taking the volume of water in question between the two, that the trout are much more highly condensed in population than the tuna. Ergo, more easily targeted I suppose, but only so many people can fish a river. It's like saying there's more mosquitoes in a swamp in Florida than there are penguins in the arctic exhibit at Sea World, and that somehow being profound in nature.
...let's be frank, Scrubs. Most of the guys who act like a 20" brown is some "diamon d in the rough" and miracle story of survival, when the limit protects them to 18"...really doesn't know much about trout fishing. At all. 20" browns are morons...with about as much reserve as a horomonal teenager chasing after a jerkbait like the first girl in class to bump up to a B cup. Ya gotta put a little pivot in those hips, but they come runnin'. A little bigger and they get more settled....
...then there's the ones like shore hooked into today....
...that thing could've mugged a full grown rockfish.
...so I couldn't help but read the synopsis for the TU Brooktrout plate at Happy Hollow...which I sincerely mean when I say looks superb and would like to purchase one myself..of course I'd like to paint a little circle hook through his nose and X's over his eyes his eyes [KIDDING...kidding...], but the proceeds are still good...it is a great thing, and a very attractive piece of artwork. But in the prose so eloquently written [again, not actually being a sarcastic jerk], it states in one sentence how the appalachian brook trout is a symbol of American determination, dedication, and perseverance...or some general idea of that phrase. Then in the next sentence, how...apparently a testament to the aforementioned ideals represented...it has been reduced to a mere 9% of its former natural habitat. Even though that is tragic and utterly ridiculous, and I think the little guys are cool for holdin' out so long and need to be protected...isn't that kinda like putting a thylacine on the Australian flag, or a passenger pigeon on our own? Food for thought...
I'd like to add in parenthetical that this entire post was made at 1 am after enjoying a bit of leftover Wild Turkey Honey Bourbon...
...hey it helps with the cough...
