Post by smead on Sept 30, 2010 0:02:31 GMT -5
From In Fisherman...
Why I like this magazine...plenty of stuff on fishing and with a good bit on the conservation of the resource.
Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture
www.easternbrooktrout.org/
www.in-fisherman.com/content/state-squaretail/1
Why I like this magazine...plenty of stuff on fishing and with a good bit on the conservation of the resource.
Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture
www.easternbrooktrout.org/
Brook Trout Today
State of the Squaretail
Matt Straw
A brook trout blasted the little spoon as if it represented the last meal in the river. After taking pictures we worked the pool again, to no avail. A dejected pair of guides and my fishing companion fell into their respective tents, exhausted from paddling and fishing all day. I wasn’t tired, so I waded across the river and found a tributary. Walking along it, I peered down to see what looked like the edges of clam shells peeking out of a silty bottom. As I looked closer, the “shells” slowly materialized into the white trim of fins, attached to the largest brook trout I’ve ever seen.
“Almost no rivers have wild, viable populations of brook trout, only headwaters and small streams. The populations are fragmented and no longer in contact with one another,” according to Nathaniel Gillespie, a fishery scientist for Trout Unlimited and part of the EBTJV.
Though he’s referring to conditions faced in New England, the same thing happened in Michigan’s Muskegon River and throughout the native range of brook trout in the U.S. Brookies have been driven upstream, into the headwaters, by the need for cold, clear, highly oxygenated water. To preserve some of those fisheries, all we had to do, as farmers, landowners, taxpayers, and voters, was leave a few trees along the banks of the river, for shade, for food, and to hold the banks together.
“Water quality has been degraded in many watersheds,” Gillespie says. “Poorly managed agriculture, urbanization, invasive species, acid rain, abandoned mine drainage, and a host of other factors have left us with brook-trout populations that are now small and fragmented, which doesn’t bode well over the long term.”
Despite all that, Gillespie sees a light at the end of the tunnel. “I’m hopeful for brook trout, because there’s a lot of recognition across the board among state agencies for the need to protect native species. We need to increase funding to provide incentives for local land owners to manage nutrients, improve riparian habitat, and prevent erosion, which is a big problem in the Driftless Region (parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa), where land management has such a poor record, historically.
States throughout the East have developed brook-trout management plans for waters with degraded habitat and degraded water quality, and plans include reintroducing brook trout to restored habitat. Fairly large projects are underway in the Southeast to return brook trout to streams they haven’t inhabited for 100 years.”
State of the Squaretail
Matt Straw
A brook trout blasted the little spoon as if it represented the last meal in the river. After taking pictures we worked the pool again, to no avail. A dejected pair of guides and my fishing companion fell into their respective tents, exhausted from paddling and fishing all day. I wasn’t tired, so I waded across the river and found a tributary. Walking along it, I peered down to see what looked like the edges of clam shells peeking out of a silty bottom. As I looked closer, the “shells” slowly materialized into the white trim of fins, attached to the largest brook trout I’ve ever seen.
“Almost no rivers have wild, viable populations of brook trout, only headwaters and small streams. The populations are fragmented and no longer in contact with one another,” according to Nathaniel Gillespie, a fishery scientist for Trout Unlimited and part of the EBTJV.
Though he’s referring to conditions faced in New England, the same thing happened in Michigan’s Muskegon River and throughout the native range of brook trout in the U.S. Brookies have been driven upstream, into the headwaters, by the need for cold, clear, highly oxygenated water. To preserve some of those fisheries, all we had to do, as farmers, landowners, taxpayers, and voters, was leave a few trees along the banks of the river, for shade, for food, and to hold the banks together.
“Water quality has been degraded in many watersheds,” Gillespie says. “Poorly managed agriculture, urbanization, invasive species, acid rain, abandoned mine drainage, and a host of other factors have left us with brook-trout populations that are now small and fragmented, which doesn’t bode well over the long term.”
Despite all that, Gillespie sees a light at the end of the tunnel. “I’m hopeful for brook trout, because there’s a lot of recognition across the board among state agencies for the need to protect native species. We need to increase funding to provide incentives for local land owners to manage nutrients, improve riparian habitat, and prevent erosion, which is a big problem in the Driftless Region (parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa), where land management has such a poor record, historically.
States throughout the East have developed brook-trout management plans for waters with degraded habitat and degraded water quality, and plans include reintroducing brook trout to restored habitat. Fairly large projects are underway in the Southeast to return brook trout to streams they haven’t inhabited for 100 years.”
www.in-fisherman.com/content/state-squaretail/1
