In my last post I talked about going to a wild stream. I thought I had caught my first NC brook trout. Come to find out these fish were most likely stocked fish that had moved up a tributary. My friend and I started to have the discussion about when is a fish defined as wild? We both have the opinion that if a fish lives in a certain stream at some point it is a wild fish. It has learned the survival skills to live in its environment. There is a lot of controversy in North Carolina over this term "wild". Some people classify native fish as wild where others hate this term. They like to call stream born fish native and fish that have moved into a water system and survived wild.
That throws in a new factor. If a fish moves into a territory then has offspring are those fry now native? You can see how this can get complicated and to make matters worse even biologists have a hard time finding out exactly which fish are native anymore. I wonder if a new classification will be determined soon. Fish that haven't been found in certain areas are discovered all the time. Recently I participated in a brook trout survey where we found smallmouth high up in a mtn stream. As neat as it was to find them this is bad news for trout. Smallmouth can easily become the dominant predator in a small trout stream. Are we kidding ourselves by trying to catch a fish that is truly native? I'd like to hear others opinions about this and when is a fish considered wild?
Missouri has no Native Trout so that parts easy.But to me Native is the fish was here or could have been before the people. Wild are fish that naturally reproduce in a stream once stocked but no additional stocking occurs and they continue to thrive. There are a few streams that I concided the Rainbows to be wild. I'm sure my theory has plenty of holes in it but so be it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kevin regarding the differences between native/wild fish. I was taught that if Indians caught the same fish as me & there has been NO stocking EVER,then they are true native fish. Wild.... open for debate.
ReplyDeleteMost of my trout fishing happened in Missouri and northern Arkansas. Like mentioned above all Missouri's trout at some point came from a hatchery. When fishing there I considered a fish "wild" when it had been in the river long enough to change from "hatchery silver" to having it's full colors. To me that says it has had a natural diet for an extended amount of time and it has become wily enough to survive on it's own,it is now become a "wild" fish.
ReplyDeleteNow I live and fish in Arizona where there are two "native" trout (Apache and Gila) and they mainly stock rainbows. (Apache and Gila are stocked as well but nowhere near as many as rainbows) To confound things browns were stocked here at one time but they stopped stocking them over 20 years ago. (there are supposed to be cutthroats and brooks in AZ rivers too but I have never caught either) Though they are not naturally from Arizona I consider any brown I catch not only to be a "wild" trout but also a to be a native one. I figure unless you catch a brown that is over 20 years old it was born in the wild so I consider it to now be a native of AZ. My daughter was born in AZ and she would be considered a native of AZ, why wouldn't a fish born here be native? Oddly enough if I think of Gila and Apache a little differently. If I catch a Gila or Apache that is still "hatchery silver" I still consider it wild even though I know it came out of a hatchery. I guess since I catch them so rarely that I think of them as special so they get the "wild " tag from me too.
I agree with Kevin as well. Native are the fish that were here when man arrived and wild represents fish that naturally reproduce without the help of stocking. But obviously this will probably always be a matter of opinion depending on who you talk to.
ReplyDeleteThe thought of referring to them as "ferals" has crossed my mind a time or two haha
ReplyDeleteI always considered any stream born fish to be "wild", but the native question is harder for me to figure out. From what I understand from reading about them, Southern Appalachian strain brook trout are our only "native" fish in the sense of being here without ever having been stocked. I figure that most of the trout I catch in our wild streams have been there enough generations that they could be considered natives of our state too, but it is a tough question for me to try to figure out a definate answer to. For me, if they were born in the stream, I call them "wild".
ReplyDeleteMy definition is perhaps too simple. If it is original to a water pre history it is then native. If it is from an attempt to reintroduce such a fish and does not reproduce is a failed attempt and the fish is stocked. It may hold over but is neither wild nor native. I regard wild fish as a any fish that does reproduce. If as in a still water environment with tough large fish that can live a normal life in length it may have wild characteristics but it is simply a holdover. I'm speaking of fish, not people. Political realities demand labels such as native, immigrant, refugee, and naturalized, among others. So to me wild means a fish that reproduces and native means a fish there pre contact. I stand by this as others do their definitions.
ReplyDeleteGregg
Wild means that fish was born into its habitat. Native (southern stran brook) or Speckeled trout as the native mountain folk (myself included) call them were in fact born in there water, and have never been stocked.
ReplyDeleteThe issues are few, but you must understand a northern stran brook, like you caught can reproduce in the wild and its offspring look identical to southern stran brook trout.
Want to catch a native trout, head to the mountains, find a creek you can step accross at 2500 feet in elevation or higher and throw a modest dry fly softly onto the surface as close to white water as you can. With any luck you will have that native fish in the air in short order.