Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Angler opposes eating small trout
A recent column about anglers needing to remove small brown trout from the Little Red River prompted a phone call from a young fly fisherman that strongly objects to killing a brown trout for any reason.
It was an amiable conversation that followed a reliable pattern defined by several predictable themes.
First, the angler disputed the authenticity of the Game and Fish Commission’s data. A primary tactic in any debate is to discredit an opponent. He complained that the Game and Fish Commission conducts its electroshocking activities in the Little Red River at a time when he believes that fish are artificially concentrated in numbers that do not exist at other times.
A counter argument would be that thorough estimate of a fishery’s size and age structure seems to require sampling precisely at a time when fish densities are highest in a sampling area. Logically, the sample should accurately represent the structure of the fishery at large.
My caller said that encouraging anglers to harvest brown trout on the Little Red River will lead to over-harvest and will ultimately damage the fishery.
Currently, anglers may keep as many as five brown trout on the Little Red River. Only one may be longer than 16 inches. Anglers are aware of the liberal creel limit, but they obviously do not keep as many brown trout as they could, and they certainly keep far more rainbow trout.
Ben Batten, chief of the Game and Fish Commission’s fisheries division, says that releasing 14- to 16-inch brown trout is detrimental to a sustained trophy brown trout fishery because too many small fish competing for a limited food supply reduces the percentage of fish that exceed 16 inches.
Batten said that anglers will have to remove a lot of brown trout to produce the desired effect of growing more brown trout larger than 16 inches. That will not be easy to accomplish because brown trout are harder to catch than rainbow trout. The Game and Fish Commission does not stock brown trout in the Little Red River. They hatch wild and live wild. The Game and Fish Commission stocks rainbow trout, which more readily take a larger number of baits and lures.
My caller said that 14to 16-inch brown trout are over-represented because anglers keep a disproportionate number of brown trout larger than 16 inches. He said that the overabundance of small browns is not the result of too little food, but the result of anglers removing too many big trout.
Riverside homeowners have the biggest impact, he added, because they keep every big trout they catch, even if it’s over the limit. It’s too easy to eat the evidence, give away the evidence or put it in the freezer.
Every hunter and angler believes a potential rival is a scofflaw. That’s a big reason why we don’t have a fall turkey hunting season anymore. There is no way to verify such a statement. A counter argument would be that because 14- to 16-inch brown trout are more abundant, it is more likely that riverside homeowners, if they even catch many brown trout, keep a higher percentage of fish in that class.
My caller is a highly skilled and highly accomplished fly fisherman who catches and releases some mighty impressive trout, including rainbow trout of sizes that I didn’t believe exist on the Little Red until he shared photos.
A great many fisheries biologists are skilled anglers, but very few anglers are fisheries biologists. Knowing the hiding places of every giant trout in John’s Pocket and Richey Shoals does not make an angler an expert on the entire fishery, let alone the full scope of the fisheries in John’s Pocket and Richey Shoals.
My caller said that siltation is the reason for what he believes is a deteriorating trout fishery in the Little Red River. There is no question that there are excessive silt deposits at key places in the Little Red, notably at Mossy Shoal, and from Mossy Shoal to Libby Shoals.
Unfortunately, siltation is beyond the Game and Fish Commission’s influence. It manages the fish in the Little Red River, but it has no influence over or authority over the physical waterway.
With the Bull Shoals and Norfork tailwater as examples, if the Game and Fish Commission were to propose a minimum flow agreement to the Corps of Engineers for the Little Red River, it would take a minimum of 20 years to enact it.
Flowage modifications might improve the trout habitat, but they would not alter the size structure of brown trout in the river.