Starting to question catch and release are we helping or hurting? Thinning the stock and de-stressing the limited resources may actually help grow larger fish. With around ninety fish per acre, thats about 100 per mile if you believe the data is anywhere correct and I don't think they are even close. Thats a pitiful number of fish compared to other places around the country that I fished. 1500 per mile up in south west Wisconsin between Black Earth creek and Mt. Vernon creek two of the best I ever fished in. So why are the totals so low? No one knows and it seems that no one is interested in figuring out the why's and how's.
My take is this, too little cover, river depth is too low to support, flow is being strangled by the dams, no vegetation, too much algae, too much silt, my list can go on. When I was a kid the DEC stocking list had Brook, Brown and Rainbows in much larger quantities. Less stress from septic systems fewer houses, runoff without chemicals from lawns, no fish ladder bring predators from the sea. When I first fished this river 25 or 30 years ago, I always caught nice size fish now 12 incher is a bragger.
Time for a trip up to my other home waters in the Adirondacks and catch some fish hopefully the same silliness about return on investment does come up again. Maybe a couple of brook trout in the frying pan will do me some good.
