Hey Salty Troutbum - Re Housy report

[SlowNDeep]

Jim,

I was going to tack this on your post, but I didn't want to hijack your great report.

You got 10 fish yesterday? How many did Torrey get?

How long were you on the river?

Anyone out there doing creel surveys while you were out?

I'm curious, do they only do creel surveys on weekends in June or July when the water was up around 1500, or when they have an abundance of interns? I have participated in many creel surveys on the Farmington, but never on the Housatonic. It would be nice to see the river get state support, but it needs to be done at realistic times.

Anyone done surveys on when they do creel surveys?

Next time anyone observes the state biologists or their interns on the Housatonic, please report back with river conditions, and your own creel survey.

With natural flow, people will have to better fishermen. Sloppy wading, casting, and presentation, will not be tolerated. Remember, unlike Disneyland (the Farmington), these fish have an ABUNDANCE of real food, your fake food better look good.

[SlowNDeep]

So, If I'm fishing for four hours and I catch 8 fish, thats 2 fish per hour, right? If they ask 9 other guys how many fish they got and they each got zero, that 0.2 fish per hour, right? It is not an indication of how good the river is.

On the Farmington, fish will rise to take flies, even when there is no real hatch, because there is so little food there (except for the supplemental feeding program, referred to by "the biologists" (more appropriately the political pawns) as the Atlantic Salmon Restoration Program) but I digress. Then when the creel surveyors come around (June through August - when the kids are out of school, and the Housy is typically warm) people are catching fish. Is the river really better? The angler experience is. Some anglers probably count fish they hooked or missed, because the creel surveyors might think they're fools for catching nothing when fish are rising everywhere. Do you think there is some "human element' represented in the truthfulness of the reported results? I suspect there is.

If they have historical numbers, they probably (I do not know this) did creel surveys on the Housatonic during shutdown flows; thats when all "the anglers" wanted to be on the river. Many people would not want to get in that river when it was over 600 CFS. I've had several people tell me that river was unsafe for wading at flows over 1000 CFS. The reality is that many "anglers" want the opportunity to shoot fish in a barrel. These are the same people who will complain that the Farmington is too tough when it's over 400.

[Nymphmeister]

Eddie-
The .2 fish an hour figure is from the April thru June period and they are doing the surveys straight thru the Fall. They did surveys 10 years ago and the catch rate was .7 fish per hour. They used to claim holdover rates of 38-40% for the Housy, but now in talking to them it's more like 10-20% in recent years.

I'm sure Natural Flow has changed the catch rates, and as you mention many people used to only fish the river at those moments of super-low shutdown flows (I believe they were in the neighborhood of @150cfs). Many locals have come up to me and said that they think Natural Flow has really hurt the fishing and they wish it was back to Pond & Release. Of course I'm sure that 3 years of completely screwy weather with 50 & 100 Year Floods, severe droughts, a growing population of bigger Smallmouth- these have nothing to do with that, right? But.... Natural Flow is here to stay, and the state needs to manage the river in relation to that. This one seems pretty simple:

Same amount of fish stocked + fishing for them in higher flows + lower holdover rates = less fish caught.

The solution? Stock more trout!!!

There are still holdover browns in the Housy, and some big ones too. But not in the numbers that they typically used to exist- in my estimation about 1/3 as many. This is probably due to multiple factors that I won't go into on this thread. This year marks the 3rd consective on uninterrupted data collection under Natural Flow, so after this you will probably see the DEP makes some changes in their management. More fish, some better sized ones, Rainbows in the mix, and maybe regular Fall stockings (instead of "as needed")- all of these are on the table and quite likely for '09. Talking to Bob Orciari, he speculated to me that the survival of the smaller browns they stock (6-8") in the Spring might be better if they put them in the Housy in October instead of late April- the metabolism of the bass is slowing down by then and they would be lest apt to eat the trout. In late April the water temps are cracking into the 50's and the bass are coming out of a semi-dormant state into a period of elevated metabolism & feeding. I support all of these stocking changes, we need more fish stocked, 9,000 trout (6,000 6-8", 3,000 9-12") is not enough for a 10 mile C&R section on a big river like the Housy with tons of feed & structure. Pre Catch & Release, the Housy was stocked with (depending upon who you talk to) somewhere between 22,000 and 30,000 ADULT trout, along with a good amount of broodstock fish, and there were rainbows too (and even some fake Goldens too, the Herons must have LOVED them). There were also private individuals buying & stocking big trout in the current TMA section, as well as HFFA putting hundreds of bigger fish in the river too (16-22"). Hmmm, wonder if stocking the river like that in the 60's & 70's might have helped the fishing.... DUHHH!!!

As far as the "human element", it is present on all creel surveys in all rivers, so that evens out across the board. 10 years ago the catch rate on the Housy was .7 fish per hour, a good figure. The Farmington is just over 1 fish per hour, which is considered a high catch rate. And as far as the scenario you mentioned where you get 8 in 2 hours and everyone else gets skunked, the state has to manage the fishery for all, not just those of us who know the Housy and it's subtle nuances (and not so subtle ones too!). Fisheries departments tend to manage fisheries and measure them by angler usage & angler satisfaction, because those are fairly easy measure to quantify. It doesn't even matter how many fish per mile the Housy holds over, it matters how many fish people are catching- if there are 100 per mile and anglers are catching 1 fish an hour, that's excellent. But if there are 2,000 fish per mile and folks are only getting one or two a day, that's horrible. Perception is reality, and fisheries managers need to manage a stocked fishery properly, responding to changes in conditions so that anglers of all ability levels can find success.

Having said all of this, the Housy trout had an easy Summer this year and the Spring stocked fish seem to have held over well and are spread out in pretty much all the pools- the fishing for them & the HRO stocked rainbows has been good to excellent overall of late and you need to get your ass down here and fish while the conditions are good. Lots of bugs, and plenty of fish rising at the end of the day- we are hammering them on Iso type dries (I believe that would be a Parachute Adams in Eddie Land?). The "hatchery rat's" fins have now healed up and they are brilliantly colored. The majority of the bigger (16" & up) fish are 'Bows, but there are still some nice browns in the mix- got a fat 16 incher last night, and missed an 18-20" one. Most of the browns are in the 9-13" range from the Spring. Bugs hatching include Iso's, Olives, Fall Sulfurs, Cahills/Summer Steno's, Black Caddis (tons), and a few Flying Ants have been seen. The last 3 weeks have been the dry fly fishing we should have gotten in the Spring but are finally getting now.

[AaronJasper]

Let's move on and keep the discussion about fishing and the health of our rivers.