Putting musky in trout streams!
Believe it or not only 2 years old at around 18 inches. I had some 2 years olds as big as 19 1/4. I had some parasite and bacterial issues in the pond that fall and treated the pond with a minimum amount of potassium permanganate and ended up killing most of them. (At least Iwas able to scoop them up and sell them to othertaxidermists). I thought it was necessary because I was losing two or three a week. Turns out I probably should have just left them alone and just planted initially compensate for losses. Brook trout are very touchy compared to browns and rainbows. If I would have kept them for one more year they would have been in the 22 - 24 inch range and 5 to 6 lbs. Just like the government I do more damage by doing something. If I raise trout again it will probably be in a barn in large recirculating tanks where I can keep parasites and pathogens out and control the water quality and temperature better.
in Pa I was fly fishing in spring creek outside bellefonte (its a no kill stream since the 50's i believe) when i saw something i had to do a double take on. the spot i was at was a section that you had to use barbless and you could not set foot in the stream. I was eyeing some trout activity up stream and started to walk the shore up to them. when i got there I noticed that i was not the only thing watching them. there was about a mid 30 inch range tiger musky looking at them to. nearest place a tiger could of come from was at least 2o miles away. I told a PFBC guy about it and he did not believe me so i actually took him up there and had to show him that it was there, he acted surprised to see it there. I say surprised because I told some other guys about it later in the day and they said that it would not surprise them. i asked them why that would be and they said that they had heard that the PFBC was rumored to have secretly put some tigers into the stream as a way to control the trout population.
that potassium permangenate messes with them pretty good in a flow through system as well. we use it to treat some external parasites on our trout as well. We tend to give them a pretty good dose when we do too. Our browns seem to fair the worst as mortalities are concerned after a treatment.
Why would they want to control trout?
you are right my freind the dec is incompitent i was going to school to be one then they just slashed all there budgets and stuff so its not even worth it no more and it doesnt help our sportsman is almost 90 bucks
Oh I see. Actually to sell fish across state lines in the Great Lakes states has become an expensive proposition due to the VHS hysteria. And no offense to New York, your state went off the deep end. New York wants certain fish species tested for diseases that don't even effect them. Like testing bass for diseases only trout get and vice versa. I'm thinking your DEC just wants the private sector to go away as the private sector can grow fish more cost effectively, and could put them out of a job if politicians find that out with all the budget problems.
It's not our DEC that wishes for all of NYS's crazy reg.s...For the most part, they all come from uninformed puppets in legislation, that have no clue regarding the science of our wildlife. Just looking at numbers!
DEC sucks, my neighbor raises bass, the state buys them buy requires 50% be killed and tested , he doesnt do that any more because he doesnt want to raise fish only to have half of them killed
he had 4 ponds full of bass, about 60 yards by 30 yards. they took truck loads but he had to pay to have 1/2 tested