Hang with me on this one, it’s going to be a bumpy rant and I’m not even sure where I am going.

In the northeast, unlike our western fly fishing counterparts, there is a constant battle between what our trout fisheries could be, and what they really are. While states like Montana, Wyoming and Colorado boast staggering amounts of wild trout per mile in many of their streams, we only can do so in isolated pockets. Even our best fisheries can only sustain the all sacred fish landed per angling hour level our stewards strive for with healthy rubber trout from the annual trucks. Should this really be the end game? Cookie cutter cloned trout that have a hard time surviving in our streams until the end of June either by the hand of man or victims of higher temperatures in streams trout had no business swimming around in the first place? Will we ever know the potential of even neighborhood streams like the Kayadeross in Saratoga County if the wild trout who struggle to survive this urban environment have to compete for food with the ravenous stockies? Granted many of these trout fall to the early season slaughter that lines the banks to take their 5 trout a day. How many holdovers, the red headed step child of wild trout (ooo, I like that one, let’s save that for when I actually tag a hook jawed fish with stubby fins), and actual stream bred fish are taken without prejudice along with the trout put in to bolster the average angler’s catch? Can we actually have healthy sustained fishing in our streams without the cookie cutters pushing the wild fish to the headwaters? How many put and takes in the area do you know that have the disclaimer, you can find brookies in the headwaters…I can think of a handful off the top of my head. Maybe I’m being a bit elitist in my thinking here, and I am probably preaching to the choir on this one but sometimes I just sit and ponder the potential of our area growing wild trout populations. The catch rate may drop like the stock market initially but over time and by spending the resources used in growing fish in test tubes and tanks on stream improvement projects, spawning ground restoration and bank/in stream cover projects, our wild and native trout populations may thrive again as they did before. For those of us that bypass the known streams on “The List” and poke around in the dark corners searching trickles for stream born trout, we know the potential is there.

And for those about to expound on the virtues of Brookies only and native trout forever, hey, we have to start somewhere. Wild populations of invasive species like the Bow and Brown are here to stay so we may as well enjoy them.

Background changed to protect the innocent…maybe that’s not even me…

Thoughts on this one?