Tuesday, March 20, 2012

To Fish Or Not To Fish


  Hello and thank you all for your continuing support of the O’Grady fly fishing blog and with a name like ours, I hope you all had a marvelous St Patrick’s Day. I would like to start this blog by apologizing to almost all who have had their feelings hurt over the last few weeks because of my soap box preaching on fishing to redds.  This seems to be the time of the year that brings out the most intense feelings of trout fishing etiquette, so we would like to discuss this a little and hopefully let you form your own opinions. Cat and I went out today and tried to get a little more video of what redds look like so any readers not familiar with what they look like, can recognize them easily.  We also have some hopefully interesting facts on trout spawning. I would also like you to know that what my idea of fishing etiquette to these fish may not be the same as yours and you almost always have the right to be wrong..JK.

  First some fun facts. Rainbow trout maturity ages start between 2-5 years and a one pound female can lay 1,000 eggs per spawn; a three pound fish can lay up to 2,800 eggs. The eggs after fertilization take 4-7 weeks before hatching. After hatching, the fish will carry and feed off the yolk sack for up to 2 weeks. The chasing males you can see is interesting in that the larger males will pair up with females and the smaller males will sit back and wait for them to get distracted and then they dart in and strut their stuff. This is a rare occurrence in the trout family. The survival rate is determined by too many factors to even give a general idea; water temp, water quality, disturbances and predators to start.

   Watching the Pueblo tail water fishery turn from a “put and take” to a true tail water has been a true blessing the last several years. It was four years ago when I first saw a true spawn here in Pueblo. I really had no idea what I was looking at and was wondering why these fish were in the water they were in, why they were chasing each other around, and even more, why they were not interested in my flies. Over the next month I began to figure out what they were doing. I do admit that I tried fishing to them at different times with staggering degrees of success. Talking to much better fisherman than me, I have heard tons of what seems to be contradictory ideas on if they will feed, aggression strike or if they can only be snagged. I have one friend that was once a professional bass fisherman and has no problem at all fishing to redds. He claims that after you catch them, you put them back and they go right back to their beds. With the fishery blossoming into an awesome tail water and the ability to watch these fish live and grow, I think my natural progression has been to try to protect the spawning fish. I will never forget the time I was fishing the Dream stream and landed a beautiful cutbow, after releasing, I felt like caca when I saw she had spilt fifty or so eggs on the bank. I hope with just this little bit of info you will be able to develop your own opinion and I will get off my soap box for now.

  I did see something last week that goes way beyond what I think is okay. Cat and I were walking back down river when I looked down and saw a fly fisherman standing over and swinging flies through a bed. This is not illegal, but just disgusted me as I watched him snag off and put a 22 inch male on a stringer. I was so angry that I cussed at him and then threw a rock at the redd to try and protect the rest of the spawners. Cody, one of our guides, was telling me of a time last year when he walked up on a guy that was raking a treble hook over a bed. Cody told the guy it was illegal and threatened to break his rod and throw it into the river. If you know Cody, he does not seem like the type of person you want to make angry. The guy said “you fly fishing guys think you own this river”. Nope, but we sure enjoy it!!!!

  Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and if you are as passionate about fly fishing as we are, I hope you stop in to The Drift Fly Shop and say hello. Thanks again, Connell 719-543-3900

  

  




No comments:

Post a Comment