Hatchery Fish

[FishSchooler]

When people refer to garbage fish, they mean carp, suckers, squaws, etc. I think their fine, as long as you dont catch them from the tualatin river... :shock: oops...

Anyfishisfine-Im wondering that too. So many people fish for keepers in the lowerwillamette

 

[adambomb]

I usually dont eat anything but a steelhead or a nice bass now and then. when i am fishing and it looks like the guy next to me is fishing for his dinner, i will offer the stockers to him. some of them gladly accept and others seem insulted, either way the "pellet heads" served their purpose in my mind.

 

[bitesetreel]

offering a fish to someone is a nice gesture. If they say no thanks it's likely because they are confident that they will catch their own limit. Although C+R Fishing for stocked rainbows is a interesting concept. It's hard to do in practice because they generally plow into your offering and swallow it 9 outta 10 times. When I get my five I'm done. C+R is cool if the fish is hooked in the lip. I do this sometimes if they are small and hooked clean. otherwise take your kill and fish your limit. no waste no foul.

 

[osmosis]

A nice bass? haha yuck. atleast you're killing bass for us.
salmon, steel, and pelagic species are the best, and sturgeon as long as they are not from the willamette are up there on the list too.

when you're in the middle on nowhere, trout over a fire is not bad at all. even better if you have some bacon to stick inside 'em.

 

[vudo]

I think hatchery trouts that are put in the pond are there for little kids to get them interested in fishing. I get a little annoyed when I see grown men on the pond competing w/ little kids for the little stocker.

 

[Fishtopher]

What? Grown ups shouldnt fish stocker ponds?? What's wrong with it? Most stocker ponds I go to, my kids smash most adults that are around anyway.

 

[Troutski]

Garbage/trash fish...

Garbage/trash fish...

Most of the water I fish that is stocked by ODFW is stocked with fingerlings, once they get to legal size they have the prettiest pink meat in them. After foraging for a few years in the natural setting they put up quite a fight and do deserve our respect.
Garbage fish; I do have an issue with this term. First of all there is no such thing as a garbage or trash fish, each species is a living part of the environment and should be treated as such. I can remember when I first started fishing the local res. and streams in my area and anglers would catch "a trash/garbage" fish and toss it up on the shore to rot. These same fish today are listed on the endangered species list by the federal government, the name of this trash fish is the Bull Trout. Now add in the Pocket Biologist stocking from one pond to another, and then from one pond to another lake and you have a strain of Bass,Blue Gill,Catfish,Walleye that isn't even close to the original strain and the list goes on and on. To be a guardian and steward of the natural resources means that all living creatures should be treated with respect, one persons trash fish might be Bass; another person might feel the same for Chum Salmon. My point is if we as anglers take the mind set that all living things have there place in our environment then we all win. Just because the stocking program deals with the so called "pellet heads" does not mean they should be treated any differently than a wild or native fish.
If one is to go back into history and check the hatchery programs of the past four or five decades you would be amazed at how the gene pool has been compromised, these so called Native/wild fish every one treats with such reverence are simply a mix of years of cross breading with "pellet heads". There probably isn't a true Native/wild strain of fish in the entire Pacific Northwest, so the next time you catch a fin clipped fish treat it the same way you treat a so called "Nat". Just my opinion

Chuck

 

[TTFishon]

I haven't eaten a freshly stocked trout in years. The only reason I fish for stocked trout is if one of my friends wants to fish for them, but I usually let them go unless they want them to eat. I will eat a hold over though. As for so called trash fish. I haven't had carp yet but I have eaten pikeminnow before and it wasn't bad. It was actually pretty good. They eat the same thing trout eat so why wouldn't they?

 

[Hook]

Hatchery Trout is pretty good while camping!!!!!!
I also have had pickled Shad its was really good.

 

[FishSlayer420]

This is a pretty good topic actually. I have always wondered what Shad taste like? As for Carp soup my buddy says it was pretty good. And Bass is pretty darn good as long as you get into em before the water gets to warm that you are fishing. Pellet heads are not that bad to eat if you cook em right stuffed full of bacon and onion and peppers try putting a little Jalepeno juice inside of em. Tasty Tasty

 

[Thuggin4Life]

Sounds good but a not a pellet head. A hold over pellet head with a bit of wild side to him sounds good though.

 

[adambomb]

so i read on one thread or another that hatchery fish are sterile? and i also read that if they can't spawn the eggs poison and kill them. is this true? and if so is there some kinda rule that all farm raised trout have to be sterile, cuz my old farmer buddy used to stock his pond, but he quit a few years ago. i think that there would still be some lunkers too big for the ospreys to grab, but he insists that there is nothing in it.

 

[TTFishon]

I'm pretty sure that is not true. There is a cross breed I think it's called a tiger trout that doesn't breed. It's a cross between a brook and brown and it grows really fast due to not breeding. As for spawning in a pond I'm not sure. I bet there's still fish in your buddy's pond.

 

[grampa ron]

Hatchery Trout

Hatchery Trout

I definitly keep and eat a lot of hatchery trout. I also give a lot to people that have no way to fresh fish on thier own. They really appreciate it. At the same time I release quite few. I don't think most people know how to do that.
If you handle a fish with dry bare hands or using a rag to hold on to them, you have killed them! Removing the slime from them does it. They may swim away at the time, but they are dead and don't know it. I used to do this all the time until I did it on friends private pond. All the fish I thought I carefully released died in 2 days. If your are going to C&R and you are fishing with treble hooks on lures you should remove 2 and put down the barb on the 3rd. If your bait fishing and they swallow it, cut the line.

 

[Bucknasty]

AMEN Troutski and grandpa ron!! I couldn't agree more! cheers, Bob

 

[bobbn]

Sterile fish?

Sterile fish?

Hi: I do not believe that hatchery fish are sterile. I do think that it is difficult for them to forage and survive in the wild. That is probably why there are not many hold overs the year after release. So, I think that there are fish in Adambomb's friend's pond. Also, I'd like to add that when you handle a fish with a rag, make sure that the rag is wet to further reduce slime/scale loss.
Bobbn

 

[Thuggin4Life]

There are some tripliod trout that are sterile and I'm not sure about the dry hand subject. I caught the same trout multiple times one summer in the same hole and always used my hand to release it. But one day it wasn't there anymore, I think some one took it home.

 

[doublestrike]

hatchery vs native

hatchery vs native

I fish a lake that is very well planted with hatchery fish. In the past if it wasn't fin-clipped I would release (Thank you Mr Shelton for the hooks) them. Recently, actually all winter long, I was catching 14 to 17 inch non fin-clipped fish and the meat was very pink and the flavor was fantastic. Were these native fish, I rather doubt it. I doubt if there are any truly native fish anymore, this is my opinion and doesn't count for anything. If it were not for the work of ODFW would there be any fish to catch? As the water warms up the skin parasites appear. My friend who is an ODFW biologist and I have had many discussions about these little gremlins and he always assures me that they have no harmful effects to humans, When I get to the cleaning station, I use a stiff bristle brush to de-scale them and the parasites come right off. When I cook them I do not eat the skin, so problem solved. Late in the year some of them look like they have "fur coats" and these I relegate to the osprey and we have become great friends. Once his patience was a little on the short end and he plucked one out of the water while I was reeling it in and we had a little tug of war. He got the fish and I got my gear back, good deal all around. As to taste, I see little if any difference, because I am not sure if I can remember how those little native stream trout tasted so many years ago. They all taste good and I am thankful to be able to fish and even put some back if I decide to.

 

[steelhead_stalkers]

Here is a little information about triploid trout. They go through a process of heating the eggs to a certain temperature and an exact time and the fish come out sterile. This means that they swim around and eat year round and never stop. A regular trout has a period in its life when it has to store up energy for the spawning process and that takes energy and they lose weight and their meat gets soft. This happens every year when a trout spawns and over time they just arent as great a fish to eat. It was common back in the day to keep the biggest fish you could catch and release the smaller ones and that is exactly opposite of what you should be doing! Smaller fish have smaller bones and a lot of them dissolve when cooked and larger fish have spawned many times which slowly wears out their body and makes them less tasty. Triploid trout on the other hand never spawn just like a salmon that you eat has never spawned and that is why their meat is so great! Triploid trout in my experience are smarter than their non triploid friends and I believe should be stocked in many of the lakes and ponds around here as they are better to eat and if there is a native species in the lake they wont interfere with their spawning cycles!

Also this process of sterilizing fish happens in the wild but very rarely and many believe that most of the world record caught fish are sterile fish. The world record steelhead was caught out in the ocean I believe, and probably was sterile and never went back to its home waters and that's why it was caught out in the middle of the ocean!