Gone, Gone, Gone The Fish Are Gone, Gone, Gone, Where'd They Go, Go, Go - - -

 In Saturday's Wind Knots and Tailing loops page, I wrote at length about the situation here in the Delaware River System regarding the fish population. Brian, unless he's being factious, said I was correct, and went to the trouble of looking up and posting a statement from the "fish and game commission", (NY, PA or ????). The statement is laced with errors, is generic in nature, does not take into consideration the changes wrought by catch and release fishing, it has no relevance to a tailwater fishery such as the Delaware.

John asked what caused the discrepancies in trout sizes, and what did I mean by paying the piper?

Here goes - In the days before catch and release became popular almost no trout lived past two years. An 11 or 12 inch fish was fish of the day and a 14 incher was fish of the year. Brown trout in my trout pond can and have lived ten years. The NY DEC has killed some big trout in the Delaware so that they could determine their age and I'm quite sure they found Delaware River brown trout that were at least ten years old. 

I haven't kept records on Brook trout and will exclude them from this discussion. (Bob Peel aka Rod Hunter former writer of the Hunting and Fishing column in the Syracuse paper once said "Brook trout were like Chorus Girls, beautiful but dumb"). 

Rainbow trout in the Delaware grow faster than brown trout. Most rainbows die after four years. Rainbows in the Delaware reach ten inches in length usually sometime in August of their second year, (16 months), by May they are two years old and on average are 13 inches long, by the following May they are three years old and between 15 and 16 inches long, in their fourth year genetics take over, some 'bows top out at 17, most get to 18 or 19, only rarely does a Delaware rainbow reach 20 inches in length, (no matter what your guide says).

Brown trout in the Delaware grow slower than Rainbow trout but live considerably longer and can and do get bigger. Delaware River browns are between 11 and 12 inches long on their second birthday in May. On their third birthday they are between 13 and 14 inches long, the 15 and 16 inchers that are being caught this year were four years old in May. 

Because of catch and release fishing, fish today live much longer and reach greater sizes than the fish did in the days when everyone filled their creel with ten fish. In writing a generic article you have to consider streams of all sizes. I've seen two 5 inch brook trout duking it out for the favor of a six inch female brookie in a Tug Hill stream no more than three feet wide. All three fish will die of old age before they come close to ten inches in length. Freestone streams are suffering from global warming.  Fish now  spend three months not growing but just trying to survive in them. The Delaware is a tailwater system. The New York Reservoirs release cold water into the UEB and WB all year long. There are bug hatches almost every month of the year. The WB above the reservoir is farmland, you curse the algae, but the nutrient rich water abounds in marine life that supports the fantastic growth rates the West Branch fish have. The less nutrient rich UEB has almost no algae and the growths rates of the fish there are slower.

The "fish and game report" acknowledges that growth rates can and do vary and then quotes figures that make trying to determine growth rates impossible. I believe the figures I have quoted are accurate for the Delaware River System.

Paying the Piper - Don't know where the expression comes from, (never saw a piper to pay), but it means you are enjoying the music but when the piper is done playing you will have to pay him. On the Delaware we have a very top heavy fish population, (lots of big fish and almost no little ones). Why? you see the mergansers eating small trout, eagles get larger ones, striped bass, otters, osprey, mink all take their toll but I believe the biggest predation is done by large brown trout, (notice how hard it is to get your hand around a fat 17 incher, that's not from eating Dorotheas. When the big brown numbers are reduced by the ravages of time, everyone will have to learn to enjoy catching very little fish because the big fish we are catching have eaten almost all of the last three year classes of young fish.

The fishing - Wasn't worth talking about.