Opinion: When it comes to stocked trout, keeping is conserving

Conservation is the hallmark of hunting and fishing.

It’s more important that opportunity, land access and any other element that we consider vital to our sports.

Conservation defines hunting and fishing that make them ethical, and effective, wildlife management tools.

Still, when it comes to hunting and fishing, the term “conservation” ultimately involves a degree of taking. We take, or harvest, a portion of those animals that can be removed without negatively impacting the population or habitat. Conservation is simply the wise use of a species or resource.

But the big question when it comes to conservation – and a matter that is often debated – is how much of the resource should we take?

This issue arose recently on a social media post of a young angler who landed an enormous brown trout in a southern Pennsylvania stream on Sept. 23. The angler kept the monster trout along with two others, which is perfectly legal because the stream is a stocked fishery and a three-fish limit is allowed during the fall season.

Still, some commenters on the post took issue with the angler keeping fish, reasoning that brown trout spawn in the fall and the robust fish was likely full of eggs. While it was certainly a nice catch, several people believed the fish should’ve been released so it could lay its eggs and contribute to the future of the fishery.

That would seem to fit the definition of conservation… or not.

The three trout pictured in the post were stocked fish, a fact that I confirmed with Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission Bureau of Fisheries staff. Stocked trout are reared and released with the intention that anglers catch and keep them. The PFBC doesn’t stock more than three million trout for the purpose of establishing a natural population of fish.

When it comes to stocked trout, there is little conservation value to be gained by releasing the fish as there will always be a new population feasting on pellets in a hatchery. If an angler chooses to release stocked trout in order to leave something for someone else to catch, that’s admirable. But in terms of sustaining a stocked trout fishery, it’s not necessary.

According to PFBC staff, the belief that hatchery trout survive long enough to become naturalized in a waterway and reproduce simply isn’t true. There are cases where “holdover” trout turn up in a stream or river, but there aren’t enough of them to establish a significant self-sustaining population. Stocked trout aren’t adapted to surviving and reproducing in the wild.

And even if they were, that wouldn’t be a good thing for wild trout, who could suffer from introgression with the genes of stocked trout.

While the concern about keeping a trout full of eggs during the spawn is commendable, when it comes to stocked fish there’s no reason to worry.

Here’s how one PFBC official summarized the matter: “A fish harvested in spring has the same chance of reproducing later in the year as the fish that is harvested during early fall – zero.”

Still, there are some who are adamant that trout – stocked or wild – shouldn’t be kept during the spawn. If we followed that direction, it would mean we’d be releasing brown and brook trout in the fall, and rainbows in the spring when they spawn.

How would that work out on the opening day of the season?

Even though I don’t have an issue with keeping stocked fish in the fall, the same approach wouldn’t be wise for wild brook and brown trout. Those populations are dependent on the naturally-occurring spawn, and not the stocking truck, to sustain the population. That’s why wild trout waters are closed to harvest during the fall.

In the case of the aforementioned social media post, we shouldn’t be so quick to vilify a fellow angler for keeping a fish. There’s really no way to tell from a picture of the bog brown trout did have eggs, or if it was even a female.

But assuming the fish was full of eggs, its removal won’t have a detrimental impact on the fishery.

Why?

Because the population will be replenished in the spring when the stocking truck arrives.