Search Results for 'feeding trout'

[Alex Argyros]

Alex Argyros

#9891

That’s John DeLoach, and the site is eponymously nicknamed JDL.  He does feed the fish, as well as numerous species of birds and deer on his property.  And yes, he has a very tenuous relationship with many of the anglers who fish in the stretch by his property.  He has been know to berate some of them, even though what they were doing is perfectly legal.   And, apparently, someone once called the cops on him.

Now, fishing on the Guadalupe is legal if you access the water legally.  And, as I understand it, feeding fish on a stretch that abuts your property is also legal.  So, we have a bit of a standoff.

The good, or bad, news is that John no longer wants GRTU stocking from his property, so the numbers of fish there will slowly decline, and with that, the fishing pressure.  But it’s a prime stretch of water, so some trout will always find their way there, especially with the banquet John provides.

Alex

 

 

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[Jimbo]

Jimbo

#9658

Let’s talk,…

Why don’t we make stocking days public knowledge?

Because the hatchery quits feeding the Trout for 5 days before their trip. This keeps the amount of  waste they produce to a minimum during the 12-14 hour ride in the truck. They are also very crowded in the individual cells on the truck which causes fighting and stress during the trip. 4,000 pounds is a maximum load for the largest hatchery truck they use. So we would like to give the fish time to recover, start eating, and spread out, before people start hooking and fighting with them. If we announced the stocking dates ahead of time we would see increased pressure on them the day they hit the water, resulting in more mortality from swallowing the hooks deep (they are very hungry not eating for 6 days) and more delayed mortality from lactic acid build-up because the lack of nutrition they had the week prior. This increase in mortality would result in lower numbers for Trout per mile in the river. (Remember GRTU is a conservation organization.) Giving them just 24 hours helps greatly in keeping the Trout alive to be caught and released over and over again by all anglers.

Why do we only give notice of the upcoming stockings to LAP members?

Because: 1) these anglers are the ones who actually pay for these fish through the Lease Access Program, 2) They pledge to catch and release all Trout on the Guadalupe, 3) we ask LAP members not to fish for the Trout for 24 hours and they generally give us the voluntarily compliance we are looking for, 4) we have 800 members in the LAP program and normally we get enough volunteers to handle the stocking. We generally need 40 volunteers to make stocking easy. 30 is really the minimum to get the job done, but they will be making numerous repeated hauling of the buckets to the water, so it wears everybody out. Plus with the low flows we are having right now, many places require bucketing, that if we had say 200cfs, we could shoot them directly into the river cutting down on the volunteers work load.

Notice about upcoming stockings?

We will put a topic on the forum (Lease Members) about the upcoming stocking date and send out an e-mail blast to LAP members at least 7 days before the actual date. Most stocking dates fall on Saturdays when most people have days off. (We have in the past had some Friday stockings to help lighten heavy angling pressure the day of stocking.) Now if you can’t make arrangements in that amount of time, I don’t know what to tell you. We also ask that people attending the stocking check in on the Lease Forum and let us know you are coming. This gives us a head count and know ahead of time if a secondary e-mail blast is necessary. We did send out a secondary e-mail blast this last stocking date. And yet we had only about 25 people show up plus Dan, Ron, and myself. Now we all know that on the first stocking dates we usually have more people than we can really use. Excitement is high about getting Trout into the river as the new season opens. As stockings go by and the season wears on, we get less and less numbers attending the stockings, but the work load is really the same for any 4000lb load.

Why don’t we post information about the sites stocked?

Again as much as we would like to keep stocking days secret, that information gets out before the actual date. If we can’t totally keep the date a secret, at least we can keep the locations secret. And when the Hatchery truck is spotted the day of delivery, the local internet lights up, and still we often see anglers waiting at sites for the fish to go in river. Now again we can not tell the general public to not fish for them the first day because once the touch the water they are the property of the citizens of the State of Texas and all anglers with valid fishing licenses can legally fish for them. Many of them just don’t understand how much mortality increases fishing for them right when they go in the water. (Did you notice the numbers of dead fish in the river this year?) They are very hungry from their fasting and tend to swallow anything deep to fill their stomachs, causing injuries that can result in mortality. That is why we ask our members to give them at least 24 hours to adjust to their new surroundings and get a little in their stomachs without a hook, so they can gain their strength back, and tolerate an encounter with a fisherman that much better. Catch and release tactics don’t work if the fish still dies from delayed mortality.

Why did we not post the sites stocked this last time?

After we have the first 2 loads of 4000lbs of Rainbows we will have stocked every site we are going to stock. This year we did that on the first day for the first time ever. Water conditions, especially the water temperatures, where favorable for such a mass stocking. Many years the lower river has not cooled off enough and air temps are too warm, to allow stocking the lower leases without significant loss due to those high temperatures. So we do a second 4000lb load later in the season giving the lower river time to cool off for better survival. Subsequent stockings (3 and 4 this year) only add Trout to sites already stocked. So it’s not like we put fish in new places, we merely added to the numbers already there. So there is no real need to announce these locations that are stocked in the 3rd and 4th stockings. The only exception is when we stock Brown Trout. We have stocked them in some places that we have not stocked before (like the regular Rainbow Trout stocking locations) usually at the request of TPWD and their objectives for the fishery. Again, this last time (4th stocking of Rainbows) merely fortified the numbers at locations we’d previously stocked. And with such a low turnout of volunteers and them working so hard to get the Trout in the river, we thought to reward their efforts by not telling everyone else where we stocked them right away.

Remember GRTU is primarily a conservation organization. Most TU chapters fish over wild fish, with no stocking necessary, unless it’s a restoration project. When TU chapters do restoration projects those places are often closed to fishing for some time to get those fish established. GRTU is a very usual chapter in that our fishery normally requires stocking for any significant numbers of Trout to be in the river. Thermal impacts on lower leases can result in 100% mortality during the summer. We also still have significant harvest and delayed mortality which limits the numbers of Trout that could potentially holdover in the upper river to the following season. There this breaking point is depends on flows, water temperatures, and fishing pressure.

We are not trying to punish those who did not attend this last stocking, but in fact give those who did, a reward for their hard work. If you fished the river anytime after the first 2 loads of Rainbows were stocked, you already know where the Trout are that can be caught. We merely put more fish in these same locations. I have never heard so much whining about the locations we stocked in all my 15 years working directly with VP’s and being V P of Fishery than this last time. I have attended every Trout Stocking over the last 25 year period except when I had a heart attack 2 years ago and I was still in intensive care. Generally I see the same faces over and over again. I would say the people I see at any one stocking, have helped with at least one stocking, if not 2 of the stockings per year, every year. There are many LAP members I have never seen at any of the stockings. To those who have never attended a stocking I would suggest you do some time, especially these later stocking dates when we really need the help. It was very surprising to see so few members attend this last stocking when we now have 800 potential members who receive stocking information ahead of time. Myself I have not fished yet. I have been suffering from a painful spinal condition and I aggravated it during last Saturday’s stocking. I can’t even sleep on my own bed because of pain radiating down my legs and into my feet (two weeks of sleep deprivation have also taken a toll). I was warned not to do this, but I felt obligated because 1) I may not be VP of Fishery anymore but I am on the Fishery Committee and GRTU Board, 2) I saw the low response on the 4th stocking announcement and knew we would need every set of hands we could get. 3) And I really enjoy seeing these fish go in the river. So I went and now I am on pain meds and waiting for a MRI and it’s results. Now I am not trying to shame anyone about this I’m just saying when healthy people and numbers don’t show up, others have to pick up the slack and that is disappointing for a volunteer organization with so many members.

Jimbo

[Jimbo]

Jimbo

#6414

Everybody needs to be patient. If you have been a member of the LAP for any time at all, you know the approximate date the first stocking will fall. The actual date may vary from year to year but it falls into a certain time in relation to other holidays. It only changes if river temperatures or flows make that stocking impractical or dangerous. And we purposely don’t talk about the upcoming stocking beforehand to help those Trout with time needed acclimate before anglers start fishing for them. When you get right down to it, the Trout population in the Guadalupe is a finite resource, that can be greatly reduced in numbers if not given time to recover from their journey adjust to their new surroundings. One of the things the hatchery does before loading them in the hatchery truck, they stop feeding them for about 6-7 days. This is done so while on their trip, the waste produced by the fish in minimal, and does not pollute the water in the truck and results in lower mortality. They are also stressed in the confined quarters of the truck’s tanks and that takes a toll on them. Giving them at least 24 hours to relax and adjust to the river greatly reduced delayed mortality once we start fishing for them. Have faith that we know what we are doing and there is a purpose behind the details.

Jimbo

[Jimbo]

Jimbo

#3622

Whitewater Amphitheater charges $10. We will strive to lease either Whitewater Camping or Whitewater Amphitheater again next season. We are always looking for new spots for the Lease Access Program. But as you have seen over the years, when members aggravate the land owners, by not adhering to the rules set down, we lose access sites. I do my best trying to mitigate the damage, but sometimes they are just fed up and don’t want to renew access at any price. That is why it is so important to pay attention to the details and rules associated each LAP site. We have had several parking violations this year with too many cars parked at parking limited sites. We have also had people even lending their parking pass to non LAP members, and some trespassing by the general public. All these things make my job as V P of Fisheries and manager to the LAP sites very difficult and frustrating. If I could have all the sites we have lost during my tenure we would have 8 additional sites (and others have been lost before even I took office too) Think about that for a minute….. 8 additional excellent sites to help alleviate crowding. I can only do so much, it is really up to all the individual members and their conduct as to whether we will maintain the sites we have and whether I will be able to add to that number in the future. To address some of those problems we will have to modify the LAP orientation again this summer. There are also other changes we think are prudent.

As the V P of Fisheries I have tried to think where is the best habitat for the Trout and especially good habitat above Whitewater. The reason for that is the water up there is almost always cold enough to have fish carry over to the next fall (even when we have 55cfs). And that is a primary concern, keeping the population as high as possible in the river, while still offering LAP members access to most of it. There are three places: JDL, Kanz, S Turn Rapids, that we regularly stock that anglers don’t have direct access. You could even say that about Ingram’s Bend above Rocky Beach too. These places offer more seclusion if your are willing to put in the work with a little extra wading.

There are other things we are presently looking at to help the fishery. We may start a supplementary feeding program for the Trout during the heat of the summer. We need more regulation signs. We are also considering expanding the Whitlock/Vibert box program using Brown Trout eggs. More information will need to be gathered and of course the approval of the GRTU Board and TPWD. Many things still to come like habitat improvements in the river itself. I do not think this fishery has reached it’s final potential yet. It will take research, cooperation, money, physical work, and time to accomplish our goals.

Jimbo