Brookies

[lambski]

After thinking about it for a while I am not sure if I am totally sold on the idea of only putting triploids in most of the pot hole lakes in alberta. I realize that they grow to be bigger fish but fishing for brook trout in the spawn is amazing and is looked forward to for months, in my case. Would it be crazy to put some of each in the lake? I sure am going to miss fishing for those crazy colored, footballs in two feet of water.

[fishman]

After thinking about it for a while I am not sure if I am totally sold on the idea of only putting triploids in most of the pot hole lakes in alberta. I realize that they grow to be bigger fish but fishing for brook trout in the spawn is amazing and is looked forward to for months, in my case. Would it be crazy to put some of each in the lake? I sure am going to miss fishing for those crazy colored, footballs in two feet of water.

I agree with you but i don't think that is the plan to put triploids in every lake as there is advantages and disadvantges of having tripoilds....

pros......they grow bigger faster and live longer....the spawning strain is elimanted

cons.....you have to put less fish in the lake as they eat all the bio mass and then you have stunted fish.........so i guess there is a trade off somewhere in between, as only stocking them in certain lakes and not all of them...just my two cents

[goldscud]

There is not really any conclusive evidence that triploids will grow bigger than diploids given the same conditions. The triploid females will not go into spawning behaviors and therefore will be less susceptible to angling. Good thing if you want the fish to keep growing rather than going to the freezer. Triploids are thought to live longer, but are not as tolerant to warm temperatures as diploids.

[Rumtan]

But arent all introduced/stocked fish sterile?

[jrs]

"But arent all introduced/stocked fish sterile?"

Nope, the government is moving that way though. Doubt they'll go as far as checking every fish but i think their intention is to limit hatchery strains from existing in nature.
As for the brookie genocide in Alberta, they have been here longer than most of us and in systems with limited native trout/ fisheries i still think they should be managed to promote a good fishery. I know there's lots of brookie haters but if they provide good sport it takes further pressure off the native populations and everybody wins. I'm trying to seperate the stunted populations common in tiny streams from the reproducing ones that produce some nice fish (while thinking about this issue). I caught this in a stream with no other fish species present by Hinton a while back, its still fun. I know they cause problems for rainbows downstream but i think removing them is pretty much impossible anyway so we might as well enjoy them.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b158/edsicom/Fishing/colorfulbrookie.jpg

[Rumtan]

I thought that all hatchery fish, while in the egg form were subjected to a pressure chamber, causing the egg to be sterile?