Travel Talk › Spring in Victoria
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- October 11, 2021 at 3:57 pm #907203
gumnutsParticipantWas up in the hills on Saturday cleaning the windshield when I noticed it was all termites!
Got down to the nearest trout stream and found a good rise to the termite.
This one pulled like a horse!
Location NE Vic East of Broken, West of King.Best creek trout I’ve caught in years
October 11, 2021 at 6:42 pm #907211
micmac3701ParticipantSolid fish with a big paddle on the back. Wet spring is certainly setting things up for a great season, tribs and creeks up this way (tad more N and E) are flowing hard and high with more rain on the way.
October 12, 2021 at 1:43 pm #907252
gumnutsParticipantYes MicMae I showed you his good side, bit of a scar on the right flank and the pupil in the right eye was smaller.
Still he was a very pretty fish. All the others were smaller stocked fish, horribly mutilated by the obligatory fin clipping. It’s like cutting the wings off a bird or the tail off a possum.
October 15, 2021 at 6:20 pm #908005
flylifeModeratorYes very nice fish.
Re the fin clips, if they are packed too densely in the hatchery they suffer a lot of fin damage. Very poor fish to stock with.
October 17, 2021 at 9:14 am #908046
micmac3701ParticipantI see a few here in local stillwaters that are fin clipped not just fin damaged. I’m assuming its for cohort identification i.e. Left pelvic removed is 2020 stocking, left pectoral is 2021 or something along those lines. I’m not aware of any research program (like say angler diaries) that asks people to record these fin clipped fish so….
Though could give and indication of cohorts growth/success and proportion of total capture might help with population estimates.
But wondering why Gumnuts is finding stockies in creeks with capacity for natural recruitment, pretty sure these ought not to be stocked.
October 17, 2021 at 11:45 am #908061
WetParticipantI’d be happy with a fin clipped fish right now… it’s been a long time since I saw a stream, let alone fished in one 🙁
October 17, 2021 at 12:19 pm #908066
woody-woodParticipantMicmac,
Vic Fisheries are stocking some creeks in the NE and have done for quite a few years.
The data is available from within Vic Fisheries.
I know of one creek that has received every year trout and Macquarie Perch for at least 20 years.
October 17, 2021 at 2:52 pm #908070
gumnutsParticipanthere’s one of the fin clipped fish.
Its like a bird without wings. Can’t swim properly. Looks totally disfigured. I know what it’s for but is it that important? and if so just do the adipose (i) half off vertical (ii) half off angled forward, (iii) all off. There’s three age classes right there, and you can tell a one year from a four year old fish
The creek is obviously stocked that’s why these fish are in it. Natural recruitment perhaps, stream can get low and hot in summer, then blown out by floods.
October 17, 2021 at 3:00 pm #908075
gumnutsParticipantBTW I cant find my proper gear,
the reel is a $25 Gillies,
and the rod a 10 weight I picked up in Singapore for Snakehead.
Works OK on little truchas.
October 17, 2021 at 3:10 pm #908077
micmac3701Participantso the left pectoral. Where all the fish missing the same fin? If so that would suggest a cohort ID thing, if its all or different fins may just be damage from pond density.
October 17, 2021 at 3:34 pm #908080
gumnutsParticipantno it was also the right. Both taken off, yes some cohort or other
October 17, 2021 at 4:04 pm #908081
BarryJParticipantI find it hard to believe that even one pectoral fin (let alone both) would be clipped as a management tool; generally the adipose or dorsal fin is clipped. As you said yourself, the fish was “like a bird without wings. Can’t swim properly.”. Sounds more like damage from being densely packed in the hatchery to me.
October 17, 2021 at 5:57 pm #908083
flylifeModeratorThey would not clip a pectoral fin. Only adipose, and maybe pelvic? When fish are overcrowded you get that sort of nibble damage of the pectorals.
October 17, 2021 at 6:21 pm #908084
mitch aka 2 fishParticipantwow. I didn’t even see this thread before I commented on the other…
great minds something something…
October 18, 2021 at 8:44 am #908099
flylifeModeratorGoogle fin erosion in trout hatcheries if you want the full story.
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