FOOTNOTES
Newsletter of the Georgia Foothills Chapter of Trout Unlimited
Volume 5, No. 4
September 1996
SEPTEMBER
MEETING
CANCELLED
GO FISHING!
The President's Column
Due to a shortened deadline this month, Dale has the month off! It's starting to become a habit!
ATTITUDE ADJUSTING
by Jimmy Harris
I'm going out on a limb here and attempt to bring some insight into something very important to many of us. Without burdening
it with a lot of contemporary psycho-babble and unnecessarily deep thinking on a subject that should arguably be taken simply
for what it is, I want to ask you to think (yeah, think deeply for a few minutes!) about how trout fishing, and trout fishing with a
fly rod in particular, has affected your attitude. How do you view things now compared to the way you saw your world before
the decision was made to seriously pursue an understanding of the trout's world? Is catching (and killing) trout the primary
reason you purchase a trout stamp nowadays? Really? I know, none of us will spend much time on a creek or river that
doesn't even offer an opportunity to connect with a trout of some description. However, I'll wager that an astounding number of
us have found other significant pleasures associated with being there, albeit pole in hand. We've all recognized how
therapeutic it is to simply be "standing in a creek". Notice how often we pass up the trophy sections of local streams with their
outsized inhabitants just so we can plunk a tiny spinner or parachute fly into a pool occupied by fiesty little 8 to 10-inchers? Do
you travel to the Chattooga, where a 12" fish is likely to be the largest of the day? Why didn't you spend the same amount of
travel time and go to the Nantahala or Tuckaseegee with their prospect of serving up trout in the 20" plus range?
Can you travel a road which parallels or crosses a stream without making a mental evaluation of the water quality and
speculation on the status of any resident trout? Do these same thoughts come to mind even when the stream you're crossing
is only 3 feet wide, newly sprung forth from the highest elevations of our southern Appalachians, and offers absolutely no
chance that you'll make a special trip back up here with a fly rod? Why did those people set up camp so close to the creek
bank? Look at all the garbage left in this area; who would do that? (I can promise you none of the TU folks did it!) Why can't
Congress appropriate enough dollars to simply maintain the road system they have so doggedly pushed to have built over the
years? We all live downstream.
Maybe some of us thought about these things back when our fishing supplies came packaged in a #2 tin can with a big green
fellow grinning at us from the label, but, by and large, we've probably grown somewhat in our overall awareness of the "web of
life" and just where we fit in and what effect our actions have on the rest of God's green Earth. We should all hope to continue
to grow in our knowledge of and our willingness to accept our stewardship responsibilities.
Now, back to the deep stuff. (We had to lay the foundation of our awareness and obligations in those first few paragraphs.)
What else do we gain from our "sport"? Years ago, before Hollywood had discovered the mysterious art of trout fishing, I recall
browsing around in a unique little book store just off Green Street in Gainesville. Off in a small side room a lone book was on
display. It caught my attention, not only because it was the only book on that shelf, but also because of its title: "A River Runs
Through It". At this point in time I doubt if very many people had the foggiest idea what it was about or who in the world
Norman MacLean was. But I bought it anyway. This was the early 80's, I was hungry to read anything about fly fishing, and it
was cheap; paperback.
I remember... as I read the story of MacLean's family and the deep psychological undercurrents which swirled around fly
fishing for trout, I remember commenting to friends and family about this "wonderful little book". I didn't know any other fly
fishermen at the time and my attempts to explain why it was so great were often met with confused looks. I had the same
feeling when 25 years ago I read Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac". Norman MacLean was putting into words feelings
that I had been unable to describe. Describe? Shoot, I didn't understand the feelings myself until I began reading this book
All I knew was there was something mystifying about picking up that fly rod, working out the nuances of doing everything right
and watching (and feeling) that fat green line make its graceful sweep through the air. It was an activity which didn't conform
to the usual rules of sport. Being a macho athletic type gave you absolutely no advantage over anyone else of any size and
physical capabilities. It was as much akin to making music as to fishing. Music requires making the right movement at exactly
the right time; so does casting a fly rod. If you begin any part of the casting motion before the appropriate time, your cast ends
up in a mess somewhat similar to how the notes in rap music would look and sound to Mozart ("Well, it seemed to have an
unusual beat; I don't think I could dance to it."). But what a great feeling it is when you suddenly do most everything right and
that line lays out almost perfectly! You try to remember just how you did everything. It just felt right! I want to do that again!
Let's see now: raise the rod tip, starting the line in motion on the water, power the wrist to send the line zipping to the rear, all
the while continuing that arm motion that began the cast, STOP! the rod tip at an angle slightly past perpendicular, how long do
I wait for the line to straighten out behind me!?, maybe NOW! begin pushing the rod forward, at just the right time power the
wrist forward but don't forget to abruptly stop my rod tip at about a 45-degree angle, let the line straighten out in front of me
and, at the last moment, when the fly has traveled as far as it can, I allow my rod tip to drift down toward the water. WOW! that
was a pretty good cast, let's do it again!
What just happened? We became so much more interested in working with the laws of nature in an effort to cast that funny
fishing pole that catching a fish became only a nice bonus. We all like to catch fish, but even Mozart enjoyed making music for
the pure pleasure of it. Surely he just got together with 40 or 50 of his classical music buddies and jammed every now and
again. Same thing, the more we learn about this small corner of our world (the fish, the water, the soil and vegetation, the
physics of throwing a weightless fly 60 feet, and, yes, the art of bringing a 4 pound rainbow to the net on tippet the size of a
spiderweb) the more intriguing it becomes. We want to know more, become better at our "music making".
There is an important final note about the psychology of fly fishing. It is virtually impossible to concentrate on the worries and
fears in our lives while standing in a stream working a fly rod over a likely holding spot for trout. It may be the movement of the
water all around you (have you ever noticed how all humans are attracted to moving water?), or the discipline necessary to
make that perfect cast, or the anticipation of the strike. Whatever, the fact is it's a time for regenerating your psyche, your soul,
spirit, rebuilding yourself from the inside out. And, if you're fortunate enough to fool a fish into taking your fly, you can almost
see all that stored up tension you've cultivated as it leaves your body, pulses down your fly rod, pulled through the line by the
trout (size of the fish is irrelevant, thank goodness), and washed downstream by all that wonderful water!
Now, is this deeper than you wanted to think about fishing? I'll bet it's not deeper than you have thought about it. It may have
been so far down in your subconscience that you didn't acknowledge it, but you have had glimmers of this if you've spent any
significant amount of time on a trout stream. Is it any wonder why we all wish we could spend more time standing in that
stream? Why shouldn't we? We're growing in our knowledge of our world, what's good for it, what's not so good for it. We're
developing an inner peace and strength that only come from seeing the world in its proper perspective. It has a calming effect
on us with just the appropriate amount of excitement and anxiety mixed in as a trout pushes our adrenalin button. What could
be any better than this? As we walk back to our car in the fading light of dusk, we smile as we relive the last few casts,
whether successful or not. We talk about it, even if we're alone. I've even been known to jump high in the air and kick my
heels together in celebration of the time I'm having. Is this a great avocation or what!?
Idaho Teaches Trout How to Eat Worms
By Sewell Chan from The Wall Street Journal, 8-15-96
HAGERMAN, Idaho - Reaching into a red, picnic-size cooler, Jeff Dillon scoops up a handful of dirt, laced with earthworms.
He slices up the nightcrawlers, then tosses them to their watery fate. Class is in session.
The classroom is a concrete impoundment containing 15,000 gallons of water and about 2,500 rinbow trout. But the fish aren't
biting. Forty seconds pass, Mr. Dillon sighs. Finally, one trout snatches a nightcrawler, then another. Eventually, the worms
disappear.
In the brave new world of wildlife management, it has come to this: Idaho's Department of Fish and Game is teaching trout
how to eat worms. The trout - raised in hatcheries to be released in the wild and then caught by anglers - have gobbled pellets
made of dehydrated ocean fish, cottonseed meal and fish oil from birth. By the time they reach 10 inches and are scheduled to
be released, they are pellet junkies.
In 1990, state biologists working on a study on trout mortality, discovered hatchery-raised trout were turning up their noses, so
to speak, at worms. Though good news for worms, this has troubling implications for a species dear to Idaho's heart: anglers,
who spend big bucks in the state to catch trout with worms, among other baits.
"We had thought the doggone fish must know what to eat," says Thomas Frew, Idaho's resident hatcheries supervisor. "It was
quite a revelation."
So wildlife officials here have turned to Mr. Dillon, a fisheries biologist in charge of Idaho's hatchery research, to introduce
hatchery trout to wroms. This summer, he spent a week feeding some 2,500 trout at two hatcheries a mixed diet of worms and
pellets. An equal-sized control group was fed only pellets. The fish were strapped with metal jaw tags identifying their diet
before being released, and signs were posted along streams offering fishermen a reward for mailing in the tags if they caught
fish.
Alluring Results
Last summer, a similar test using 2,000 hatchery fish resulted in a 23% higher catch rate for trout weaned to worms than for
those that dined on pellets alone. This year, the educated trout are leading again, by 17%, and the tags are still arriving. Mr.
Dillon, a mild-mannered scientist who sold nightcrawlers as a child, says he is encouraged by the results of his tutoring.
"School's out right now." he says, "We're waiting for the grades to come in."
But some wildlife advocates think projects like Mr. Dillon's simply waste money and energy that might better go toward
rebuilding wild-fish stocks. Micky Hodges, a Twin Falls lawyer and a member of Trout Unlimited's Idaho chapter, says Mr.
Dillon is trying to breed "Frankenstein's fish" - trout whose natural instincts have been excised. "With all due respect to Jeff, I
was horrified." Mr. Hodges says. "Why not put the fish in a barrel, put in the bait, eat the fish and say, 'This is fun.'"
Conservationist David Brower, the original executive director of the Sierra Club, calls the Idaho project an effort to "Rube
Goldberg our way out of a situation that we've Rube Goldberged our way into." He adds, "This is the whole idea of trying to
manage fish instead of having the Creator do it. I think the Creator is better informed."
In fact, many biologists view hatcheries in general as a bad idea: Some evidence suggests they breed dumbed-down creatures
that actually damage the wild-fish populations, by weakening the gene pool and exposing them to new diseases.
Even Mr. Dillon's co-workers were skeptical when he began his worm-eating classes last year. "We kind of razzed him about
it." recalls Doug Young, assistant manager at the Hayspur State Fish Hatchery in Bellevue. Their doubts seemed founded
when the trout all but ignored Mr. Dillon's offer of nightcrawlers on the first day of class. But by the fifth day, the fish were
hooked. "Now," says Mr. Young, "I think there is some merit to it."
Luring Tourists
Idaho officials think the project is more than weird science. Hatchery-raised fish can't handle the stresses of the wild; those
that aren't caught by fishermen usually die within three to six weeks, victims of predators or diseases. Only 5% make it to the
next year. There is also an economic lure. Steven Huffaker, chief of Idaho's Bureau of Fisheries, says that if Idaho can stock
fewer hatchery fish but obtain the same catch level through Mr. Dillon's fish school, the state will save some of the $2.4 million
it spends yearly on the hatchery program.
If the hatchery trout start biting on worms, more tourists will come here to fish, state officials says. Visitors represent about
half of Idaho's anglers, but last year, the state sold just 21,003 season fishing licenses to nonresidents, the lowest number sold
since 1977. Sales to residents have floundered since the early 1980s, even as Idaho has enjoyed a population boom.
"I'm worried about kids playing Nintendo or doing drugs instead of fishing like I did when I was a kid." says Mr. Huffaker, whose
Boise office wall boasts the largest smallmouthed bass ever caught in Idaho, a 6.8 pounder.
Bring Out the Garbage
Some anglers here have all but given up on worms as bait. "They don't bite on worms - they just don't." says John Pearson, a
grocery store checker from Twin Falls. Mr. Pearson tosses a worm into the Big Wood River, where he and his wife Lisa are
spending a weekend fishing. The fish - if there are any fish - ignore it.
In response, fishermen are chasing trout with everything from marshmallows to popcorn. Larry McCoy, owner of McCoy's
Tackle & Gift Shop in Stanley (Pop. 69), says one customer uses a "garbage hook" - baited with cheese, egg yolk and salmon
eggs. But anglers don't use the hard little pellets that hatcheries feed the fish. "That would be physically impossible." says
Dale Turnipseed, a state wildlife biologist. "They'd crumble right off the hook."
Nonetheless, Mr. Dillon's worm-eating tutorials still draw a lot of sneers. "It's the most asinine thing I ever heard of." says Jerry
Funderberg, owner of Jerry's General Store, near the Salmon River. He believes the real reason trout aren't biting is that too
many tourists are pounding Idaho's fish populations. John Marley , who fishes the Salmon River, says his catch has dropped
from as many as eight trout a day to two or three. "There's getting to be so many people," he says, "There's no way the
hatchery program can keep up."
State wildlife officials insist there are plenty of wild trout left in Idaho's streams.
Southern Appalachian Insect Hatches for September:
Isonychia Bicolor Sporadically - All Day 12 Adams
Light Cahill Usually at Dusk 16-18 Light Cahill
Stenonema Ithaca
Flying Ants All Day 20-24 Spentwing Ant
Terrestrials - All Summer - Inchworms, Black Ants, Beetles, Crickets