From: johnf@Auspex.COM (John Fereira)
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing
Subject: Re: Colorado Fishing All Tied up in Nylon!
Date: 13 Aug 92 22:26:33 GMT
Organization: Auspex Systems, Inc.

In article <Aug13.065152.35406@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> kjun@typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu (Pat Fitzpatrick) writes:
>In article <1992Aug13.024423.6740@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> gauss@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (GAUSS  REBECCA BANKER) writes:
|Having been a Colorado resident since January, I have a somewhat nit-picky
|question for other Colorado fishermen. What exactly constitutes a good
|fishing trip? Of course, I mean by this "fish catching," though I very
|much enjoy the beautiful scenery in this state.

True, there are someplaces that I've gone where the setting contributes enough
to the experience such that if the fishing wasn't that great I still left
satisfied.

|Recently I went to Mary's Lake in Estes Park. Supposedly the lake had
|been recently stocked, and the fishing was "good." So I went there, along
|with at one count 50 other anglers. After a few hours I saw a grand total
|of one trout caught. I could name many other similar occurences of supposedly
|good fishing that apparently was a tall tale.
 
In the case of a lake that has recently been stocked the fishing report is
only accurate for a short time.  For example, there is a small percolation
pond near hear that stocks every other week.  I've been there on the day
of the stocking and stood on the shore along the throngs of people and caught
and release 40-50 trout in a couple of hours.  Meanwhile, several people
arrived and left with their limits at the same time.  A week later, there
might be a few fisherman and maybe one trout caught in a couple of hours.

|You show 6 trout, but it also sounds like you had six people fishing, which
|averages one fish apiece. This seems rather slow fishing to me, but I'm just
|curious if this is a good average for a cold-water species like brook trout?
 
I've fished brook trout lakes where I averaged a fish on more than 50% of the
casts that I made.  This was only for a short time but it just shows that
much higher fish per rod ratio's can be had.  A few weeks ago I fished a stream
where I hit a succession of pools where I caught and released four fish in 
five casts three pools in a row.  If one could predict when and where these
kinds of ratio's would occur it would take all the fun out of.  

I've seen fish reports use different metrics for different types of fishing.
Comments like "limits are the rule" are found for "put and take" (stocked)
fisheries.  Sometimes they might indicate the size of the fish as well.  That
isn't always the case though.  For cod fishing off the coast I've seen
"40 pound bags", which not only indicates that limits are the rule, but that
the average size worked out to be about 2 pounds per fish.  These reports
come from party boat captains.  The "fish per rod" metric is used by the
same captians when fishing for salmon.  Take any one of these metrics and
you decide for yourself what is "good" fishing.

|Also, who gives these fishing reports? These are definitely overexaggerated,
|at least for the lakes and reservoirs. However, for the rivers, the fishing
|seems to be rather good, as can be seen by the occasional report given on
|this newsgroup for the Spinney Mt area. I have also seen good stringers
|from Poudre River, and will start fishing there now.
 
Who gives these reports?  We'll the newspaper certainly doesn't send out a
"reporter" to sample each fishery to get a report on conditions (sounds like
it would be a pretty good job though) so they find a "contact" for each
area.  For many lakes that contact is the marina or resort operator.  While
they should have a pretty accurate account of what's coming out of the lake
a little embelishment just might improve their business as well.  If 100 
people fished the lake one day and some caught limits and one person landed
a 8 pounder while most caught only two or three 1/2 pound fish, the limits and
8 pounder are going to be featured in the report.  

If no marina or resort operator is available the next place would be the
nearest tackle shop.  Again if this is in a resort area, the reports might
come in from the fisherman, but might come with a little embelishment before
reaching the publication of the report.

Before going on, to summarize so far, fishing reports are not necessarily
timely (especially in stocked fisheries) nor accurate.  The blame can be
entirely put on those doing the reporting.  The fisherman that has landed
the 10# german brown is more likely to stop in at the resort that the person
that has been skunked.  

|Hence, I follow up with this question: do lakes and reservoirs offer
|generally slow fishing (though they can be good sporadically) while rivers
|tend to be more consistent "fish-producers for trout?

Depends.  If your just looking for meat, lakes and reservoirs are probably
more reliable.  For one thing they're easier to stock.  In most cases they're
easier to fish.  Hatchery fish aren't as finicky as native's.  Hatchery fish
have been fed everyday at the same time by some guy tossing Purina Trout Chow
(no I'm not kidding) into a tank.  (Here's a little trick:  when fishing
for planted trout in a lake grab a small handful of little rocks and toss it
into the water.  It makes a similar sound to the trout chow hitting the
water.  Many times planted trout will school and that sound might tell the
whole school it's dinner time.)   

What seems to determine the quality of trout fishing more than anything is
the accessibility of the fishery.  I'm talking about in a specific locale
here so don't necessarily expect great fishing in the middle of Nevada.  In
general the farther upstream from the road you go the better the fishing.
The farther that you have to hike into a lake the more consistant it'll be.
These are generalities and techniques will be different.   The best way 
to learn those techniques is to go fishing with someone that has successfully
fished that area before.  Floating powerbait off the bottom just doesn't
cut it on a high mountain stream. 

-- 
+============================================================================++
| John Fereira            "Is that all you ever think about?"                |
| johnf@auspex.com                                                           |
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Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing