Wisconsin’s Changing Trout Population

I have kept log books on trout fishing my area since 1975.

There was a gap from 1978-1984 “Army”

I started up again in 1984.

I have ZERO special training in trout management.

I average 130 times a year fishing for trout in those years I have log books.

In 1976 prior to going in the Army I went out 132 times and my log books say I caught 1,120 trout for the year.

In 2011 I went out 137 times and my log books say I caught 2,437 trout.

DOUBLE the trout.

I re-read my logs and did some size and stream comparison.

The BIG trout in 1976 were on average “SIX” inches longer than the big trout I caught in 2011.

My log books through the years show this quite clearly.

Is TRADING numbers for size an acceptable trade off for you?

Hi Len, that ia an interesting observation, but I have some questions for you. Did you compare that species to species or just trout in general? Also did you compare the same streams from one year to the same stream and locations on the stream as fished before? I do know that te strains of trout being stocked is different from what is asctually native to Wisconsin and with the warming of the environmene for what ever reason the avgerage temp of the streams have gone up changing them. Some of the streams are now too warm for the native species that were once in them so a new strain has been stocked to kep a population of trout in the stream. I love to hear more of what you have noticed from your logs over the. I am studying as an much older student wildlife ecology, but my main interest is the river, streams and wetlands here in wisconsin and how they all interact together produce what we have for wildlife and the fisheries.

My logs I compared the same streams in Richland and Crawford Counties.

I for sure compared per species. Brook and browns.

richland has stocking and crawford doesn’t.

I also caught more “big” trout in the 70s and 80s.

Do you think it is caused by the sheer number of trout in the streams? Could it be more people fishing them and keeping the larger ones? I am really curious, I will be talking with Mike Miller who is one of the main people in the dnr responsible for stream management and restorations here. I would love to present this to him and see what his response is.

c/r is very prevalent these days. It is almost a religion in trout circles.

Also some of the streams in my area have gotten colder not warmer.

More trout….less food for them to eat because of numbers.
Slow down growth rates.

Len, a few years back I had an ongoing discussion with the fish manager in our area about the stocking of the “wild strain” trout. Supposedly these trout normally don’t get much bigger than 17 or 18 inches. As someone who used to fish for size and not numbers I was very disapointed in the change.

There still are some 20″ plus fish being caught but most of them from what I’ve seen and heard have been brood rainbows. There are still a few bigger browns too but I don’t know if there released broods or some of the old strain that have survived or reproduced.

The most disapointing result I’ve seen is the low numbers of the 15 to 19 inch fish that used to be so prevalent in our streams. Maybe I just haven’t figured out how to catch the bigger “wild” trout.