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A Fisherman's Friend Can Often Break Ecologists' Hearts
There may be plenty of unwanted fish in the sea for government ecologists, but often those invasive aquatic species are a boon to local anglers. Take the brown trout. A European native, the trout was introduced into America in the late 19th century and can now be found in bodies of fresh water from coast to coast. Though they may might provide tasty meals after lazy summer afternoons, new fish species come at a cost greater than a bucket of worms. "There's a number of either purposely introduced, or accidentally introduced, species that have provided quite a recreational resource," said George Madison, fisheries supervisor for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for the Western Upper Peninsula. "So while smelt can be desired by people, or brown trout or rainbow trout, it's very clear that they out-compete the native species." In the Great Lakes region, the introduction of salmon has changed the aquatic landscape, displacing native fish such as the coaster brook trout, a minnow forager.
Number of women fly fishing has gone up since 2003
By DAVE BUCHANAN The Daily Sentinel Fly fishing. It’s not just for men anymore. As if it ever were. It was in the 1400s that Dame Juliana Berners, preceding Izaak Walton by 200 years, published the essay, "A Treatyse of Fysshynge Wyth an Angle," (the Old English title) in which the good nun suggests that fishing with a rod and a line brings good spirits and enhances life. More and more, many of those anglers enjoying those good spirits and enhanced life are women. According to an Outdoor Industry Foundation study last year, there are nearly 3.5 million women who fly fish in the United States, up 200,000 since 2003. That’s welcome news to Robert Ramsay, president of the American Fly Fishers Trade Association.
Native brook trout are in hot water
My first brook trout arrived on a frosty late-spring morning in mountain water so cold it made my fingers tingle before going completely numb. No bigger than my hand, the brookie was a work of art to rival New Hampshire's Chocorua Lake, its home just before I enticed it to swallow my fly and to which I would return it moments later. Its olive skin peppered with blue-ringed red dots and a rakish orange belly is a vivid image that has stayed with me for more than 25 years. If I had a lick of artistic ability, I could draw that fish from memory. Since arriving here 18 years ago, my encounters with brookies have been fewer and farther between. Some of that has to do with the other fish that occupy my time: white perch, croaker and, of course, striped bass. (Let's not even mention menhaden, OK?) But even when I've carved out the time, it's been hard to do a meet-and-greet with Maryland's only native trout.
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