Upper Current Report 10/29

[BKB]

Fished Wednesday 10/29 on the Upper Current River...WOW.. what a perfect weather day! 60/70 something degrees, clear skies, sunshine...a bit breezy at times, but not that bad.

Got to TanVat at 11:00 and fished upstream to about 100 yards Below the Cabin Hole till about 4:30.

The first fish that I hooked was a LARGE brown in the first small riffle above TanVat...after a brief 30 second fight, he broke my tippet...soooo sad! LOL

I managed 15 rainbows and 1 small brown for the day. (Oddly enough, zilch in the Rock Garden Hole, which I usually do very well in.)

The fish of the day came as I was wading back downstream at around 4:00. I was wading through the long, slow, sandy stretch of stream between the riffles above TanVat and the Rock Garden and decided to take a few casts. I usually just walk through this area. I hooked up with a hefty rainbow that took about 5 min to bring in (was a very tough fighter!) The fish was fat and went just above 20" The pic posted below does not do the fish justice....much fatter than it looks in pic!

I caught the fish on a variety of nymhs. With a size 22 Black Zebra Midge responsible or about 1/2 of the catch, Including the one pictured below.

The fishing was good, but the weather/scenery was great!

[fishinwrench]

What a healthy lookin' bow ! Nice job.

But tell me...Why the heck do they cut the pectoral fins off those fish ? Anybody know? Is it so they won't travel very far, or what?

If it is just to "mark them" I'd think there'd be another way.

Then again, she mighta broke you off if she had'em both. J/K

[Gavin]

The biologists do use fin clips to mark brown trout on the Current, but they usually clip the left or right pelvic fin, adiopose fin, or the tail. They do tail clips on the rainbows when they sample in the fall (the one above one appears to have a clipped tail) but thats it. Id have to say that the missing pelvic fin is probably the result of an injury or a deformity. Cheers.

[fishinwrench]

Gavin, You see a pectoral on that fish ? I only see a nub.

There's a 2 part TU sponsored documentary type film called the underwater world of trout that has a segment on the hydrodynamics of fish movement in rivers and stillwater, if you haven't seen it you should. It goes into a study on how each fin (or sets of fins) are used to position and move the fish through current. I thought I had a pretty good grip on it...but I learned some interesting stuff from watching those videos.

A notch out of the tail is no biggie, but a missing pectoral, pelvic, or adipose fin effects the fish quite a bit. I see quite a few fish in the Niangua with snipped pectorals and that has always bugged me. And it bugs me even more since I saw those videos.

I don't want to hijack BKB's report thread, it just looked like to me that his fish had a pectoral snipped.

[Snow Fly]

I was on the October shocking trip from the park boundary to TanVat. The left and right pelvic fins and the andipose fin represents the year the fish was stocked. Don't remember the exact year but for example the right was from 2005 left 2006 and the andipose 2008. They would measure length of each trout, species and which fin clipped.

Very interesting day.

[Mark]

I would love to see the film "The underwater world of trout".Where would I find it??

[flyfishmaster]

I got to see Volume 1 and 2 through Netflix.

Volume 1 has some incrediable video and it shows how trout use their fins to stay in some HEAVY current but using very little energy.

Later,

FFM

[Gavin]

Wrench, I see a right pelvic fin on that fish, NO right pectoral fin. Guess, I mistyped it...

Like snowfly, I've been out on the sampling runs with the biologists on the Current..They clip fins on the aft end of the brown trout..left & right pelvic, and adiopose to indicate year of stocking. Tail clips are used to indicate that the fish has been sampled when they shock the sample stretch again two days later. I clipped alot of fins on those two days, and none of em were pectorals. I'm not aware of any clips used to ID rainbows on the Current (other than tail clips during sampling) because most of them are escapees from Montauk..

FWIW, clipped fins will grow back if you dont clip em too close. Cheers.

[fishinwrench]

I got to see Volume 1 and 2 through Netflix.

Volume 1 has some incrediable video and it shows how trout use their fins to stay in some HEAVY current but using very little energy.

Later,

FFM

Exactly. Kind of puts a different spin on the old belief that trout expend alot of energy when holding in the riffles and fast water. Apparently they expend more energy (just trying to hold their position) in still or slow water than they do in fast water.

The way the sculpins oversized pectorals keep it "glued" to the bottom was interesting also. Like the wings on a soaring bird....the bird couldn't hold his position in the wind with a clipped wing, and I can't help but think that clipping fins on trout hamper their ability to deal with the environment they live in.

[Sam Potter]

Clipped fins:

The clipping of fins, usually partial clipping, is a way to mark the year fish (Browns on the Current River) are stocked or marked for sampling. But your rainbow, because of the location you caught it, probably came from Montauk Park. Rainbows raised in captivity, can and do have fin erosion problems. Your rainbow, if it is the same fish one of my clients caught two weeks ago, noting the location, lost the fins at the hatchery.

refer to this study: http://veterinaryrecord.bvapublications.co...ract/159/14/446

"A Bad Day Fishing is still a Good Day"

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