Great Day

[stlfisher]

If there is a wild population is a certainly very small. I can vouch for seeing big browns on nests, but I have never caught a small brown. I have caught small rainbows usually one every trip and while I really want to believe they are stream born, it is very possible they just escaped or got scooped up in the wrong net. I caught a 7 inch trout at Jefferson Lake this year in the winter program. Pretty sure that guy didn't grow up there. What a crappy life for that guy...grow up in tank...end up in Forest Park. Talk about bad luck.

I do know out west, in Montana, they stopped stocking rainbows in many of the streams many many years ago and the wild populations just exploded. For whatever reason the stockers did not mix well with the wild fish. From the material I read my understanding was the stockers ate a lot of food wild fish would eat, but the stockers were also very easy prey. Each time the numbers would plunge a new group of dummies (stockers) would be stocked. The cycle would repeat without any real improvement in numbers or size of fish. It was kind a giant waste of time and money in some streams.

I believe this is the same philosophy that was followed in sections of the Little Piney that the MDC decided to stop stocking. It seems the wild trout numbers have gone up and it remains to be seen if they will grow to any size. The only real way I can tell to determine if the Current could support a sizable wild population would be to do the same and stop stocking it. With the information that is available that is pretty risky and certainly one I would not be in favor for.

I guess I just want to know why the fish can't successfully spawn in high enough numbers. There has to be a reason why and I think the funds allocated would be well worth it. I'd donate to the cause if it was a money issue and if the results showed it could produce a wild fishery that would be pretty awesome IMO. I am sure the MDC has done some of this already. No doubt I would rather catch a wild fish than a stocker. It is a little more satisfying when I stop and think of all the odds that fish had stacked against it just to get to a catchable size.

With all that being said the Current is certainly my favorite place to fish MO.