Keeping fish in trophy water

[loo10]

Do you pan fry or bake Ferret?

Saw a ferret on the bank of Taneycomo a few weeks ago.

It was holdin' a sign.

It said,

"Eat more sculpins."

[Phil Lilley]

Your ferret was a mink.

[fish hunter]

"...Lake Taneycomo receives 700,000 catchable trout per year..." Straight from the MDC site!

Hmmmm --700,000.

www.mdc.mo.gov

[Phil Lilley]

Did you know in the mid 80's MDC was stocking 1.7 million rainbows??!! (I'm going by memory here)

[fish hunter]

Ahhh. Taney glory days... Not that it is all bad now.

[gonefishin]

Why did they drop off the stocking rate by more than half?

Are the pay per day parks sucking up that many fish?

I knew the stocking rate was way down, I didn't know it was that much. It is kind of agrevating when we pay more for licenses and stamps and get less fish for our bucks.

[jscheetz]

Hey all,

Are all of these stocked fish - "stocker size"? 9 to 11 inches? Or do they stock a number of big fish also?

JS

[Phil Lilley]

They stocked WAY too many trout in the 80's and they literally ate all the food. Everyone speculates why the shrimp all disappeared... if you put too many fish in a pond what happens? They eat most of the food and don't grow.

The present stocking levels are derived from a couple of things- fishing pressure and carrying capasity (I had to go to my hunter's safety manual for that one).

MDC has balanced stocking levels not to overpopulate the lake so that growth levels are good and so that anglers have enough trout to catch.

Size - depends on who is stocking and when. Shepherd trys to stock rainbows that average 11.5 inches. But Neosho doesn't try- they just stock them around 8-9 inches. Sheperd, at times, has to stock rainbows smaller because of situations out of their control (other hatcheries like Roaring and Bennett that have to dump stock because of problems like low water flows). I believe it was this year Shepherd had to dump a bunch of big rainbows (12-14 inch) into Taney and shared them with other trout fisheries because of warm water conditions. When Shepherd's water is warmer than normal, trout grow faster than anticipated and they can't hold the surplus and have to dump them.

So to answer your question- yes and no. Shepherd doesn't stock very many broad stock (3-9 lb rainbows) into Taney- they take them to other trout fisheries. They used to before Taney started growing big rainbows on it's own.

[fish hunter]

At 700,000 trout/year.

58,333 trout/mth

14,583 trout/wk

~2000 trout/day

Seems like one could keep a few fish if they choose!

Oh yah. ~31,818 fish/mile & ~336.5 trout/acre

Thats just based on the #'s given. Something to put into perspective.

Catchable trout stocked per year

KOKANEES once roamed the waters of Taneycomo!!

[Wayne SW/MO]

There are plenty of fish in the lake. The only thing Taney lacks is enough public bank access to fishable water. Thats just another reason why I wish they would protect the big fish in the upper mile, it still leaves about 25 miles, I believe it is, of Trout water.

No Kokanee, they aren't that desirable.