It Is Almost Time For The Very Best Trout Fishing Of The Entire Season.

[Phil Lilley]

Does it hurt when someone criticizes your brand of trout fishing?

Just to clarify... you did talk about the difference between wild and stocked trout and how you feel about it - you say criticize, but you called people hypocrites that spend money on Orvis equipment and fish for non-native trout. So you're not only criticizing the brand of trout fishing, you're also criticizing those people who fish that way. Or am I missing something? This thread is a little hard to understand.

I frankly don't understand your reasoning but you're entitled to your opinion, as long as you're respectful expressing it.

I've been blessed to fish for wild fish in many parts of the world, and I've fished for stocked trout here and other parts of the Midwest. There is a difference in my personal satisfaction fish for and catching wild trout but fishing for and catching non-native trout, that satisfaction doesn't follow too far behind.

Just trying to understand your position clearly...

[Fly_Guy]

My position clearly is that I don't care whether fish are wild or stocked. I just don't like people thinking their experience of fishing is somehow better than that of others. I could care less whether you fish with Orvis or Berkeley, just know that if you think yourself better than other vile 'bait fishermen' there are people fishing the sweet water river in Wyoming that would roll their eyes at your 'trout experience' (they would be wrong to do so, but they would). The reminders of the nature of the trout swimming in all Missouri waters is an attempt (which has largely fallen on deaf ears and blind eyes) to keep some people from looking down their noses at others. Specifically in this thread, those in large urban areas that don't have the luxury of living on the banks of a high quality trout stream. Perhaps this will clarify my position.

[Fly_Guy]

But then again, I guess calling the urban trout program lame, the trout stubby finned and ugly, the lakes they're stocked in drainage ditches, and making implications about the sort of people who fish for them is all good here at OA. What is the expression : "y'all can dish it out but you can't take it in"

I know of several parents and kids that are glad for this program. .. fish baskets and all.

[drew03cmc]

The dollars that are spent on trout tags not only support management for the fisheries that offer a decent experience, but also for the bucket brigades in the Lou and KC. Which needs more attention? Does James A Reed in KC need trout in it or would those trout be better served in the Niangua or Meramec? The Meramec trout numbers have been abysmal, but they drive over it to dump the fish in St Louis. I don't care if you like urban fisheries, they're not my thing either, but you have to understand that they could spark a love for trout fishing, driving a guy to spend his weekends in the Ozarks and eventually find the champion of the Ozarks, the smallmouth bass.

[Fly_Guy]

Ding ding ding! We have a winner.

[Phil Lilley]

Thanks. I understand now.

Anything to spur on interest in fishing- any kind of fishing- I think is a good thing.

The biggest crappie of my life came from a round "tank" in southern Oklahoma not more than 70 feet across. Did it spur on my interest in catching fish as a young kids? Sure did!

[Fly_Guy]

+1 Phil; it just irked me that the whole point of this thread was to ridicule a program that gives urban people and particularly kids a chance to meet a trout. I witnessed it first hand a week ago and as a parent, it was great to see.

[laker67]

+1 Phil; it just irked me that the whole point of this thread was to ridicule a program that gives urban people and particularly kids a chance to meet a trout. I witnessed it first hand a week ago and as a parent, it was great to see.

You have just pointed out the main issue. "Urban", what gives them special treatment over rural areas that are not close to trout fishing. My tax dollars do not seem to be evenly distributed.

[Phil Lilley]

More bang for the buck?

[ozark trout fisher]

I enjoy it. No apologies from me.

Same here. It's fun, weirdly so. It's not necessarily trout fishing in the strictest sense, but it's definitely being outside when you could be inside. So I'm not going to turn my nose up at it anytime soon. And yeah, stocked trout are fine to eat. Not great, but fine, and there's no guilt.