Natural or Un-Natural
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http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/biotechfishing/
How do you feel about this subject?
Triploid rainbows have been used for years in English lake fisheries. They grow fast and monstrously big. They have not caught on in the states so well. I would think they would need to be classified in their own catagory for the record books. Do we have some in the states? I seem to recall PA or some other east coast state producing a few.
Eh. I think triploids need their own category. What’s to stop me from pen-raising a ginormous triploid, releasing it into a 2-acre pond, and then catching it for a record?
Triploids fall into the same category as pellet fed pigs, fat chicks, and mopeds: “A lot of fun ’til your friends find out.”
My take is that scarcity value alone is the basis of our reverence for bigger animals. We celebrate the 14-point buck, the seven by seven elk, the 40 lb. brown trout, simply because not everyone can catch these things. Is it any harder to kill a 14-point buck than a 6-point? In the wilds, yes, it is; that 14-pointer got that big by being more wary, luckier, and genetically better suited to stay alive in its environment than every other deer in the woods. A 40 lb. brown trout caught in American waters has managed to evade at least 15 years of serious angling pressure, all while feeding and becoming increasingly harder to hide itself. Again: a trophy.
Now let’s look at pellet fed pigs and triploids. These are fish which have been engineered by humans (either with supplemental feeding or a third chromosome) to be more plentiful. The 15 lb. PFP rainbow did not get to be 15 lb. by carefully protecting itself while eating only at the best times. Rather, it sat in a pool like a fat slob at a Denny’s and ate what was literally shoveled into its mouth. Triploids live in wild places but they are engineered to grow like eunuchs: larger, fatter, less sexual development, sterile.
Finally, let’s look at hookers. Seriously. Hookers are often very attractive ladies. If a man was partnered up with that lady naturally, we’d respect the man; he must have some things going on (fitness, good personality, great earnings capacity) in order to convince that woman to date or marry him. But, if you put money on the table, all respect goes out the window. Any rich a-hole can hire the highest-price hooker in town if he is just pathetic enough to put his money to that purpose, if only for one night.
PFPs and Triploids are the fishing equivalent of prostitutes. Scarcity value has been devalued thanks to tinkering with the system. Claiming a triploid as a trophy is thus totally bogus; there is no way to measure the devaluation in difficulty/scarcity to catch a big triploid, but we can all agree that some amount of that difficulty has been erased.
Are PFPs and triploids good for something? Sure: practice. They’re the donut on a baseball bat; a padded tackling dummy. They can make you a better angler if you learn to fight them properly. Just don’t expect any respect for it.
Zach
Prostitutes have their place in our society, fortunately
or unfortunately. I would rather that some bloke went
to a prostitute to get his thrills than committed rape.
:-/If you are going to kill a fish for the table, kill a PFP
and eat that. (You may grow a third testicle if you eat
too many, but hey it would be a great ice breaker at
parties)
;DSome people just need to get a bend in their rod (talking
fishing here), and there is NOTHING wrong with that in my
opinion. When you do get that truly wild wary fish to the net,
the memory of those PFPs almost slip away entirely. You
are greatful for the skills they taught you though.Andrew
A case in point is the Barramundi we have here in
Australia. Similar I believe to your snook – Mr Morse
would know.These fish can be real pain in the neck. Some days
when all the conditions should be perfect, the sky
is the wrong colour blue and they won’t play.‘Barra’ are a trophy fish. Everyone wants to catch
a barra, but unless you’ve got the bucks for a top
guide like Bargy or Philiskirk, and can afford the
remote locations where they reside in numbers…
well your chances of getting a wild one are remote.
To add to this, they can be a fish of a thousand casts,
meaning that you have to put in a lot of effort.
(A tip is to get a guide with LOCAL knowledge)Unless you have spent some time with the PFP barra
to know something of what to expect when they hit
you in sight of structure, the story will go something
like this…
On the 999th cast, your brain filled with blue funk, you get
a hit. You high stick your rod almost breaking it in a state
of fright and fail to set the hook. 999 more casts? I don’t
think so, you sell your fishing gear and take up golf.Having a few PFP barras under the belt from some farm
or small impoundment will make you so hungry for the real
thing that you will be able to put in 2000 casts for that one
fish and have a better than average chance of landing it.When we finally get you down here Zach, get Mr Morse to
take you out with Bargy. You will love it.PFP & impoundment barra make you earn your capture, do
triploids fight?Andrew
I think starting to asterisk record fish could turn into a slippery slope. According to http://mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Documents/11939.pdf, Missouri’s hatchery fish are selectively bred to express desirable traits. Would this exempt any big trout from Missouri from the books also? Would qualifying a fish for a world record also have to mean the fish came from it’s original natural distribution before people started scattering them across borders?
A case in point is the Barramundi we have here in
Australia. Similar I believe to your snook – Mr Morse
would know.Barramundi are ecologically quite similar to the Atlantic snooks.
They can make you a better angler if you learn to fight them properly. Just don’t expect any respect for it.
Zach
Do we take this another step forward, and say that if
you fish with a guide it doesn’t count, because you didn’t
really earn the capture as it was the guides’ experience
that put you onto the fish?I think there might be something in this as it is sweeter
when you struggle and learn from your mistakes until
you finally succeed. THAT fish is worth more than any other.Andrew
I’ve seen one triploid landed. That was in Tasmania. I was fishing with a good friend who is a guide who had never seen one landed either. He’d seen them hooked by his clients but no one had landed one. This thing took him to the cleaners, it was like comparing a trout to a tuna that jumped. He knew straight away that he’d finally hooked one. ten minutes earlier he’d hooked two rainbows at the same time ( we were fishing 2 fly rigs and they put up a bit of wriggle but this thing went ballistic.
They’re all fish and they’re all good. This triploid was caught very early in the season when all the natural rainbows were spawned out slabs.
A bit like the hookers (remember you started it Zack) – if the option is a couple of spawned out slabs past their use by date or something that’s been tarted up, that’s out looking and is available, and has some pretty spectacular references, but might cost, I think I’d take a serious second look at the state of the credit card. ;D ;D
Morsie
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