Week 6 Fish On!!

Fishing has begun! On April 13th most of Vermont's lakes and rivers opened to fishing. And all though this Friday was a terrible day to go fishing the rest of the opening weekend was perfect. Overcast and a little chilly kept everything interesting to be sure, but I was able to bring in 6 good size Bull Head catfish. While I know that is not enough to feed myself or my family for the week, it is a good start. Currently the fish are cleaning out a bit in a tub of fresh water and on Tuesday my plan is to fillet them up and serve them with rice.
In case anyone is curious about where I caught them I was in the South Slang or Little Otter Creek in Ferrisburgh. Using my fathers old canoe my oldest son and I paddled out into the current and around noon the fish started biting. In all we hauled in 12 but we tossed 6 back on account of their size. Telling each of them as they hit the water to go back and get bigger.
Sunday we headed over to Shelburne pond with no luck, though a buddy of mine did catch a good size bass, they are not in season yet so it went back in the water. Talking to the local fishermen at Shelburne Pond brings me to another topic that I wanted to bring up however. That is water quality.
Here in Vermont we like to think of this place as a pristine rural enviorment. Clean and relatively unspoiled but urban sprawl. This sadly however is not the case as I learned Sunday in talking to folks. Apparently though it appeared quite clear on Sunday due to the colder temperatures Shelburne pond has been under attack by invasive aquatic plants over the past decade. To the point of which the pond has experianced several large die offs of fish. The fish there also according to the locals are typically found with round worms. While the round worms are not a threat to humans as long as the fish is cooked, it's still unsettling to think about eating one. Mercury of course is the true threat from fish and unfortunately I know of no way to test a fish for it before eating. But how sad is it that we can no longer trust eating fish from such a large body of water in Vermont. For years even before this people would say to stay  away from Lamoille river and the lower end of the Winnoski river for the same reasons.
Blue green algae has become an issue in the state recently, and again while concentrations of it are not harmful to humans it is harmful to animals, such as dogs. I can only imagine though I couldn't find any studies on it that the same is true for deer and other wildlife.
So what can be done? Aquatic plants steal oxygen from the water and cause fish to die, worms are unsightly and I can't imagine fun for the fish to be carrying around and have been shown to stunt growth, and algae poses threats to wildlife all though unconfirmed at this time.
We all know that introducing a new species of fish to combat say the plants is not reasonable, what do you do with them when all the invasive plants are gone, what impact would they have on the food chain in the water. Poisoning the plants and algae is not a smart option as I'm sure such things would kill off fish as well. Perhaps increasing the number of fish in the ponds and lakes is a good answer. I'm not sure, overfishing on a scale like in Vermont is a possible threat to the ecosystem as a whole. And while Vermont Fish and Game stock some species every year, I find it hard to believe the stock more than are caught every year in the state. This idea of trash fish, as I have heard it called is another things that leads to decline, sadly this Sunday I found 4 large bull head catfish dead beside the pond just steps away from the water. Someone had discarded them on shore rather than putting them back in the water. Why you might ask would someone do this I have heard the common excuse over and over again, "Well I don't want to have him bite my line again" Let me tell you something, if I poked you with a needle stuck inside a banana, how likely are you to just go chomping into another one immediately after, or even for the next few days, or even years. Without any scientific information to back it up I'm willing to bet the same thing is true of fish who have just been hooked.
Anyway I will stop ranting there, and end with an update as usual on my weekly grocery shopping, this weeks groceries also included some other things we needed and I had not thought of namely trash bags and dish washing soap, so the total for this week was 55 dollars. Still landing me a savings of 100 dollars on average. Putting me now 220 dollars ahead I believe. So once again thanks for reading and stay tuned.