A Couple of Hours on the Avon

[Ernest]

When I was growing up in Minnesota the general idea was to kill your limit of trout at every opportunity. The limit was ten trout per day. We ate a lot of fish at our house, and when the fishing turned poor near the roads, my friends and I walked further into the forest to our secret places, where we caught and killed more trout. A nearby city meant a lot of fishermen, and the fishing success went down over time.

In Minnesota and Wisconsin there have been changes in regulations, with lower bag limits and special regulations on some waters, and that has helped preserve good public fishing. Over time many fishermen have adopted the practice of keeping no fish at all, or just a few.

Then there is the issue of land use and development. Stream trout thrive within a fairly narrow set of environmental conditions. If these conditions are absent for even a couple of weeks a year, there will be no trout. A dense people population means more impermeable surfaces, roofs, roads, sidewalks, parking lots, and the rain that falls on these surfaces quickly runs off into streams rather than sinking in and becoming next decade’s spring water. The land is too valuable not to develop, the developers don’t think about the trout, and the streams suffer. How much is a trout stream worth? We’re grappling with a public policy question. Some of the grapplers are trout fishermen, and some are not. Some developers maximize their returns in ways that do no good for the trout. It’s not just cities and towns. I know of a couple of very productive trout streams that were compromised by suburban developments with generous lot sizes. Each home had its own water well and septic system, and after a few years the nearby streams looked the same, but they were not the same.

So what is a trout stream near a population center worth? We can spend public money to buy the land to preserve a stream, or a private concern can buy this valuable land and sell memberships. Once the stream access is in private hands, it won’t go back to the public again.

Wisconsin has over 10,000 miles of trout streams, mostly small streams. The three streams I fish the most run through public land, are difficult to get in to, and offer fine fishing most of the time. They are not too far from my home, but they’re far enough from the cities so very few people will fish them in a season.

[adam]

Paul, there are some Englishmen here, been here for a very long time and they are pretty savy and cool, no less. You might want to send one a private message or do a search here at the forum for a keyword or something to find these guys...

And pictures?

Got any pictures? Even ones of Stonehenge or a crop circle or something cool like an old castle or a stream?

Love me some pictures.

Thanks for ringing in.

...and by the way, two hours by car driving fast to get to the first acceptable streams, my favorites are 4.5 hours, 10 hours by car to get to heaven.

That's what I do.

[paulf]

4.5 hours driving would be me on a lot of trout fishing! Right in to Devon and also a lot if not most of Wales.

Currently the waters I fish vary between 20 minutes and an hour away. Total time out of the house, fishing + travelling time, is typically 4 hours tops.

There are a few photos on my last couple of threads which hopefully folks can view! (Never posted pictures before.) They were all taken with a mobile. I will try to take a better camera and get some photos of famous historic sites :)

Paul