Fishing Victoria Forum

Hi peoples
As most of you would be aware, Victorian fisheries released some very large Rainbow trout to coincide with the opening of trout season. This created some debate on social media in regards to whether the release would affect the existing population of trout. To be honest, I am not that well versed with the entire river ecosystem balancing act but I do believe it may be possible that this release may effect the existing trout populations in isolated areas. I would guess that many of these captured fish will be released as they would not be good eating and therefore the reality is they may be around for a while to do damage...if that is possible.

On the other hand, the interest this stocking generated was intense! Many people have tried their luck and to see pics on social media of young children who have been good enough to land one of these fish is very pleasing. I would hazard a guess that this type of stocking will be done again. I myself would not bother chasing them, even if I physically could but I wouldn't want to deny people who are interested in pursuing them. Did anyone go out after them or deliberately try to avoid the areas in question?
cheers
Team Selmanid
I never was good at spelling!

I dont think it effects the trout popuation in anyway.its easy fishing for kids to catch a big trout.something they cant do in the wild.

Are big trout cannibalistic?

All trout are cannibalistic mate. It is no coincidence that one of the most effective trout lure patterns are those imitating trout themselves.

Stumpjumper wrote:All trout are cannibalistic mate. It is no coincidence that one of the most effective trout lure patterns are those imitating trout themselves.

Cool, never knew that.

My view on the stocking of trout has been made pretty clear here on a few posts. More resources should be put into stocking natives and other projects as opposed to releasing an introduced species.

Despite that view the promotion of trout opening and release of these fish has got a lot of people excited about angling and given many the pleasure of catching a few decent fish so it isn't all bad and in streams that already are renowned trout angling waters.

Welcome back! This is what I miss about this forum nowadays, decent topics. Although you may not be into a certain scene, you get a healthy chat going. As opposed to some of the b/s topics of late along the lines of " I got my ol' fella stuck in something it shouldn't be". Fair dinkum...

Back to the topic at hand. Personally, broodies aren't my cup of tea, but it's certainly great for the kids! Have heard many stories, and heard of many fish being released for another kid to get stuck into them. Good stuff I reckon!
There has been talk of whether this was a wise move due to the wild population, and VFA claimed that it's basically an irrigation channel so no issue. That expanation doesn't hold much ground to me. However, these were rainbows that were released, and they struggle to compete with browns. Browns are much tougher and belt the bows around. So that fact on its own keeps me content that no harm, or very little harm was done.

i dont think it would do to much to the ecosystem heaps would of got caught early after their release the ones that did,nt will get hook wise pretty quickly i was flyfishing many years ago when the trout farms got flooded out many years ago easy at the start 3 weeks later they got hook shy as for taste not really good anyway unless smoked it was a great idea victorian fisheries next year i will dust the cobwebs of my fly fishing gear

Personally I don't think it could be good for the system, they put in 1500 trout (into the river only) the average weight varies depending on where you read it but I think 2.5kg (just over 5lb) is a fair estimate. That works out to be 3.75 tons of trout being dropped into the river competing with the residents for a feed.

Good to see them trying to get people involved in fishing but I believe the big releases like this should be kept to places like the pondage where there is no 'wild' population to speak of.

These very large brood fish are not used to fending for themselves and many will very quickly lose condition and between those that are caught and natural mortality I suspect in a few months you would never know that it happened. Perhaps a few will survive in the longer term and those should certainly make for interesting angling once they are fit and used to river conditions.

Very large trout like people do not do well when the food supply vanishes. I fished Lake Bellfield in the Grampians a lot when it first was filling and we caught many 2 to 4 kg Brown and Rainbow trout shaped liked footballs. Two years later we were catching trout there with large heads and very skinny bodies - trout that should have been 3 to 4 kg but weighing less than half that and in extremely poor condition. A year after that there were basically only small trout from recent stockings in the lake.