It’s past mid-October, which means that in many areas in the country, the brown trout spawn is in full swing. The fish are digging redds, if they haven’t started already, and you might see fish paired up, doing their thing to propagate the species. With the brown trout spawn comes the predictably great fishing as fish vie for prime lies, and the other fish dine on a buffet of eggs.
You’re also going to see a slew of pictures of trout clearly yanked off redds, and anglers sticking their fingers in the gills of these fish. These pictures get posted on Facebook or Instagram, and there are two types of comments: people calling out the angler for poor fish handling, and others saying “don’t listen to those people, they’re just jealous they can’t catch fish.”
This back-and-forth is as predictable as the spawn itself, and I swear it gets worse and worse every year. Yes, folks should know basic trout handling skills if they’re going to fish for trout, regardless of the tackle they use. But people should know how to merge properly, too; in fact, we were all taught that at some point in driver’s ed. We know how well that worked out.
This brings up the question I don’t have an answer for, but I’d love it if we could find one: how do we help educate people about the ill effects of catching spawning trout, and the broader concepts of safe trout handling? And can we pull this off without coming across as arrogant or stuck-up, a reputation that fly anglers will be forever linked to?
Other than the stubborn folks who refuse to listen or learn anything new, a lot of the bad trout handling we see is due to lack of education. Excepting the folks who stubbornly refuse to learn anything new and insist that if the trout swam off on its own, it was obviously fine, I think most people are pretty open to learning how to better take care of wildlife and wild places. Despite how the broader public treats the outdoors (just look at how trashed Yellowstone gets as an example), the people who fish generally are willing to clean up after themselves and leave things a bit better than they found them.
Social media comment sections are hardly the place for real discussions, and I’d be absolutely shocked to learn of anyone whose opinion was changed by a well-worded rebuttal on Facebook. So how exactly do we get the message out that we need to take care of spawning trout? And that trout themselves are much more fragile than bass, panfish, or catfish?
Part of this comes from setting the right example, and talking about it in person to as many people as you can. But I also think we could make some headway by talking about this subject without any judgment on the folks who just don’t know any better.
Because unless you were raised in a fly fishing family, you tend to forget that you were once the person who didn’t know any better. I was raised in a fishing family, and generally taught to respect wildlife, and I still wince when I look at old pictures of me holding fish. Thankfully, I had good friends and mentors who showed me what I was doing wrong, and I try to do the same when given the chance.
Is that all we can do? Or is there a better way to get the message out? I’d love to hear from y’all in the comments today.