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Most of the rivers are full of spawn, redds. We have had a lot of water coming down the rivers. Most likely most of the redds are nearly impossible to pick out. And they are all over, not just in the prime spots and different species have their preffered areas.
I don't believe I have ever seen in the regs that wading is against the law. However is it ethical to stomp around in the water while there are active redds. It only takes one wrong step to wipe out a nest. Every redd destroyed reduces the return. And there are few rivers in this state that can afford to loose even 1 redd due to a fishermans big foot.
My contention is that on some systems fishermen wading on redds causes huge mortality!
If the fry don't make it out into the river then they can never return as an adult.
I will expand this to those who throw out anchors and even let the anchor slow down the drift dragging the bottom.
If we really want to have wild fish can we afford to blindly wade, or in fact wade at all?
wet line Dave
I don't believe I have ever seen in the regs that wading is against the law. However is it ethical to stomp around in the water while there are active redds. It only takes one wrong step to wipe out a nest. Every redd destroyed reduces the return. And there are few rivers in this state that can afford to loose even 1 redd due to a fishermans big foot.
My contention is that on some systems fishermen wading on redds causes huge mortality!
If the fry don't make it out into the river then they can never return as an adult.
I will expand this to those who throw out anchors and even let the anchor slow down the drift dragging the bottom.
If we really want to have wild fish can we afford to blindly wade, or in fact wade at all?
wet line Dave