You guys are bang on abut the plastic worms and tubes working well for the trout. There is however an alarming trend that is being noticed, both locally and across the trout range. Trout are being caught with large a mounts of plastic baits in their stomach. About two years ago one of the residents of Loughborough that I fish with started telling me that most of the trout they were catching were stufffed full of plastic worms. Some of these fish did not look like the typical stocky thick lakers usually caught. These fish looked lean and half starved.
Now there is an article in Ontario Out of Doors magazine indicating this is a widespread problem. They indicate that the issue occurs in lakes that have both trout and bass in them, and they think most of the worms are comming from the bass anglers in the summer. Then when the water cools of in the fall/winter and the trout can go shallower they eat the plastics off the bottom. Picture in the article shows about 25 plastics that came out of one trout's stomach. We haven't seen that many, but have seen them with 6-10 baits in them.
The things OOO suggest that we can do to help the problem are:
#1 Do not discard used plastics in the water. Take them home and put them in the trash.
#2 Use a dab of superglue to adhere plastics to hook/jig, to prevent loss.
#3 Use biodegradeable plastics if possible.
I would be interested in knowing if anybody else has seen this issue with trout locally. Please pass the word and raise awareness of the issue. This could be very detrimental to stocking programs, and changing our practices around the use of plastics could be the easiest and most effective thing the average angler can do to help our stocking programs succeed.
Thanks and tight lines.
Bruce
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Bruce Ogilvie
"Fish Hard, Hunt Hard, Live Hard"
http://www.muskiescanada.ca/