It’s hard to believe it was just a few days ago that I was on the Fraser River, rod and reel in hand, holding on for dear life as I watched not once, but three times as a six-and-a-half-foot, 250 pound sturgeon came sailing out of the water right in front of me, not even 25 feet away.
To see something that big rise up and splash down so close is, to say the very least, pretty darned exciting.
Fraser River white sturgeon are magnificent creatures that were once caught and killed just for their eggs. Sturgeon fishing on the Fraser is now strictly catch and release. (If you want to know more about white sturgeon and/or wish to support ongoing conservation and enhancement programs, contact/join the Fraser River Sturgeon Conservation Society.)
Ironically, after having witnessed the amazing spectacle of seeing a sturgeon rise out of the water, my friend and fishing partner Cory and I found ourselves talking about watching rainbow trout do the same thing – a fish one one-hundredth of the size, but every bit as determined to free itself from the hook.
We agreed neither of us could ever get tired of watching as a trout rises up from the depths to sip in a fly and then take off towards the other side of the lake.
There are any number of Interior lakes full of strong, bright silver rainbow trout, which hit hard and fight all the way to the boat.
Many of our Interior lakes are stocked with a strain of trout known a triploids, which are the same as a traditional, hatchery-raised trout except they have been sterilized. The triploid strain of (rainbow) trout was developed by fisheries biologists to be put into lakes where there are no natural spawning channels or already existing populations of natural wild trout.
Since many fish die when they cannot “spawn out,” the triploid strain was a fairly simple solution to a relatively complex problem, as they do not suffer the ill effects of unsuccessful spawning. And, because triploids cannot reproduce, they will not dilute or alter the gene pool of wild stocks.
Trout eggs are collected from wild trout and then subjected to high pressure “heat shocking” for a given period of time at the hatchery. The shocking usually takes place within 40 minutes of the fertilization process. The triploid trout are not genetically altered by the shocking process and cannot be distinguished in appearance from other reproductive fish stocks. They are raised and reared the same as non-sterilized fish stocks and display the same physical and behavioral attributes.
Triploid trout do, however, have the potential to grow considerably larger than wild stocks because they do not have to devote any energy or calories to reproductive processes. Typically, fish such as rainbow trout grow for two to three years, mature, and then stop growing. Triploid trout never stop growing.
More often than not, triploid fish are put into lakes that have an abundance of food and can attain weights in excess of 10 pounds. Stocked fish currently account for half of the fish taken by anglers. The triploid strain provide quality sport fishing in waters that would not otherwise be able to sustain a stable wild fish population.
Pound for pound, triploids are as scrappy as any fish out there, and that probably does include the white sturgeon, although it’s hard to believe that when you are holding on for dear life and watching as a 250-pound fish is coming out of the water time after time, not even 25 feet away. I guess the only way to really make a proper comparison would be to spend the summer fishing for triploid trout in a variety of lakes and then head on back to the Fraser sometime in the fall to fish for sturgeon. To make a truly scientific comparison I suppose I would also have to include steelhead and salmon.
Ah yes, the things I do for science, well maybe not so much for science as fun … but I am willing to make the sacrifice.
