01-12-2022, 05:37 PM
(01-07-2022, 08:43 PM)onepointseven Wrote: As you can see the fish was only 16 years old and you can see in its first 12 years it grew very rapidly...
...over all the lake trout in flaming gorge are growing much faster than people think and it wont ruin the lake if a few bigger fish are harvested for someone to enjoy on the wall.
i posted this with some reservation due to all the negativity we received from killing this fish but i think the fisherman need to see the research data and understand what is happening to the lake we all love to fish on.
Onepointseven -- I appreciate you posting this info. If readers of this forum take the time to look at the otolith time line, they would be very surprised. But more importantly than the surprise is the understanding that this fish's growth WAS NOT AN EXCEPTION, but rather the norm for big fish. They grow FAST!
The time line can be broken down easily:
years 1 - 4 = Fast growth. The fish made it to about 20 - 24".
years 4 - 7 = slow growth. The fish didn't grow very much. The fish had not converted to a strictly piscivorous diet.
years 7 - 12 = Fast growth. The fish converted to a strictly piscivorous diet and exploded!! It grew from ~24" to ~40" and 50lbs in 5 years!! (this is where we want our fish! We want them all in the range of maximum growth where the growth rate is the fastest!)
years 12 - 16 = slow growth.
Again -- thank you Onepointseven for submitting this post. Hopefully a few people will read it, understand it, and learn something from it.