As many of you probably remember the winter of 2000was one of the coldest winters the lowcountry has ever experienced. For those of you who have short memories a day of trout fishing over the past year probably reminded you. Reports of one, two or no trout trips were the norm for anglers that had been fishing for trout their entire lovers.
Here we are in June 2002 and while the reports of trout are on the rise the question many people are asking is "how are the trout?" I asked Dr Charles Wenner of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources about the current state of our trout population and the outlook for the coming year. Before he gave me the current information he provided a little information on the effect of the winter of 2000-2001.
Dr Wenner said we were very lucky to head into the 2000 winter with a very good number of trout due to good spawning, survival and mild winters. Samplings showed 5 good age groups with many more large fish (4 to 5 years old) than ever before. The kill was estimated at 70%. Fortunately that was 70% of a large number of trout. If stocks had not been so healthy heading into this event the damage would have been much worse.
The spawning and survival of young fish last spring and summer was reasonably successful and those fish are now 7-12 inches. The mild winter of 2001-2002 also helped enhance the recovery process. Dr Wenner said that based on history the fall fishery this year should be better than last year and barring another bad winter things should start getting back to normal.
As I mentioned earlier, you can tell that the number of reports on trout are on the rise on the fishing reports page of the site. In talking with anglers many have told me they are starting to catch trout in their old spots for the first time all year. Our natural tendency will be to forget how badly the trout population was hurt as we begin to catch more fish, but we need not forget too soon. The trout population is still on the mend and we must do our part to mak