I'm sure that many of you will know that South Africa introduced an act a few years ago that basically required all landowners to take active steps to remove all alien species from their land and failure to do so would be met with severe penalties.

The act has resulted in a lot of ridiculous decisions such as particular species being shot out of particular regions, various types of trees being chopped out of the parks and private reserves, removing many riverine plants (some good, some bad) that have been coming down in the floods from places such as Mozambique...... the list goes on and on and on.

Today, the TV programme Carte Blanche had a piece on what has to be the most ridiculous decision ever taken with regard to this legislation.

More that 100 years ago, trout (mostly brown and rainbow) were released into some of the river systems. These trout have bred well over the years and a huge industry has grown up around them in the relevent areas.

Now, some clown has decided they're an alien species and the proposal is to remove them from all the affected river systems in an attempt to restore the rivers to the condition they were in 100 years ago.

It's bad enough they don't actually know what that condition was......... much worse, the proposal is to remove the fish by putting poison into the rivers and killing all life, even insect life in the rivers...... which in turn, will probably also kill other species such as jackals, baboons and various birds that feed on the dead trout!

Only in Africa huh!

Mother nature is constantly changing - most people are too adverse to change to accept that.

That's sad as the fly fishing industry in South Africa is quite profitable and enjoyable. What are they thinking?!!!

white man would be the next alien species ?

peter

I read somewhere that elephant were not known to be in the Krueger area 100 years ago. When does the cull begin? Can I come and help?

Noy just Africa,

The just stopped all rainbow trout planting in California waters for the same reason.

I thought rainbows were native to the west coast? And, they have the right name for California: RAINBOW!

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:

Only in Africa huh!

Not so.
In Aus the greens are pushing for the removal of Trout from our waterways also.

How do they propose removing them?

Doing it with poison is just sheer lunacy!

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
........ What are they thinking?!!!

Those that know me will also know what is about to follow.......

How can I steal some money? ....Let me not tire myself by thinking ..... How can I steal some money......

UEG They do not ever think! And if they do think it is about how to steal some money!
If they ever think about their work, it is invariably a very half-hearted attempt! Besides that they were appointed in the possition the are supposed to fill due to their proven incompetency! So they actually work better by not thinking than what they would do if they seriously try to think. The antic that shakari mentioned is probably a result of somone trying to think!

In good fly fishing!

Andrew McLaren

quote:

Now, some clown has decided they're an alien species and the proposal is to remove them from all the affected river systems in an attempt to restore the rivers to the condition they were in 100 years ago.

I think it is a GREAT idea.

How about returning the whole of South Africa on how to was 100 years ago?

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:

I think it is a GREAT idea.

How about returning the whole of South Africa on how to was 100 years ago?

Now that's what I call a GREAT idea..... actually, how about making it the entire continent!

i think that mugabe is trying that with zim

peter

Here is one for the conspiracy guys, the theory was spilled last night around a fire tanning a couple of chops. the said individual loves his theories.

"1- as with all of these ridiculous statements that get everyone up and about and all hot under their collars, our Firearms Ammendment Act that was implemented not too long ago got all of the firearm owners in such a knot that a large number of firearm owner simlpy handed in their valuable firearms to be destroyed - a lot simply went missing before being melted together - in some piles of all of these firearms where large portions of scrap metal. this was a very shrude tactic as it A - disarmed the civilians who normally dont take too much shit B - allowed the rulling party to implement an act that it was soooo difficult that anyone except the most thick skinned individuals or criminals could get their hands onto firearms

2 - when Mandela came into power he said that the ANC planned to nationalise all private assets - but scrapped the idea a week or so later. What happened is that with every new Chief, his impis need to acquire wealth and new BMW X 5's, and hense the plan was born. with the statement everyone got their balls in a knot and sold off shares, stock prices dropped and all of the impis climbed in at excellent prices (Low) and when things normalised two weeks later they were some of the most wealthiest people in South Africa. The latest one was the Land Expropiation Bill that was also shelved for now - or until they need more grassroot votes and need an ace to pull out of the bag.

This stunt with wanting to get rid of Trout and in such a way is to get the guys who have vested capital in the bussiness to pay up - they will probably impose some sort of an additional Tax to the aquiculture guys who farm with trout, this scare tactic often brings all the guys up to the surface to be counted and marked. Mark my words it will not be long until some trout farms will start forming part of our land redistibution scheme. and the ruling party is pretty shrude with thinking out these sort of schemes. they are also the kings at creating job's - useless jobs where not much work is required"

Now I dont know what to think of it but it made for some good listening - I've forgotten some points that were pointed out

Well I'm buggered if I'm gonna hand in my fly rods for destruction!

Hi guys,

The plan was to use Rotenone poison in western cape streams. This was decided well over a year ago, maybe even two or more.
Steve, it seems like it has resurfaced?

The Complete Flyfisherman Magazine (BTW is an excellent publication) followed the issue and as far as I have heard the proponents of this have decided that rotenone use is not ideal and apprently the plan should be scrapped/put on hold.

Some W Cape stream have been buggered by trout BUT most ecologists recognize that they are there to stay and cant be easily removed (I am a fly angler and my one only day on the streams of W cape was a biblical experience, and I am not even that into trout!).

The use of rotenone would detsroy the entire stream, including the indigenous vertebrates. The goal then would be to 're-build' the ecology sans exotic vertebrates like trout, smallmouth bass and bluegill - a monumental task.

I like trout and accept them there but dont want them introduced into more rivers - besides yellows are so much nicer! That said, trout are a good resource and are accepted by most conservationsts to be entrenched in some river systems in SA for better or worse.

I agree the rotenone plan was as dumbass as it gets!

Oh yes, around the time of the xenophobia in south africa last year(I saw a great PhD thesis presentation on this the other day BTW), Andrew Levy, who is a coumnist for the magazine above wrote his column on ecological xenophobia directed at established trout populations via this rotenone plan - a very good tongue in cheek satire and well worth a read!

Here in the northern US of A, Los Stupideros were cutting down the beautiful blue spruce trees in our nearby national park for the same reasons.

Not a word about dandelions and blue grass, though.

Nothing about the gazillion square miles of concrete and shopping malls around here either.

But there is a "foreign" weed called "garlic mustard" which grows in May and nothing can eat it. It's ubiquitous but also easy to pull out of the ground. Every May herds of Los Stupideros turn out to pick perhaps 0.01% of our garlic mustard.

Did not know the Sierra Club was active in SA.

Like the bumper sticker said, Sierra Club go hike to hell.

The only trout native to California is the Golden Trout, native to the middle fork of the Kern River. All others were introduced.

I just love catching and eating trout! Yes, I agree with kayaker that yellow fish is much nicer than trout to catch, but I can honestly say that every one ever caught was released immediately! Don't have a foggiest idea of what they taste like? Any pointers?

But I wonder when someone will point out that carp is also an exotic species to the powers that be, you know the 'Trop Ididoose'? [This is essentially the same species as Indy's Los Stupideros - but just an Afrikaans name for what could be roughly translated as "Troop of Idioticunts" a subspecies and melanistic version thereof! ]

I do also hope that some good can come from the initial stupidity. I hope that: A. Some action to at least prevent the further contamination of our rivers with trout, bass and carp can be a spin-off result of the initial stupidity. B. Some action to better study the ecology of those streams in which such exotics have become established to manage these properly to the greatest benefit of all South Africans. C. We all learn to live better with the mistakes of the past! I will not name all the mistakes, but Jan van Riebeek did come here 1n 1652, and that is a historical fact that cannot be reversed. Let me rather stop here.....

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

I've never caught a yellowfish - but am open to offers!


i understand the wish not to have trout spread further but to remove them from their existing waters is just sheer bloody lunacy....... there's a huge industry grown up around trout fishing here and to kill that is just ridiculous..... esp at a time such as now!

I am not in the flyfishing game yet my fly is to short still but i know that you can catch a lot of trout on earthworm or dough will that not work better than poison

quote:

"Troop of Idioticunts"

HA HA HA I love that!!!

Steve, damn, I am back overseas again for a while...and yes I did pass the slowveld and didn't drop in - had mom and GF in the car on a holiday!

Anyway, next year I am back and I know the Vaal around Parys intimately and have spent a LOT of time on that river...we will flyfish and you will catch yellows! (all barbless CAR, sorry Andrew, no recipes!) I also fished for them downstream on Pella on the Orange this past Oct - very good!

Cheers, I must go chip ice!

Sounds good to me buddy........ I usually fish barbless anyway!

How do you put a barb on

You don't. You either buy barbless, or bend the thing down with a pair of foreceps. By the way, what are Yellows? Perch?

quote:

Originally posted by JBoutfishn:
Did not know the Sierra Club was active in SA.

Like the bumper sticker said, Sierra Club go hike to hell.

The only trout native to California is the Golden Trout, native to the middle fork of the Kern River. All others were introduced.

Picking nits but aren't Golden Trout a rainbow sub-species. Also don't several California river systems have native runs of Steelhead, another rainbow sub species?

quote:

Picking nits but aren't Golden Trout a rainbow sub-species. Also don't several California river systems have native runs of Steelhead, another rainbow sub species?

Don't the answer to that one. "In the beginning" the only trout in California was the golden. Genetically speaking don't know how that relates to the existing rainbows in California. Then there is the Steelhead question. We have lots of Steelhead from Ventura (rumored as far south as Oceanside) to the Oregon boarder and north. Again, Don't know how they fit into the big picture. We can thicken the plot with Cutthroat trout. Don't know the history of that either, useless I guess, unless I am chasing them on the Trinity with my flyrod, and yes, Steelhead fear me. Streamers, nymphs, drys.

I believe that Rainbow Trout and Steelhead(a Rainbow that is anadromous) are indeed native to the Pacific Northwest and the West Coast. I love to fly fish for steelhead, and that, to me, is the ultimate in fresh water fly fishing, especially when you hoook a "nickle bright" fish just out of the ocean! Hang on! My consistently best pattern has been a weighted Muddler Minnow.

Are "Yellow Fish", carp? That's what appears in the picture connected to Shakari's link. Tell me it isn't so.

UEG,
No, yellows are indigenous fish of the Barbus and labeobarbus geni. They are typically very powerful fighters, we call them 'bonefish of the rivers'
There are 10 species south of the Zambezi:

1) Vaal-orange small mouth yellow, occurs in the entire drainage of this sytem including Sterkfontein dam and there are good populations in the kei river into which they were introduced. Good conservation status but pressure on them is high as they are the most popularly targeted of all yellowfish species and normally the easiest to catch (if you know where to find them and present your nymphs half dedcently its easy to have a 30 fish day on fly, I have taken 30 in half an hour on the Orange river)

2) Vaal-orange large mouth yellow - SA's biggest freshwater 'gamefish'. They are threatened/vulnerable and ethically minded anglers who target them are very careful (not like some dummies who put them in keep nets and let flop all over the rocks. Its a great fish but needs very strict regs and social conventions to keep it's numbers healthy. Fly anglers have only recently 'cracked the code' on these guys in order to catch them with consistency. They are big picivorous gamefish!

3) Natal yellow normally called the 'scaly' - common in the east flowing rivers of KZN, similar habits to the small mouth.

4) small-scale yellowfish - occurs in some drainages (croc, oilfants etc) in eastern SA but typically only above 600m (1800ft) elevation. Very skittish, very powerful for their size and can be extremely challenging to get on fly especially in clear 'skinny' water! During spawning they get very aggressive.

5) large-scale yellowfish - very similar to the former species, occuring often in the same rivers, although they are more numerous are lower altitudes. habits are very similar and can leave you weeping, swearing and throwing your rod in the bush in a rage (that why I dont use Sage...oh yes the cost too!) Both the small and large scale have quite low fry recruitment and population growths, although the largescale does have a pretty wide distribution.

6) Clanwilliam yellow - lives only in the Olifants drainge of the western cape. Trout, bass and bluegill have beaten them up badly. Its the second biggest yellowfish and under solid conservation threat due to these exotics and reduced river health in the arid areas on the western cape.

7) Witvis - even more threated, in fact i believe almost extinct in the wild barring a few pockets on the berg and bree river systems. No real fly success on these guys and most angelr who want to catch them to complete the 'southern 9 Barbus' try at the stellenbosch trout farm where the witvis are bred in ponds.

8) Papermouth - limpop has them and few other rivers, I have never seen one.

9) Sawfin - uncommon, shares the olifants system in the w cape.

10) Upper Zambezi Yellowfish - I don't much on this guy excpet he has fins like a grayling and looks cool - wading for them in the zambezi adds an element of danger

Wow, I can't believe they are even considering such a stunt! I can imagine that the aftermath of removing carp/bass/trout/bluegill from SA waters by poisoning would be far more destructive than just accepting that they are in the system and are going to cause havoc with the natural ecosystem, but it is better than killing all the fish and hoping to re-colonise with what they can find from wherever. What about rare and highly localised species that are stream/river specific? I would hazard a guess that an environmental impact assesment would show this to be an extremely ludicrous idea!

I would love to have all the rivers and dams back to their original healthy states, however once you have introduced these alien species and once they have established themselves, you are never going to remove them completely from the system. I know that in the Eastern Cape, once they discoverd there were sharp-tooth catfish from the fish river in one dam, they nuked it, even though there were Sandelia in it. Problem is, fishermen are always going to be a nuisance, once a system has been purged, all you need is one fisherman to introduce a gravid bass/trout or whatever and you are back to square one! I am a keen angler, and trout fishing in the Western Cape rivers is a big tourist attraction too. You also need to weigh things like that up against the loss of species and money, etc of doing something, which sounds good on paper, but is not practical.

Kill all but the San? Hell I bet if you go back far enough even they are not indigenous either. How long does it take for a species to be "native"? Is it only when one is in power that the definition changes? I agree it is another scam designed to generate money for those in power.

quote:

Originally posted by Use Enough Gun:
Are "Yellow Fish", carp? That's what appears in the picture connected to Shakari's link. Tell me it isn't so.

Kayaker has got it spot on....and I can ad this from guiding for the Small Mouths in the Vaal....they are MONSTERS on fly! The only fish I have had on fly that is faster is a Garrick in the see (no Bonefish for me yet). Same class as Tigers, pound for pound.

The only thing similar to carp is the Golden colour.....

Idiots 'run' this continent. And I am not a racist

I always thought being an idiot was a necessary qualification of being a politician. I can't think of a single one in a single country of any colour skin that isn't completely shit for brained!

UEG....herewith a nice Yellow caught by my brother, our guide on the Vaalriver.



Sorry, guys we hi-jacked the thread a bit, but this is much more fun than talking about those shit for brain know it all politicians.....

quote:

Originally posted by infinito:
this is much more fun than talking about those shit for brain know it all politicians.....

Ain't that the truth, and that is a bloody nice fish........ They always remind me of the barbel we get in the UK. - Also very good fighters!

That is a nice fish.....

Very nice! I've been around the Vaal and the Orange Rivers both, but that has been down around Douglas. Where was this pic taken?