An item about fish hatcheries reminds me of how much fish and game management has changed over the years.</p><p>
The story says Idaho Fish and Game biologists are studying how to produce trout that are easier to catch. The idea is to improve the return on the sportsman’s dollar by releasing fish that are too dumb to get away.</p><p>
This might make sense to a lot of folks, but there’s something about catching a fish that has “Duh?” written all over its face that kind of ruins it for me.</p><p>
The Idaho study began with 2,750 hatchery rainbows, kept in raceways for one year and then tagged with individual numbers. The following summer the trout were caught and released repeatedly, with biologists recording the number of times each fish was caught.</p><p>
Fish caught only once or not at all were removed from the study. Fish that were caught more than twice were mated with other easily caught fish to produce the next generation.</p><p>
The question of whether the fish that got caught were the dumb ones or the smart ones is still being kicked around in scientific circles. (The biologist who suggested the new strain should be called “blonde trout” has found a job tending bar in Boise.)
The Idaho experiment reminds me of the days when every farm had a horse trough, and nearly every trough had some fish. The trough was left over from the time before tractors, so even farms that no longer had horses still had a trough.</p><p>
The horse trough was made of concrete and held around three or four hundred gallons of water. Every summer we would come home with some bluegills or bass that were too big to throw back – but too small to eat – and these went into the horse trough.</p><p>
Kids who claim there’s nothing to do today should have grown up on a farm 50 years ago.</p><p>
“Nothing to do” by modern standards would have seemed like an absolute circus when I was a kid. We spent our recreational time hunting sparrows, catching horseflies or throwing walnuts.</p><p>
Sometimes, when we had nothing to do, we would go fishing in the horse trough.</p><p>
That’s where I learned how dumb a fish can be. We only had a few fish in the trough and there was little for them to eat, so catching these fish was pretty easy.</p><p>
It got to the point where we could recognize a fish by the expression on its face. There was Billy the bluegill, for example. No matter how often Billy got caught, he always had that same hopeful look.</p><p>
Each time Billy came out of the water, we thought that he seemed to be saying, “That’s the fifth time you caught me. Now can I go to the mating tank?”</p><p>
Then there was Charley the catfish. Charley didn’t care if he got caught or not; he was like a team player in that regard. Each time we pulled Charley out, he would burp and we’d put him back in.</p><p>
Sometimes I wonder where fish biologists get their education these days. Wherever it is, I suspect a few hours at the horse trough would do some of them a world of good.

Readers with questions or comments for Roger Pond may write to him in care of this publication.