Do “Artificial Only” Regulations Help Fish?

Wyoming’s fisheries have been in the news recently, but this most recent event isn’t related to regulating fishing guides. Instead, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department (WGFD) is proposing new limits on popular stretches of the North Platte River near Casper. The North Platte isn’t just one of Wyoming’s most storied rivers; it’s a bucket-list destination for many, and a huge economic driver for the Casper area.

According to Zakary Sonntag, over at Cowboy State Daily, however, changes are afoot on the Gray Reef and Fremont Canyon sections.

WGFD is proposing artificial fly and lure-only restrictions on those two popular sections of the North Platte River. In addition, barbless hooks would be required from Kortes Dam to Highway 220, which includes the famed Miracle Mile section of the North Platte.

“The proposals come as demand on the river has surged and caused fish die in greater numbers after being caught and released, according to the department’s fishery biologists,” writes Sonntag. “It’s also led to pervasive chronic hooking injuries that are weakening the reproductive vitality of trout populations throughout the river drainage.”

We’ve looked at hooking injuries before here at MidCurrent, but this is the first time they have been quantified by WGFD. This takes them out of the abstract, and shows how much poor fish handling (and barbed hooks) impact trout survival.

According to Sonntag, more than 75% of trout sampled in the North Platte River had hooking injuries, and 22% of those fish had “severe or massive” injuries, which includes “broken gills, cranial or respiratory or ocular damage.”

Perhaps the most damning, however, is this paragraph:

“While few hooking injuries are alone fatal, studies show that fish with greater body reserves and conditions have higher quality egg and sperm production. Whereas diminished body conditions, like those caused by hooking injuries, correspond to poor growth and compromised disease resiliency, which means the growing pressure on North Platte is undermining its trout populations at large.”

Of course, this is just one study. I was curious if other research bears out what WGFD has found, in that hooking injuries caused by treble hooks are so detrimental to trout health.

In a quick perusal, there’s a host of information that treble hooks, in particular, are tough on trout survival. They cause more hooking injuries, especially if you’re practicing catch-and-release. A single-point, barbless hook is the most effective way to reduce injuries to trout.

So, it seems the WGFD proposal is in good faith. I know this is anecdotal, but I generally see healthier fish on rivers that have some sort of artificial only restrictions on tackle. I’m curious what the rest of the MidCurrent audience has experienced, though. Leave some comments below.