Ep. 17 - Trout Slams & Record Fish with Martin Koenig

Why such an emphasis on trout?

You know, back in this, uh...

It was about 20 years ago, many of the western states were starting to realize that their native trout species were in, uh, I'm trying to think of how you say this.

The-

Pescatology?

That's right.

The pescatologists across the West sort of realized that many of the trout populations that, uh, were in their states were not doing as well as they previously thought, and they had faced a series of Endangered Species Act petitions to list those species, like Bonneville cutthroat trout, you know, was list- They tried to list it maybe three different times.

Hmm.

And it spurred a lot of interest in trying to understand the distribution of native trout and w- how healthy the populations were, and it turned out a lot of those trout populations were not as healthy as once previously thought.

And so many of the state agencies under this association of Fish and Wildlife agencies got together and said, "Hey, what can we do to come to the table to focus some energy specifically on resident trout species?"

Now, Martin, I've, I've heard you throw out a couple terms already, um, resident and, and native.

Can you-

Mm-hmm

... kind of define each one and if they're, how they're different?

Yeah, sure.

When I throw out things like the, the word resident trout, I'm just meaning a trout that stays in fresh water most of its life.

Okay.

So a, a, a trout that's not a salmon or steelhead or goes to the ocean, you know?

Yeah.

And then a native fish is like what I would call the fish that is of...

It's the aboriginal fish of that watershed that was, you know, naturally evolved to that ecosystem, that hasn't been stocked or moved there by, by mankind.

Mm-hmm.

So it's like the aboriginal species that's supposed to live there prior to human intervention.

What are some of those species in Idaho that we have?

We got quite a few actually.

Why such an emphasis on trout?

You know, back in this, uh...

It was about 20 years ago, many of the western states were starting to realize that their native trout species were in, uh, I'm trying to think of how you say this.

The-

Pescatology?

That's right.

The pescatologists across the West sort of realized that many of the trout populations that, uh, were in their states were not doing as well as they previously thought, and they had faced a series of Endangered Species Act petitions to list those species, like Bonneville cutthroat trout, you know, was list- They tried to list it maybe three different times.

Hmm.

And it spurred a lot of interest in trying to understand the distribution of native trout and w- how healthy the populations were, and it turned out a lot of those trout populations were not as healthy as once previously thought.

And so many of the state agencies under this association of Fish and Wildlife agencies got together and said, "Hey, what can we do to come to the table to focus some energy specifically on resident trout species?"

Now, Martin, I've, I've heard you throw out a couple terms already, um, resident and, and native.

Can you-

Mm-hmm

... kind of define each one and if they're, how they're different?

Yeah, sure.

When I throw out things like the, the word resident trout, I'm just meaning a trout that stays in fresh water most of its life.

Okay.

So a, a, a trout that's not a salmon or steelhead or goes to the ocean, you know?

Yeah.

And then a native fish is like what I would call the fish that is of...

It's the aboriginal fish of that watershed that was, you know, naturally evolved to that ecosystem, that hasn't been stocked or moved there by, by mankind.

Mm-hmm.

So it's like the aboriginal species that's supposed to live there prior to human intervention.

What are some of those species in Idaho that we have?

We got quite a few actually.