Fertilization and Predator Control to Improve Trout Angling in Natural Lakes

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Abstract
A significantly faster growth rate by native and planted eastern brook trout followed the addition of commercial fertilizers in sufficient quantities to provide potential additional concentrations of 0.39 mg. P, 0.21 mg. N and 0.27 mg. K per litre in Crecy Lake (20.4 ha.; mean depth, 2.4), New Brunswick. Largely because trout planted as fingerlings attained suitable angling size when yearlings, the rate of capture and the yield by weight to anglers approximately doubled. The improved growth rate, but not yields, persisted into the second and third years after fertilization. Coincident was an increase in predation by fish-eating birds and mammals. With predator control and the same stocking rates, the yield of trout flesh produced in the lake increased from 0.9 to 5.9 kgm. per hectare over the next two-year period. With predator control extended to trapping eels in the lake, a second comparable fertilization with respect to concentrations of P, N and K, and a doubling of the stocking rate, a yield of 9.7 kgm. per hectare was realized. The growth rate was somewhat depressed with the heavier stocking, notwithstanding a second fertilization. Facilities for natural reproduction were poor and planted trout (fingerlings and yearlings) sustained the fishery. Maximum survivals of planted trout (all marked) to anglers' catches were 20 per cent for fingerlings and 88 per cent for yearlings. Cropping of trout of age II was thorough. For the most part, movements of planted trout (trapped in outlet) from the lake would have occasioned minor losses.Neighbouring Gibson Lake (24.0 ha.; mean depth, 4.0 m.) was fertilized with one-half of the concentrations of P, N and K applied to Crecy. Stocking with trout was at comparable rates but no predator control was exercised. Little improvement was noted in the growth of the trout. Only when yearlings were planted late in the fall and angled early in the spring was there any improvement in the anglers' catches.

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