Softmouth trout

madjoni · #1 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 05:40 PM

This is one of inhabitants of Lower Zeta, endemic and endangered softmouth trout ,Salmothymus obtysirostris zetenzis

g bigtrout · #2 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 05:51 PM

Lovely fish joni pitty they endangered

.....what you doing with one in tank??

madjoni · #3 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by g bigtrout

Lovely fish joni pitty they endangered

.....what you doing with one in tank??

We caught few to show thay are not extinct yet...they are released into one secret stream

splashtestdummy · #4 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 05:54 PM

Madjoni, I've come across from the 'small streams' - I had read about the antics in your country, via an interview with a lady EMP and BBC reporting.

I would assume that issues such as accountability and auditing would be under the microscope big time in Brussels on such issues, as it is fairly common knowledge - being from the UK, I was just too polite to mention it until you raised the issue.

Is there any reason why you couldn't set up your own charity / foundation to ensure it is run correctly, there must be some respectable characters about including your good self?

PS

...we are continuing a discussion on potential funding and how to protect the above trout from extinction which was started on another thread!

Former member 2 · #5 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 05:57 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by madjoni View Post
Here is it mate
.

I post it here before Montenegro but you probably didnt saw that thread
It is very rare and we,(fly fishermen from my club) have project to do something with repopulation of this' trout dinosaur' but we have no money

Hey crazy reg do those things actually live in that open sewer, its the weirdest thing, but if Ephems right about its linneage then that is a very special fish. Other wise chernobyl has cast a spell on your stream.
When you say you need money, What are you looking for?
Do you have projects in mind and how much is needed?.
Maybe the forum can find away of raising some funds. say a sponsored bicker ( £1 a posting)
or an auction of unwanted tackle,
an auction of unwanted advice.
a raffle (£5 a ticket) with the first prize a weeks fishing with crazy Reggie and a bunk down on his couch and a tour of his favorite Montenegran drains.
A guess the weight of Crazy Reggie competion( in dry waders).
Guess how many different names DFF used competion.
An on line auction for mostyns new split cane rod (its a worthy cause mozzer)
Or for a casting lesson from both Zoomer and Frank at the same time with counciling afterwards.

Tell us about it and lets see if we can do something for the soft mouthed trout! Personally i am willing to dig in the old piggy bank for this one.
Maybe other forum members could think of fund raising ideas?

i feel deja vu

g bigtrout · #6 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by madjoni

We caught few to show thay are not extinct yet...they are released into one secret stream

Cheers joni....maybe someone take notice and realise this beautiful creature needs help.

madjoni · #7 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by splashtestdummy

I would assume that issues such as accountability and auditing would be under the microscope big time in Brussels on such issues, as it is fairly common knowledge - being from the UK, I was just too polite to mention it until you raised the issue.

We shall see when we get to Brussels...if ever

Quote:

Originally Posted by splashtestdummy

Is there any reason why you couldn't set up your own charity / foundation to ensure it is run correctly, there must be some respectable characters about including your good self?

no there isn't.....I have our leading ihtiologist on my(softmouth

)side dr.Danilo Mrdak

Ephemerella · #8 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 06:06 PM

WP they are softmouth trout not thick-lipped. Madjoni may call them zlousta pastrva (evil-mouthed trout) which sounds good. I'm sure it wasn't your intention to.

The Zeta softmouths had been declared extinct but they spawn in autumn whereas the other four subspecies spawn in the spring. This video clip shows them spawning (turn the sound down/off):

YouTube- Softmouth trout from the Neretva River HD (waiting for)

It was James Prosek's book that publicised the Zeta subspecies as extinct. He wrote a nice piece of prose by way of saying sorry. I'm sure madjoni will know some of the people involved in guarding and protecting the remaining population.
I'll chip in £100, which is what I won't pay in AT subs for the next five years, and maybe a bit more in the unlikely event that the WTT don't lend their support.

I'll contact James' World Trout Initiative for some support which I'm sure will be forthcoming. It even sounds like the makings of a plan.

Quote:

Patagonia Environmentalism Essay: World Trout by James Prosek

by James Prosek
Fly Fishing Catalog 2005

Last September, I fished with Yvon Chouinard in a pristine wilderness setting in Yellowstone Park. It was a cold day on the upper part of Slough Creek near the Montana border and we were discussing the alarming decline of trout and salmon populations worldwide. As a light snow began to fall, I told Yvon about the diversity of trout species I’d caught that summer in the Balkans and how the recent wars had greatly degraded their habitat and numbers. Yvon hooked a nice native cutthroat trout and as he released it he said, “Let’s do something about it.” I told him that there was little infrastructure for a conservation effort there, and I felt the situation was hopeless given the political climate. Yvon was silent for a bit, and then as we walked over the gravel to the next bend in the river, he told me a story about how he and his friends had climbed to the highest point of the Mountains of the Moon in Uganda and stood and peed. “And for one moment,” he said in his own shy way, “we were the source of the Nile.” As if to say, if you can be the source of the Nile, anything is possible.

So, the World Trout initiative was, well, spawned. We, as anglers, may not always be able to be the source of the Nile for trout of the world, but we can try to keep the numerous tributaries pristine. World Trout’s mission is to identify groups or individuals that protect native fish, and to support their conservation efforts.

For the better part of my life, I have been documenting the physical diversity of the trout of Europe, Asia, North Africa and North America in watercolors. It wasn't always easy to find pure native fish. In Europe and Asia, native strains of trout had hybridized with introduced fish, dams had blocked their migrations, development and mining silted their spawning grounds, pollution and overfishing killed them outright, irrigation dried their streams. The headwaters of the Tigris River in southeast Turkey are wracked by civil war between the Kurdish people and the Turkish army. In the Balkans and Algeria, Afghanistan or Chechenia, the larger political problems and civil unrest make conservation efforts to save trout seem almost trivial. In the southern range of the brown trout, in Morocco, Sicily or Sardinia, the challenge is to find any water at all.

I witnessed severe overfishing and destruction of habitat. But what was there to do about it when oftentimes you were at risk just being there, or when people were eating the trout because they always had? How could you save a fish when a war was raging, in places where survival was dictated by necessity and conservation a luxury? Efforts in Iran in the 1970s to document and preserve individual strains of brown trout were abandoned when the Shah was deposed by the Ayatollah. But unique individuals and groups are out there working to preserve indigenous trout. And one important thing they need is to have their story told and their work supported.

Need we attempt to explain why it is important to preserve native trout? For one thing, the existence of wild trout means clean water, arguably our most precious resource. Their disappearance would not only be a physical loss, but a loss to the human imagination.

Trout are much better survivors than I ever gave them credit for. On my first trip to the Zeta River in Serbia-Montenegro to search for a rare trout called the softmouth trout, we concluded after three weeks of searching that the fish was extinct. It didn’t look as though the river contained any fish at all. Reports from many locals were not promising. Even the president of the local fisheries club lamented the loss of the unique softmouth trout (locally known as mekousna pastrva). They had thrown explosives in the river to kill the fish so they could eat them. We returned home disappointed. But this past summer, a scientific team returned to the Zeta, on a tip that a single man was protecting a population of these native fish in a tributary where a spring bubbled full force from the ground. Sure enough, because of the efforts of this one man who lived on the river, they were still there, a total population numbering in the hundreds. Eager to get a specimen for study the team tried to stun the fish in the river. They could see the fish, but the fish swam ahead of the electric field. So the local man (much to the horror of the ichthyologists in attendance), passionate to show them that these were indeed the native fish, dove into the river with the two electric rods and chased the fish around until two were shocked and floated to the surface. The softmouth trout were photographed and, when they came to, released. Now that the population was rediscovered, what was there to be done? Keep it quiet perhaps? Or begin an effort to reproduce the few remaining fish and reintroduce them to their native habitat!

If there’s anything I’ve learned from meeting such passionate individuals, it’s that conservation can be done anywhere and with no resources other than human will. I have also seen that conservation is a natural part of being a predator (which all fly fishermen, like it or not, are). A genuine affection for the animal from which we once gained sustenance is part of our evolutionary fabric. So let’s get to it.

Former member 2 · #9 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 06:09 PM

So the plan is to catch native brood stock.... which i presume means electro fishing equip, and then a holding system till striping the eggs then you have a hatchery to raise them. Where do you put the eggs? back in the stream or hatchery raised? when do thay get put back in the stream. Do you know why the population is failing? Is it fishing pressure or enviromental? Whats wrong with the enviroment? Any universities there studied the populations of these fish? what research is available?
If Five thousands euros are needed to get this done, then that really should not be beyond the means to raise a sum to kick start it... and once its started and serious intent is shown, maybe the EU and Montenegran authorities will be a bit more forthcoming.

Dont worry about the Vixen Mostyn I wont bid on it honestly.... it has such a reputation now that it will be worth so much more than you bought it for.
Just dont use it and keep the value. Its about saving the soft lipped trout, there will be other rods. ( I am expecting we will have to prise it from your cold dead fingers... shame!)
Personally i have a load of unwanted advice to sell. Never been used... any of it.

Seriously I would happilly offer a days guided fishing on the Brook for a cause like this, if we could get 40 or 50 lots,of this sort of value... and I bet we could get a taclke manufacturer involved for a few lots of kit.
And I would happily pay £50 for a casting lesson from Zoomer and Frank at the same time, esp if they were allowed pillows and custard pies to sort out there differences...... who wouldnt pay to see that?

Now come on all lets have some positive feed back on this, and madjoni we need info and figures. Whats the aim? what are we expecting to achieve? why is it needed? How much will it cost? (STD for one will be much better than me at knowing these things 'STD for chairman of the save the thick lipped trout campaign!!' gets my vote).
Can we send Paul G over to assess the problems? Get him involved if he can sort out Yorkshiremen he can work with Montenegrans.
You run the forum in Montenegro yes? Could they officaily administer the project that end?

Tshirts we need Tshits bumper stickers fishing caps..maybe.'I kissed a soft lipped'.. come on guys ideas!! .(off on one!)

Ephemerella · #10 (**permalink**) 29-03-2010, 06:10 PM

Yvon Chounard owns Patagonia clothing, his wife owns 'North Face', they put millions into conservation.
James Prosek is an artist and has explored in search of rare trouts. 'Trout of the World' has many of his warercolours and is a nice book to have. Fishing the 41st (parallel) is another of his books that I enjoyed. Their commitment seems sincere.

Patagonia Fly Fishing: World Trout Initiative to Prevent Overfishing and Destruction to Preserve Trout

I understand James Prosek stayed with forum member Warren Slaney who was very impressed.

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