| A unit of Lasting Forests
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A Total Forest Management Plan
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A fishery is a whole system producing specified human benefits from fish populations and things related to them. It includes doing research on as well as actively influencing pollutants, costs of production, habitats, effects of logging and mining, harvests, perceived benefits and an almost-endless array of other factors, all to enhance fish numbers and quality, but especially human benefits. It includes preventing problems, developing water and populations, maintaining programs, monitoring, enforcing the law, planning and administering the enterprise. It also includes active involvement with enterprises directly related to the fish populations such as those of baits, publications, TV, boats, clothing and eye-wear, insurance, and tournament services. The total system concept is not well known or widely understood and advancing it and its implications is part of the role of Rural System. "Stocking fish " or "setting seasons " are such trivial ideas in the context of the above that they hardly need more than mention. They may be done, but their emphasis in the past (and regrettably, probably for the near future (in 2000) will be greatly out of proportion to their significance. Increasingly, there will be a shift in the user groups interested in the fishery. A full range of benefits from the resource will be sought. Fish agency work through sole reliance on biological or ecological knowledge has now past. That knowledge along with sociological and economic knowledge are required. We are not adding wild fish to the commodity markets but adding for-profit services, equipment, protection, and practices for the lasting management of public and private fisheries, all to inclease benefits from those held resources.
There is much discussion about the meaning of fishery, fisheries, and fisheries management. We shall not resolve the problem of definition but we do operate on the philosophy that we are managing an important natural resource system and related phenomena - the enterprise. The freshwater system (to which we limit our actions) is managed for perceived human benefits. There are many limits or constraints to management but the total benefit system is the topic of that action. Usually fish- or aquatic-organism-oriented, the system is unbounded and includes soil, water, economics and other topics. It is not a "fish " system. Our fundamental beliefs are that there are many groups of people with at least one interest (actual or potential) in one or more parts of the system. There is not just one thing to do and do well. There are many fish species and many situations . . . but probably even more types of people with various interests in the fishery. The four-way matchup of the Rural System Fishery is that among (1) people and their interests (the demand complex), (2) pond and stream environments or situations, (3) the aquatic organisms themselves, and (4) losses due to poaching and pollution.. There is a large set of objectives to be achieved by the managers and these must be for many groups or types of people, the animals themselves, and for their environment.
The lakes, ponds, and streams are part of the Rural System Fishery. The Fishery is a total enterprise, a system producing recreation, employment, profits, protecting the resource, managing angler levels, conducting tours, and assuring the total angling experience from planning before a person arrives at one of the Forests to reflecting on the experience afterwards. The Fishery also includes fish health, food supplies, studies, and new work in fish observation-building a "life list" (like bird watchers do-to see all of the more than 30 species of fish of a Forest. (It takes patience, skill, dedication, and in some cases, some new technology.)
A Fishery Recreational Policy is now available.
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| Proportion of inland fish species within the ownership that are known for the state, hydrologic unit, and watershed being analyzed. |
The region is a land of ponds and streams, of superior angling possibilities. Guides are available. A continual program of monitoring supports a research effort in aquatic ecosystem productivity. The diverse ponds and a few lakes offer unique experiences. Several ponds are for fly-fishing only, catch and release. Superior fish are photographed and the angler is recorded in the official record books and reported in the newsletter that members of the Rural System Anglers receive. Anglers become part of the on-going Fishery as they contribute to studies, support research, and help others promote the messages of a superior Fishery as demonstrated in the region. Anglers help understand the Fishery and its potential by reporting experience, fish size, numbers, hours spent, fish condition, and minimum information carefully analyzed and reported by Fishery scientists.
In the U.S. there are 50 million anglers and they are increasing. They spend about a half billion days fishing. Doing this, they spend $24 billion. Half of these expenditures are trip related, $3.7 billion equipment related, and $5 billion boat related. All of this action generates $20 billion in worker earnings and supports over 900,000 full-time-equivalent jobs.
The enterprise,the Rural System Fishery has 3 major components:
Like a deep coal-seam, The Fishery of the region is untouched. It has great potentials for profit as well as secondary benefits to the region and the B>Rural System land owners . It is of a type and scope that falls outside the normal operating procedures of district fish division personnel of most state departments of wildlife.
In the fish graph above, species richness is provided in a context within which they can be thoughtfully analyzed. Richness is one index of environmental quality. Generally species are lost due to stream straightening, sediment covering of eggs and nests, loss of riparian cover, increased turbidity, and pollutants. From one viewpoint, the percentage (proportion) of fish in the streams of the ownership is useful for indicating stream length, volume, and annual stability (the more stable, the more fish species). The proportion also indicates the amount of fish subject to any proposed treatment, management, or nearby development. The proportions allow between-watershed comparisons to be made and questions generated by such comparisons of similarity.
Staff duties are to operate The Fishery as a comprehensive enterprise, a for-profit division of Rural System. Positive net gains are used to improve the total Fishery of the land, other ownerships, and the world. Allocating these "profits" internally will be computer-aided.
Income
The income flow is conceived from the work of an industrious, gains-oriented, service-producing staff and will be from the following activities and products. (These will vary by season and years, especially in the start-up period, and may reflect the personality of the staff employed more than the local markets and current demands.)
The Outreach Systems
Selected aspects of the Fishery are:
The following are brief comments and ideas on what is planned for The Fishery:
1. Create and operate a rapid-analysis and rapid-prescription writing system. In the computer are the equations and messages. Based on forms filled out by pond owners or by staff, a report (the Owner's Manual) will be sent (for a fee) telling how to solve problems or improve pond management. Cases that do not yield to this may then be approached by a staff analyst for detailed analyses and prescriptions.
2. Market and sell pond management and stream-management consulting services to all mining, agricultural, and other firms in the area. These services can be in permitting procedures, but many ponds exist for which advice is needed just to improve their overall role. Demonstration streams, lakes, and ponds can be built or identified on the property and clients entertained on site and specific details of management made clear.
3. There are many ponds in the region. These are often unmanaged and do not achieve their potentials as esthetic resources, as a component of a Fishery, or in the other purposes for which they were intended. Rarely do they approach their potentials. We propose to operate a pond management program; manage ponds for land owners; charge for fee fishing; supply a percentage of profits to lake owners; diversify fishing opportunities (pricing quality of the experience); and provide employment of several varieties (including inspections and monitoring). Research may be supported from profits.
4. There are thousands of unpublished fisheries reports. These can be secured from government sources and published or republished, especially if grouped in unique ways or if provided the "cement" of a computer program showing the practical results of putting 2 to 5 ideas together. These programs can be used on site, used with clients, and sold with reports to those interested. These programs open doors to fees since few owners will want (or have competence) to use the programs delivered. In some cases, noted writers can be brought to the area, commissioned to write specific fisheries papers, and these sold. A staff writer may be employed to produce a steady stream of camera-ready, low-cost publications.
5. By contacting the state judiciary, it may be possible to secure funds paid by industries in fines resulting from stream pollution. These fines (as Allied Chemical was instructed in the kepone incident in Virginia's James River) could be used in the enterprise for research on inventory systems, pollutant and coal effects, land use practices, fish and groundwater interactions, and many related topics. (A list will be supplied on request.)
6. With national reductions in federal fisheries programs, there are excellent opportunities to employ outstanding fisheries experts and to create an internationally recognized center of fisheries systems work. The emphasis is on systems and the definition in the first sentence of this document. Fisheries research centers now exist that are not likely to be surpassed. These have achieved excellence in select areas of fisheries work. In few places is there a powerful, committed, rational group at work, computer-aided, synthesizing the incredibly large and complex literature and making it work on the land and in the waters of an area like those of the Rural System.
7. The staff can seek contracts and grants from many sources. They may provide area and waters for research by university faculty.
8. The staff may create a system by which contributions are actively solicited, typically for the Virginia Tech Foundation. Again a system is emphasized. Without much detail, and with fear of sounding trite, the system should include "capturing" school children's interests by them buying a square meter of lake (allowing them to relate personally and, hopefully, for a lifetime), supplying information to contributors, conducting tours and having areas sufficiently pleasant and rewarding that people desire to contribute to its upkeep. Efforts will be to relate people to fish groups, to lakes or streams, to problem areas and to cater to sub-group interests. Aquaria, glass bottomed walk-ways over lakes, etc. are ways to inform as well as to seek personal attachment to Rural System and related enterprises, their Concept, and the work done. Contributions from sporting clubs and others and the positive feedback from naming a stream rock-face or a stream reach for a contribution seem feasible.
9. A highly efficient work crew a "stream attack force" - perhaps summer-employed youths in a low-cost work camp environment - environment - canilable for costs for stream reclamation in the region.
10. A source of fish-related art objects might be maintained and sales sponsored. Painters and sculptors might be commissioned to work on the area themselves, become part of tours conducted, and their objects sold. These objects can be used to build nature appreciation and that for interactions (e.g., fish-insect-plant).
11. An organization called the Rural System Anglers may be created with each member seeking progress along 10 steps or stages of angling competence. The organization would collect membership fees, give deductions in fees on all related fishing areas, and all would be pushing toward high knowledge of fisheries, fishing efficiency, care of the land, fishing ethics, ecology, camping, woodcraft, fish life history, fish identification etc. This is not a meeting-oriented group (though an annual convention might be considered, especially for fees from displays by manufacturers, etc.) or politically oriented group. It helps provide a mailing list, outreach, memberships, fee promotion, conspicuousness (hats, badges, car stickers, T-shirts, boat stickers etc.). Most importantly it seeks to put a significant number of well-informed, resource users out on the land, getting far more than the average person gets from every unit of fish-protein produced.
An international organization of Anglers is formed for all who have had an angling experience in the ponds, lakes, and miles of streams of the region. United by a common experience, the members (or family) seek to fish each of the lakes at least once; to catch a least one of each game fish; and to contribute to watershed and fisheries research. They are usually affiliates of Nature Folks, those (like birdwatchers) trying to achieve a very long list of different native fish that they have seen in their lifetime.
A newsletter, insurance, sales, equipment, lures, education, special tours and angling tournaments are all part of the Anglers activities. Creation of superior software for lake analysis is one aspect of the Anglers staff work. Management of "fish as wildlife food" is an unusual element of this integrated view and activity of the group.
12. A guide service may be created. Guides are usually required because the waters are remote and many people are unfamiliar with the waters, techniques, safety, and the many services provided by responsible guides. Much of the region is unavailable because people do not know where to go, how to act, and need help in a variety of ways. Trips need to be planned carefully to assure return trips and the positive word-of-mouth advertising essential for a continuing or increasing use rate. Guides are trained to help. Clients need to bring all essential tackle and equipment (rentals may become available). Food is provided. Clothing needs to be appropriate; well-fitting shoes or boots are essential as are clothing for sun protection, as well as cold nights. There are days when the fish won't bite! No guarantees on catching fish but guides can almost guarantee a wonderful experience with stories and memories to last a life time.
13. Tours can be conducted for Anglers but there is a need for a specialized staff to advertise and get corporate decision makers and natural resource managers in on highly efficient, clearly-cost-effective, 2- and 3-day intensive sessions on the full meaning of a Fishery. At respectable fees, groups can be brought to and housed in Rural Systemfacilities, taught actively in-doors, then taken on bus tours of ponds and streams to maximize learning, i.e., significantly changed behavior per dollar of their investment. Contacts for later service are an evident secondary result.
A variety of angling "trips"are available that vary with time, distance to the water, guides, packers, days to be spent, and associated activity. For example, there are two unique fish watching trips, each designed to help guests have a chance to see about half of the fish on the lands of Rural System. (It will take at least 6 trips to see most of them. Some are very rare. Angling instruction is available. An annual casting tournament is held.
Several ponds or small lakes are limited to use exclusively for a superior over-night "wildland experience. A client (with family or a small group of close friends) have the "all to themselves." A guide service gets clients settled in and, as arranged, departs or stays depending on preferences. 14. Angler Conferences (off-site) can be sponsored. Once expertise is gained, these conferences can be managed for other groups for a fee or they may be sponsored with fees.
15. Bird lovers build life lists. They seek to see as many different species as possible. Serious birders will fly around the world to get one or two additions to their life list. Fish life lists are almost unknown. There is a rich fish fauna in the area. The Fishery can emphasize this new sport, provide publications and aids, help introduce it in the region, sell opportunities to gain, for example, 3 new species in that stream, 2 new ones in this stream, 1 in that pond. An entire new nature sport can be created. Obvious candidates may be Anglers (but they should be separate programs). Rules, will be worked out, and there are license problems with seining for a new minnow and seining for fish. These can be resolved through proper efforts, including a special license (i.e., membership in this group of life-list builders). Computer records can be maintained; a newsletter can announce new leaders in the list; notices about where new species can be readily gotten; tours taken to allow a bus load of people to get 5-10 new species with one seining or electro-shocking activity.
16. A special boat can be designed and constructed by workers in a pole-shed environment (or a select commercial version used). The workers will employ computer-aided design, and the boat will be uniquely suited for local fishing. The boats can be marketed nationally and sales supported by the many visitors to the area. Built largely from local materials by trained craftsmen or women, these unique boats will be used in research and other activities of the Fishery.
16. An extensive bait enterprise can be created along with a pet native fish and aquarium enterprise.
17. Fisheries research is badly needed, world wide. Fisheries research, using the full range of activities of the area and the net monetary gains from the total Fishery can be significant. The research effort from such funds can build staff and facilities. It can encourage visitors and conferences that will use or feed into other Ranch facilities. Visitors can bring new ideas, techniques, and computer programs that can be rapidly sent to the field by the activities and contacts outlined above.
Market Potential
There is no way to do a market analysis on an absolutely new, novel enterprise that is highly service-oriented. The success will be largely a function of management competence. There are listed above over 50 potentially profitable activities when conducted as a subsystem of the larger stabilizing and supporting Rural System. Best estimates of income potentials and costs suggest break-even within 5 years and profits continuing thereafter.
With the proper management and with assistance from Fishery faculty, the estimated profits may exceed $80,000 per year. This amount, re-invested in the system, is likely to have powerfully positive feedback effects (including increased profits) in many parts of the lands and waters of Rural System enterprises (trails, education, recreation, reclamation, grazing systems, watersheds, and others).
Pond Systems
There are over 50,000 ponds in Virginia, thousands more nationwide. Most are poorly or not managed at all. Because of the number, the resources are not available to work with them. (At the rate of 1 per 2 working days performed by a staff of 10 expert biologists, they could be appraised in 6 years - just in time to start again.)
Surface mine ponds dot the more than 30,000 acres of abandoned surface mines in one state. There are needs to appraise their value, safety, productivity, and managerial potentials. Some can be stocked, turbidity reduced, edges improved. Some should be destroyed due to heavy metal contamination of fish. None of this is now done.
The concepts and abilities to create a computer system for aiding in analyzing ponds are available. We can provide instructions for any lake or pond owner (or our staff) to fill out a simple form and use GPS to map a pond. We would then process the form and map, bring out data on rain, temperature, geology, soils and other factors from the statewide information system, and have the computer write out a pond analysis, make managerial suggestions, and specify exactly how much fertilizer to use, whether to use poisons and how much, and how to solve potential problems like oxygen deficits with pond turnover, harvesting, and other problems.
Representative of the idea of computer-aided prescription systems for ponds is the prior work of Giles (1980) with the Mine-1 system, Dynaplan, TVA's-WRAP, and Guidance. A computer-produced report is sent to an owner of a pond or lake. Similar reports would be reproduced for different areas, users, and pond types.
Sample Analysis
Buck et al. (1970) suggested that the now classical notion that the carrying capacity of a pond is stable and differs little from year to year is no longer valid (and perhaps never was). The reason that the pond is so variable is that external items, like insolation and rain, have an impact. Also, the fish species that get started first often wins in populating a body of water. That concept was based on important studies with bluegills in Alabama ponds (Swingle and Smith 1939). Buck et al. (1970) observed that carrying capacities for ponds vary widely from pond-to-pond, from year to year, and that rank order of pond productivity shifts by year. No environmental factor, such as basin fertility, maintained a dominant, continuous influence. In each new season, production is controlled by a new assortment or combination of factors. These variances are influenced by (1) the organic development within the waters of the ponds, (2) the differences in timing or degree of colonization by plants and animals important as food, (3) differences in rates or pathways by which available nutrients are cycled, and (4) rates of mineral bonding or removal from the pond. They held little hope for predicting the performance of ponds.
Prediction has several dimensions, however. Accuracy and risks associated with being wrong are two important ones. Also, a system as complex and multi-factorial as a pond is not likely to be analyzed readily with linear regression methods. Within the Rural System Fishery, a pond management concept has been to gain at least a little explanatory power over ponds, thus a measure of control. If satisfactory results can be obtained from ponds more times than would be expected due to chance, then the system should be judged successful and worthy of use and corrective feedback. A constant concern has been that of how to extract maximum information from minimal costly data, given knowledge that ponds are highly variable.
The concept of productive volume is likely to be developed within the system. The field observer uses a growing array of technology for rapid assessment of pond shape, and volume, a three-dimensional picture, will be created. The volumes of ponds are a gross index to relative productivity or potential for irrigation, fisheries, or other pond uses. Refinement, in terms of the phototrophic zone of the pond, is provided to produce a gross index of the potential productive volume of a basin of water. There are parameters of light and volume believed to give first-order insight into relative productivity of water bodies and may, over a period of increasing use and adjustment, give new predictive controls.
The field person is asked to fish the lakes (a most unpleasant request!) or seine them to obtain sample fish. A computer program allows the relation:
K = [Weight/(Length)3] x 106
(Weatherley 1972:75) to be readily observed and compared. The higher the K factor, generally, with regard to a particular species, the better the pond. K is believed to be a valuable parameter for relating soil fertility, pH, pond volumes, drainage areas and types, and other factors. It is a variable with a high information content.
A conventional water quality analysis of a pond is made. Because the thresholds for fish life of many substances in surface mine ponds and in some agricultural areas may be approached, the probability that the pond can support aquatic life is computed. Because water samples are lost, laboratory accidents occur, and facilities are limited, a flexible analysis scheme has been devised so that some information may be provided by any input. Extensive work in pond management by Dr. Murphy in Texas will be incorporated into simplified field procedures and intensive analyses.
An index to potential fish yield will be studied as a pond design criterion as well as a basis for comparing ponds. The index is the morphoedaphic index (Ryder 1970). Although developed for large lakes, we shall use it cautiously for its integrative strengths. This will be called throughout MEI. The metric expression will be used (where MEI (metric) = 3.281 MEI (English)). The reader should understand that there is no intent here to predict fish yields from surface mine ponds. The intent is to transform readily-collected field data into a unit useful for comparing managerial effectiveness and allocating limited resources for the creation of environment within which a fishery might be developed. MEI correlates well with a standing crop of fish (Jenkins 1967) in large reservoirs, and such a crop is a desired characteristic of many other bodies of water. If managed, then size distribution will be significant. If not managed, then biomass for wildlife food and recreational observation are important. Existing strip mine ponds are analyzed, but the primary intent of this pond section is to design ponds or reclaim and manage them to achieve a desired MEI.
Yield (in kg/ha/year) = 0.9660.5
Yield (in pounds/acre/year) = 2.094 0.44610
Where x = Total dissolved solids in mg/liter
and average pond depth is in meters (Ryder et al. 1974:667.)
The recommendation on alders around ponds was from Esipov et aI. (1960).
The Trevey Ponds System does not replace the biologists. It captures the best knowledge available and allows the biologist to allocate time personally to exceptional cases and problem areas.
The interactions of ponds and streams are important. May (1976) said "How can waters from active mines be treated to abate pollution when the waters return to local streams and rivers (causing problems described by Curtis 1973 and Kinney 1964)? Catchment areas, sediment basins, and ponds must play an important role in the management of surface water on surface mined areas," and other regional restoration and development efforts.
Liming and fertilization recommendations will be based on Dugan (1977), Swingle (1961), Boyd (1974), and Buck et al. (1970). The research needs are great; variability of responses is extreme!
Stocking advice will derived from many sources, (e.g., Pelts (1977)).
An example of materials that will be presented in an Landowner's Manual is available.
As other components of The Trevey, this unit on The Fishery is under almost daily development.
Other material on The Fishery is available.
See the fishery enterprise description. Part of this unit is duplicated there.
A useful source is the web site of Virginia Tech and Dr. Louis Helfrisch.
Work on the stream fishery is underway.
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