Treat all fishes equally.

[MuskieBait]

(10-23-2012 09:59 PM)onwind Wrote:  In my opinion, Gobies are not welcomed because they're predators to North American ecosystem. the ecosystem in North America was balanced before gobies are introduced in. now the prolific of gobies breaks the balance of previous ecosystem. so what people want to do is just to bring back the balance here used to have. it's not just because they're not gamefish.
Of course the opinion of sadism is worth considering.

If that's the argument, then brown trout, rainbow trout, chinook salmon and coho salmon should be out of all Ontario streams and lakes since these threw off the balance of the native brook trout and Atlantic salmon streams. They are not native and they compete directly with brook trout, native minnow, darters and sucker species for food and habitat in the streams. They also prey on native brook trout fry and parr, darters, minnows and suckers. What I want is to remove all Pacific salmon species and restock the lake with Atlantic salmon where they truly belong, but we know that the commercial sportfishing industry and the general fishing crowds will not allow it.

Why not bring the ecosystem back to the way it was thousands of year ago? Do these salmonid belong in Ontario? The simple answer is NO Why argue that the bias is not on the gamefish then? Just 10 years back, people were crying about all the carp everywhere. Now that carp has gained some respected status a a worthy gamefish, these complains are heard less and less.

Then you have people complaining about native species such as longnose gar, bowfin and even pike with their predatory nature. Some even go out to shoot these fish by bowfishing. You have people complaining about native sucker species (white sucker and the other 6 redhorse suckers plus northern hogsucker) on trout streams believing that these "roughfish" eats all the trout eggs. That is further from the truth. The hate on some "undesirable" species runs deep and this hate often has little grounds.

Another way of looking at the round goby problem is that these annoying invasive is actually endangered in their native range. By their introduction into the Great Lakes, we had in actuality ensured the survival of this species halfway around the world. It's not so bad after all.

Plus, all the complaining about round goby...look at the wonderful smallmouth fishery that boomed after the zebra mussel and round goby got into Lake Erie and Lake Simcoe. These bass just love to gorge on gobies. Bay of Quinte is starting to see the same effect.

The only bad thing is that there is evidence round goby prey upon Lake Sturgeon eggs on Lake St. Clair. Oh my beloved sturgeon...

They are well established now...killing the dozen that you catch is like swatting a dozen mosquitoes in June on a Northern Ontario swamp. You are not going to make enough impact at all!