Please Help!!!

If you have ever fished in Tennessee, or if you ever hope to fish in Tennessee (seriously, we have some fantastic fishing), then please keep reading.  We currently are in the midst of a serious effort to fund our tailwater trout stocking program.  In short, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has pulled the plug on hatchery funding for trout.  I'm not sure whether this has to do with the budget cuts over the last couple of years or not, but that is not that point.  

The important part is that we may lose a lot of stocked trout.  That's where you come in.  Please check out the document from the latest meeting first.  It covers the alternative options.  Please note that the USFWS has said that funding through them is not an option unless congress appropriates a LOT more funding than they currently have.

So why is all of this important? Well, we only have limited natural reproduction on most tailwaters, with the Clinch and South Holston being two of the best in terms of wild fish.  Imagine if all of the other tailwaters were more or less barren and the anglers that normally fished them now crowded onto the already crowded Clinch and South Holston?  Even worse, imagine if all those tailwater anglers were so frustrated by the lack of quantities of fish (even on those rivers as both have lots of supplemental stocking) on the tailwaters and started hitting the wild mountain streams a lot harder.  In other words, the Smokies might become a bring your own rock sort of place.  I'm not too excited about that, and I hope you're not either.

Personally, as TVA is responsible for the dams being in place that created this artificial situation where native species cannot thrive, I think TVA should foot the bill on this one, but that could definitely be debated.  Ultimately it will be passed on to TVA rate payers as a rate hike.  However, current calculations are indicating that a rate increase of 5-10 cents per year is all that would be required to get this thing funded.  That's not bad.

In the end, the most important thing you can do to help is to contact TVA so that they know a lot of people care about our tailwaters.  It won't take much of your time, just go to http://www.tva.gov/hatchery/, read the page so you understand the issue, then scroll down to the bottom where you will find a link to submit comments.  Let TVA know that you care about trout in our tailwaters and that you believe the trout stocking needs to continue.  The more people that submit comments the better.  They have to realize how many people are utilizing our waters and they need to understand the economic impact that a cessation of funding would cause.  

Thank you for taking the time to read about this issue and sending in your comments.  With everyone's help, we can make a difference in maintaining the fantastic tailwater fisheries here in Tennessee!!!