Catching wild crawfish might tell you something about them. In various parts of Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and Florida, I've caught many crawfish using a cloth bag and a piece of dead fish, or even raw chicken. They will cling to the cloth bag trying to eat the food inside so singlemindedly, that you could just tie a string to it, throw it in, wait 10 minutes then slowly pull it out. Depending on the season, it may be completely covered and you could get an instant meal. I've kept a pond with my dad in Tucson Arizona for many years with gold fish, 1 coy and some very small black fish I don't know the name of. I attempted to introduce crawfish several times and once they get to a certain size they try to run away and in arizona, that never ends well for them. I've found that if you have a shallow pond with liner, don't bother trying to keep crayfish unless you want to feed the birds. If you can keep a pond by digging into solid dirt or clay and just fill it with a hose with no liner, crawfish do well. The ponds in my families land in kentucky has a huge number of crawfish, and they are totally untended, but about 15 feet deep in the center and about 50 feet in diameter. They like to burrow into hard clay and if they don't find that they generally don't flourish. If you are able to get them to flourish, they will always run away when their population reaches a certain amount of fully grown members. If you want something to keep the fish population down, buy a small snapping turtle, but expect all you fish to have injuries.

First the answers. I'm in Nova Scotia, next door as it were to Newfoundland. And no, they are Atlantic Salmon, i.e. Salmo Salar, in the same family as Trout, Arctic Char etc. . Chinook "King" Salmon, are a different species entirely, " Oncorhynchus Tshawytscha. Atlantic salmon do not die after spawning, they go back to the sea to feed , grow and come back to spawn again, and ( hopefully) again, and again. As for the fly rod deal, there's always someone who wants your money, so they will tell you that you NEED to have whatever type of gear. There are also a number who truly believe that more expensive gear will make you a better fisher, and while that's true to a degree, I think that it's crazy to spend a couple of thousand bucks on gear that will enable you to cast 10 or 20 feet further, or what ever the case may be. If you have any interest in flyfishing at all, go to your local library and see what they have or can get for you on the subject. There are lots of good videos and books etc. out there. If and when you are ready, maybe start with a good , cheap lightweight rod & reel combo for your panfish, take a look at Walmart or whatever is close to you. And by the way, you can troll with a fly rod using streamer flies etc. I wonder what it would be like to hook a pike on light fly gear ? My brother-in-law , who is the best fly fisherman I've ever seen, keeps threatening to haul me off to try for striped bass with our light salmon rods, and that would be trolling streamers.. We'll see what happens this year, we're both getting up there and aren't as young as we wish we were ! Check out the library ! Tight Lines !!

This is complicated. Maybe we should just discuss brownie recipes. In lieu of that, let's just for now try to focus on two aspects of the question, food quality and conservation. Wasn't there someone who, early in the discussion, cited a large study published in Science magazine? I can't find that post now but the study is the most important one I am aware of. The full text can't be accessed at the Science web site without subscribing. It is available elsewhere on the web. The study sampled and compared wild and farmed salmon from many regions around the world. The level of PCBs and other dangerous substances was found to be "significantly" higher in farmed salmon. The word "significant", when used in this sort of document is understood to mean statistically significant, which is not the same as the every day usage. Statistical significance means that a difference between two samples can be proven mathematically at a certain criterion. It does not mean the difference is important. If I sprinkle 2 grains of salt on my order of fries and you sprinkle 4, the difference obviously is statistically significant. But is it important? Neither one is enough salt to affect the taste at all. Significant but not important. The study found, at some locations, levels of certain toxins at 10 or so parts per billion. At those levels, differences of say, 4 parts per billion would be significant. But important? FDA standards allow hundreds of times that concentration. But that is not the end of the controversy. Some, including the authors of the study, prefer the standards of the EPA over those of the FDA. EPA standards are much stricter. This is where science and politics collide. One might think that the "Food" and Drug Administration would take precedence over the "Environmental" Protection Administration in the matter of food safety. But that would be too simple. I have to observe that, although the importance to science of a "not statistically significant" finding is equal to, often greater than, one of "statistically significant". The importance in press releases is not. Everyone wants the results of their work to be "significant". Well, that is the health issue in a nutshell, a very small nutshell. The conservation issue is more difficult. Jim Here is a link that might be useful: Global Assessment of Organic Contaminants in Farmed Salmon

I think you'll get enough insects flying in and amphibians. This is what I'm tryong to do in my top pond. Last year before it was finished it was just a big daphnia factory, and I netted it to feed the sticklebacks in the bottom pond. I had lots of little black beetles and also some big (half or 3/4 inch ones) beetles. It is now planted up, and in a warm spell in autumn a couple of frogs arrived, so I hope they will adopt this one to spawn in away from the stickleback. If not, I'll transfer some of the spawn. The waterfall is finished, and when I finally get the pump in, I'll only run it intermittently with a pair of tights on after spawning to try to keep it fish free. Good luck with yours....but I bet the trout turn up!!