one big fish
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/biotechfishing?npu=1&mbid=yhp
It’s a big fish for sure and I wouldn’t mind having one like it on the end of my line. I doubt if it got that big by being easy to catch.
Is it a new world record rainbow trout? I kind of think not. It’s a genetically engineered fish and it sure is a big one. I’m just not sure I would call it a world record rainbow.
Jeff
Yes a new world record rainbow caught in Canada–there is also a new world rcord German Brown 41pound caught in Michigan Bill
“Stop crying and start fishing!”
…dat’s a Big Fat 'Bo!
I’m thinkin’ Adams…size 10…maybe 2 
While technically it will be considered a world record, I’m of the opinion that it shouldn’t be.
I think there should be a separate category for GE (Genetically Engineered) fish or farm-raised fish (the current Missouri record Rainbow came from one of the trout parks, they raised it fat on fish pellets, then turned it out into what’s essentially a big barrel for someone to catch).
I just don’t think there’s a comparison between these triploid trout (genetically engineered to be sterile, but that also gives them huge growth rates) and a “normal” trout.
I’d say Rip Collins still has the record.
It doesn’t matter if this new world record IS genetically modified super fish. What matters is that they DID manage to catch this gigantic fish.
The REAL secret here is that the line about escaping nine years ago is rubbish. The scary truth is this, that fish is only a fingerling! This new 'bo is gene spliced with great white sharks. Now you know why all the secrecy. “They” are afraid that the populace would become frightened and put an end to the experiment. “They” didn’t want the truth out. I am afraid for that poor, young man who caught that fish. “They” are going to be angling to get him. Le pauvre jeun homme…
Ed
Regardless of the arguments agains the whole GE thing, apparently the IGFA is going to count it.
So, it will be a ‘new’ world record Rainbow, regardless of how anyone ‘feels’ about it. At least there is no intimation that they snagged it.
We’ve been playing with te fish we stock for generations…selecting fish that do well in the hatchery, produce strong offspring, grow larger. We feed them special food to help them accomplish this. Most of the ‘stocked’ trout available have been ‘engineered’ in some manner over time. Maybe we need to draw a line someplace, but I have no clue where it needs to be.
There is a growing trend among the varius fishery management agencies to stock ‘incentive’ type fish into small waters. Often these are large hatchery raised ‘brood fish’ that have become too old to be effective spawners, shown a lowering egg production, or maybe they just want to thrill a fisherman or two…
What we end up with, regardless of why they do it, is a large fish that didn’t have to go through the ‘normal’ life experiences that usually lead a fish to a large size. Instead of being one of the more savy fish in the water, as is normal with a large, long lived fish, these fish have no more survival sense than the eight inch hatchery fish stocked alongside them.
They are thus easy to make strike or ‘hook’. Landing one of these giants is another issue. Are they as ‘strong’ as a similar sized fish that has grown in the ‘wild’? I don’t know, but probably not. Still, a twelve pound plus fish is still a big fish that can swim pretty hard.
Buddy
Selective breeding and environmental manipulation (feeding, protection from predators, etc…) are two things, but changing the basic genome (genetic structure) by cutting some bits and replacing them with bits from other species is totally different. For one thing, it creates a new type of organism. If I splice the genes that control growthsize from a striper into a brook trout, we could end up with 50 pound “brookies”. But they are NOT, scientifically speaking, brook trout. If I spend a couple of hundred years selectively breeding brookies for monsters, then I simply am selecting and bringing into play those genes for great size. If brook trout genes say, “Forty pounds is as big as you can ever get” then I cannot have 50 pound brookies.
I can crossbreed two different species and create a hybrid. Some of those hybrids may be fertile. If they “take”, then a new species is created, sort of. As it stood a few years ago, science wasn’t willing to give species status to self-fertile hybrids until they had their own, distinct gene. Thus the Red Wolf was stripped of its species status since it was deemed a cross of gray wolf and coyote.
What I cannot do, by controlling breeding, is to cross and oak tree with a brook trout. But in my Garage Gene-splicing Lab (be the first kid on your block to get one!), I might well be able to do that. Maybe I want my “brookies” to secrete tannic acid from their skin and thus taste bad to bigger fish. That might be possible. Of course, I might create a monster. I might accidently insinuate my “smart-@r$e gene” into the special-blend brookies and have fish that issue insulting quips after refusing your fly.
Gene splicing is totally different from selective breeding or creating favorable conditions for growth.
Ed
Saw someone caught the potential new record brown trout last week in the Manistee River, Michigan.
Good grief, what next. So he caught a big trout. congrats to him and he deeserves the record so long as there is no law against it. next thing you know we will be trying to tell what political party the fish fit into so we can only catch the politically correct trout for us.
just have fun people!:rolleyes:
Ed, you’re sick.