Brook trout numbers drop in Middle Tomorrow River THE TOMORROW River is one of Wisconsin's best trout streams, and a particularly good segment is the Middle Tomorrow, below Nelsonville. It has big brown trout, and regulations so restrictive that it's hard to catch a legal-size fish. The Middle Tomorrow also has brook trout but they're declining, which bothers fishermen. Brookies don't get as big as browns, but they're beautiful native fish and many anglers prefer them. The Department of Natural Resources and Trout Unlimited have worked to improve conditions on the Middle Tomorrow for trout, to the benefit of browns but possibly to the detriment of brookies. Stu Grimstad of Trout Unlimited's Frank Hornberg Chapter said overhead boom covers (in-stream structures that provide shelter for fish) may be the problem. They favor browns, which like to hang out under them, but not brooks, which he called "mid-channel fish rather than bank fish." Could it be that big predatory browns are lurking under the boom covers and snapping up the brookies? Possibly, said Al Hauber, the DNR's fish biologist for this area, who spoke at a recent meeting of the Hornberg Chapter. However, he said he knows of streams that, like the Middle Tomorrow, are intensively managed and yet the brook trout compete quite well with the browns. Perhaps other factors are involved, he said. The shift from brooks to browns on the Middle Tomorrow has been pronounced. In the early 1990s brook trout were nearly as numerous as browns, but in a survey this September the population was 91 percent browns. There's also been a shift to browns in a section above Nelsonville, though not as dramatic. The Tomorrow, especially the middle section, has quite a history. In 1971 the DNR chemically treated the stream from a point above Nelsonville down to Weyauwega to eliminate carp. It restocked the stream, and in 1974 state officials of Trout Unlimited proposed that the Middle Tomorrow be designated a trophy fishing segment, with highly restrictive regulations. As far as the fishing public was concerned, the idea stunk and nothing happened. Not then, anyway. The DNR bought the mill and dam at Nelsonville in 1984 for the express purpose of eliminating the millpond, which was seen as detrimental to trout because it warmed the water. Then in 1990 sweeping changes were made in Wisconsin's trout regulations, and the rules for the Middle Tomorrow became strikingly similar to those proposed in 1974 by Trout Unlimited, this time with no serious objections from the public. The size minimum is now 18 inches for brown trout and 10 inches for brooks. The bag limit is one per day, and only artificial lures may be used. The DNR's September electro-shocking survey showed a nice population of medium-to-large brown trout - the kind that are fun to catch but slightly too small to keep. The stream had many more of them than before the regulations were tightened in 1990. Few, however, were more than 18 inches long, the legal minimum. But the survey came near the end of the trout season, and the probability is that all summer long anglers had been cropping off the fish almost as fast as they got to 18 inches. * * * SURE WE'VE HAD to shovel a lot of snow so far this winter, but it may help our lakes next summer. Lake levels have been low because of a dropping water table caused by a lack of precipitation. Melting snow replenishes ground water even more effectively than rain because it's less affected by evaporation and plant transpiration. * * * WISCONSIN'S DEER herd totaled an estimated 1.7 million animals before the hunting season began. Now the herd is said to be down to 1.1 million. But if the aim was to reduce deer numbers - and it was - it evidently didn't succeed. Bill Mytton, DNR deer and bear ecologist, said the population, barring heavy winter losses, will be as high next spring as it was last spring. And that was considered too big for farms, motorists and the deer herd itself. Statewide, the 2000 deer harvest at this point, with a handful of bow-killed deer yet to go, numbers close to 600,000. This includes the gun and bow seasons, deer taken with agricultural crop damage permits (ag tags), and the Indian tribe harvest. Look for another liberal hunt next year - again barring a tough winter, always the joker in the deck. What about Portage County? It had a whopping deer kill, but exactly how big won't be known for awhile. It takes time to sort out the numbers since some deer are registered in adjoining counties. Our December weather has been cold and snowy but this part of the state doesn't typically have severe winter losses. Tough weather could, however, suppress next spring's fawn crop. * * * LIVE DECOYS were banned for waterfowl hunting in 1935. After World War II, duck and goose hunters started using electronic calls, but then they, too, were outlawed. Now we have battery-operated decoys, sometimes called robo ducks, which you may have seen in outdoor catalogs. The decoys move, make waves and flap their wings. They look kind of silly and they cost a mint - more than $200 in some cases. But they work. People using them are said to shoot quite a few more ducks than those who don't. Apparently you don't need a lot of robo duck decoys in your spread. Just a couple will do the job and increase your bag. The movement and the flashing wings lure ducks that ignore stationary decoys. Is that any worse than electronic fish finders? Maybe not, but some people wish Wisconsin had never allowed the fish finders. Now they're common, and anglers have so much money invested in them that outlawing them is almost a political impossibility. Robo ducks have their defenders, who argue that they bring waterfowl in closer, allowing hunters to identify species and pass up the rare ones. Somehow, that seems like a stretch. Robo ducks aren't going to drive waterfowl into extinction, but some hunters and wildlife biologists wonder if they shouldn't be banned. If outdoor ethics are to have any meaning, we ought to ask ourselves if excessive gadgeteering has any place in hunting and fishing. Jose Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher and hunter, once said, "The inequality between the hunters and the hunted should not be allowed to become excessive." And robo ducks, frankly, seem excessive. And Aldo Leopold had these thoughts on hunting gadgets: "Our tools for the pursuit of wildlife improve faster than we do, and sportsmanship is a voluntary limitation in the use of these armaments. ... Voluntary adherence to an ethical code elevates the self-respect of the sportsman, but it should not be forgotten that voluntary disregard of the code degenerates and depraves him." But if getting a limit of ducks or walleyes is your thing regardless of how you do it, then Leopold's words won't mean much to you. * * * ANCIENT OUTDOOR HISTORY: Charles H. Packard and Robert K. McDonald spent a day this week near Coloma on a trout fishing trip and succeeded in landing 60 specimens of the speckled beauties. (Gazette, May 11, 1910)