The Ten Commandments of Successful Fishery Management of Wild Brown Trout Salmo trutta Populations in Salmonid Streams in the Bohemian Region (Czech Republic)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
it is not a scientific work.
Author Response
I respect this opinion. However, the remaining three reviewers think that the manuscript is of value to the scientific community.
Reviewer 2 Report
I strongly recommend review and re-edit this paper. The author provide important and relevant information for trout producers but the information lack of scientific and legislation support. The text content lack of citation.
Line 83. How do the authors know if the streams and rivers were not littered and polluted? What was the criteria?
Table S1. Table shoud be autoexplanatory, therefore, there is missing information.
1) It is suggested to number the questions.
2) Where were the questions obtained?, where they from previous research?. Do they have any scientific support?
3) There is no regulations or scientific citation included in this table.
Line 88. What do the authors means with “pre-prepared scenario”
Line 117. What is the meaning of CPUE?
Line 119. What is the minimum legal angling size? What is the citation?
Line 126. What do the authors mean with “strong body that will have the authority”
Line 128. What do the author mean with “The Union”?. Would the authors mean Committee or Association?
Line 134. This section sound confusing. “I would suggest a re-editions to clarified what you want to explain. “The problem of the streams in central Europe is that they lose water too quickly. The streams are often straightened and without natural meanderings. This results to quick floods during rains in spring and autumn and to long-lasting droughts during hot rain-less summers”.
Line 148. In the section “That means less water for the brown trout populations which usually leads to their population decline”, requires a citation. It is no clear What is the stream amount of water?, depth? or flow? to support the specie population
Line 151. The statement require citation.
Line 157. “The fishery managers should divide the salmonid streams into several categories divided by the suitability of the streams for brown trout populations”. This statement require edition. Did the author mean: The fishery managers should divide the salmonid streams into several categories based on the suitability of the streams for brown trout populations?
Line 171. “The streams where brown trout still has sustainable and self-reproducing wild populations need to be strictly protected”. I would suggest a re-editions like “The streams containing sustainable and self reproducing wild populations need to be protected”.
I do encourage a major document edition.
Line 177. Is there any regulation or normative for this particular specie?, the manuscript has not mention regulation support.
Line 189. The statement require citation.
Line 213. How much is considered “Cheaper”
Line 214. What is a better financial return?. It is suggested to cite numbers of financial reports.
Line 230. “Instead, "they sampled a small number of trout per stream, and they extrapolated the results on the whole population”. How do they strapolated this? It is not clear.
Line 246. The document lack of citation of Legislative measures.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
I strongly recommend review and re-edit this paper. The author provide important and relevant information for trout producers but the information lack of scientific and legislation support. The text content lack of citation.
Line 83. How do the authors know if the streams and rivers were not littered and polluted? What was the criteria?
The method how the fisheries managers check for littering and pollution was added (lines 84-86).
Table S1. Table should be auto explanatory, therefore, there is missing information.
1) It is suggested to number the questions.
2) Where were the questions obtained?, where they from previous research?. Do they have any scientific support?
3) There is no regulations or scientific citation included in this table.
The numbers of the questions were added into Table S1. The citations of the studies that the questions were based on were added (lines 96-98 and Table S1). The question about the fishing regulations was added to the Tables S1 (question 6).
Line 88. What do the authors means with “pre-prepared scenario”
The term is now explained (lines 117-118).
Line 117. What is the meaning of CPUE?
The term is now explained (line 160)
Line 119. What is the minimum legal angling size? What is the citation?
The information and citation were added (lines 87-90).
Line 126. What do the authors mean with “strong body that will have the authority”
The term is now explained (lines 169 and 171-172).
Line 128. What do the author mean with “The Union”?. Would the authors mean Committee or Association?
The term was replaced (line 169).
Line 134. This section sound confusing. “I would suggest a re-editions to clarified what you want to explain. “The problem of the streams in central Europe is that they lose water too quickly. The streams are often straightened and without natural meanderings. This results to quick floods during rains in spring and autumn and to long-lasting droughts during hot rain-less summers”.
The sentence was reworded (lines 179-183).
Line 148. In the section “That means less water for the brown trout populations which usually leads to their population decline”, requires a citation. It is no clear What is the stream amount of water?, depth? or flow? to support the specie population
The sentence was reworded (lines 196-198). Since this is a “Results” section that is dedicated for the results (what the managers suggested), the citation was added to the introduction (lines 27-30).
Line 151. The statement require citation.
Since this is a “Results” section that is dedicated for the results (what the managers suggested), the citation was added to the introduction (lines 30-32).
Line 157. “The fishery managers should divide the salmonid streams into several categories divided by the suitability of the streams for brown trout populations”. This statement require edition. Did the author mean: The fishery managers should divide the salmonid streams into several categories based on the suitability of the streams for brown trout populations?
The sentence was reworded (lines 206-208).
Line 171. “The streams where brown trout still has sustainable and self-reproducing wild populations need to be strictly protected”. I would suggest a re-editions like “The streams containing sustainable and self reproducing wild populations need to be protected”.
The sentence was reworded (lines 221-222).
I do encourage a major document edition.
The document was edited thoroughly as suggested by all the four reviewers.
Line 177. Is there any regulation or normative for this particular specie?, the manuscript has not mention regulation support.
The information regarding the regulation of brown trout angling was added (lines 87-90).
Line 189. The statement require citation.
Since this is a “Results” section that is dedicated for the results (what the managers suggested), the citation was added to the methods section (lines 91-97).
Line 213. How much is considered “Cheaper”
This information is provided (line 94-97).
Line 214. What is a better financial return?. It is suggested to cite numbers of financial reports.
Since this is a “Results” section that is dedicated for the results (what the managers suggested), the citation was added to the methods section (lines 95-97).
Line 230. “Instead, "they sampled a small number of trout per stream, and they extrapolated the results on the whole population”. How do they strapolated this? It is not clear.
The extrapolation is now explained (lines 282-284).
Line 246. The document lack of citation of Legislative measures.
The legislative measures are now explained with a citation (lines 98-99).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Hello, this review is for the manuscript titled “The ten commandments of successful fishery management of wild brown trout Salmo trutta populations in salmonid streams of central Europe” as submitted to the journal Applied Sciences.
The manuscript describes a qualitative summary of recommendations made by fishery managers in the Czech Republic. My specific comments are listed below and focus on adding some context to the work and making the methods more clear.
P1L8: Here and throughout the manuscript, the wording implies that brown trout are vanishing globally, which is not the case. The species has been introduced to many parts of the world and is not at risk of vanishing. Please clarify the issue by beginning or ending sentences like this one with “in it’s native range” or some similar language.
P2L60: Lyach (2021) as cited also states the study collected data across the whole Bohemian region, but states that area includes 252 streams and rivers with 1216 fishing sites and different fish species. Please specify here how the streams were narrowed to the 82 described in the current manuscript. Was it based on water temperature, stream size, species present, or some other consideration?
P1L28: This sentence should similarly be placed into geographic context, as I do not believe it applies worldwide.
P1L38: Give at least one mention of the situation elsewhere by comparing with a review like A Review of Trout Management in Southeast Minnesota Streams - Thorn - 1997 - North American Journal of Fisheries Management - Wiley Online Library or some other review from elsewhere. Your focus is clearly on the native range in central Europe but the subject merits at least one sentence to put your work into context.
P2L72: It is odd that the streams are dominated by brown trout but harvest is 7x higher for rainbow trout. Are the rainbow trout stocked at adult size from hatcheries? If so mention that here, or any other explanation for the difference.
P2L87: Replace “complete” with “schedule” if that is accurate.
P3L97: This is not enough information to be able to repeat this work. Provide more description of the software functions used for qualitative analysis.
P3L105: It is unclear how the interviews were used to form these recommendations. The data analysis notes that recommendations were used if over 50% of interviews agreed; does this mean that exactly ten of the recommendations were agreed by over 50% of the interviews? If so state that, and if not describe how you went from the first number of recommendations (the number agreed by over 50%) to the number ten.
P3L108: Are these ten ordered by how frequently they appeared in the interviews, or arranged for better clarity?
P3L111: These are excellent.
P6L257: All populations or just certain ones, such as those with natural reproduction or with enough natural reproduction to be self-sustaining?
P6L272: This is good context and as suggested above should be mentioned in the Introduction also.
Author Response
Hello, this review is for the manuscript titled “The ten commandments of successful fishery management of wild brown trout Salmo trutta populations in salmonid streams of central Europe” as submitted to the journal Applied Sciences.
The manuscript describes a qualitative summary of recommendations made by fishery managers in the Czech Republic. My specific comments are listed below and focus on adding some context to the work and making the methods more clear.
P1L8: Here and throughout the manuscript, the wording implies that brown trout are vanishing globally, which is not the case. The species has been introduced to many parts of the world and is not at risk of vanishing. Please clarify the issue by beginning or ending sentences like this one with “in it’s native range” or some similar language.
The information “in its native range” was added to avoid confusion with he introduced trout populations (lines 8-9, 27, 43, 47, 148, 150, 272).
P2L60: Lyach (2021) as cited also states the study collected data across the whole Bohemian region, but states that area includes 252 streams and rivers with 1216 fishing sites and different fish species. Please specify here how the streams were narrowed to the 82 described in the current manuscript. Was it based on water temperature, stream size, species present, or some other consideration?
The information is now clarified (line 67).
P1L28: This sentence should similarly be placed into geographic context, as I do not believe it applies worldwide.
The information was placed in a geographic context (lines 27-29).
P1L38: Give at least one mention of the situation elsewhere by comparing with a review like A Review of Trout Management in Southeast Minnesota Streams - Thorn - 1997 - North American Journal of Fisheries Management - Wiley Online Library or some other review from elsewhere. Your focus is clearly on the native range in central Europe but the subject merits at least one sentence to put your work into context.
The information about introduced brown trout populations and their management was added to the discussion section (lines 328-330).
P2L72: It is odd that the streams are dominated by brown trout but harvest is 7x higher for rainbow trout. Are the rainbow trout stocked at adult size from hatcheries? If so mention that here, or any other explanation for the difference.
The explanation was added (lines 84-86).
P2L87: Replace “complete” with “schedule” if that is accurate.
Replaced (line 110).
P3L97: This is not enough information to be able to repeat this work. Provide more description of the software functions used for qualitative analysis.
Additional information was added to make the work repeatable (lines 137-140).
P3L105: It is unclear how the interviews were used to form these recommendations. The data analysis notes that recommendations were used if over 50% of interviews agreed; does this mean that exactly ten of the recommendations were agreed by over 50% of the interviews? If so state that, and if not describe how you went from the first number of recommendations (the number agreed by over 50%) to the number ten.
The method regarding how the final number of recommendations was achieved is now described (lines 143-144).
P3L108: Are these ten ordered by how frequently they appeared in the interviews, or arranged for better clarity?
The information was added (lines 151-152).
P3L111: These are excellent.
Thank you.
P6L257: All populations or just certain ones, such as those with natural reproduction or with enough natural reproduction to be self-sustaining?
The information was added (line 311).
P6L272: This is good context and as suggested above should be mentioned in the Introduction also.
The information was added to the introduction (lines 55-56).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
This manuscript presents an article on the ten commandments of successful fishery management of wild brown trout Salmo trutta populations in salmonid streams of central Europe. There are, however, many inconsistencies within the manuscript that must be clarified prior to acceptance for publication can be recommended.
Title – Please delete “central Europe” and replace it with the proper word. Because your study area is the Bohemian region, Czech Republic. Otherwise, readers will be confused.
Major points
- This research is fully based on one-hour-long in-depth face-to-face interviews with 20 fishery managers. However, the results and discussion are general, nothing new.
Of cause, participants are experts in the sector, but I believe you should also acquire experts’ knowledge in several fields (e.g. environmental, water, meteorology, disaster prevention, geography...etc) for the recommendations 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Other important considerations are state and local level policies in this field. It is impossible to make recommendations without investigating them. Therefore, it will be fine to combine all these things to enhance the research quality.
- The sample size is 25, excluded 5, total 20. How about the population size?
Which method did you use to select 25 fishery managers?
- Section 2.1 (study area) seems paraphrase compared to the mentioned paper below.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13499
How Did the Czech Fishing Union Convince over 99% of Czech Recreational Anglers to Report Their Harvested Fish and Their Fishing Visits into Their Angling Logbooks?
Other comments
Missing references eg. line numbers 26 , 57... etc. Check the whole manuscript and revise them.
Results
Recommendation numbers 3, 4, 6, and 9 should be more explained.
Conclusions
Conclusions are general, nothing new.
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
This manuscript presents an article on the ten commandments of successful fishery management of wild brown trout Salmo trutta populations in salmonid streams of central Europe. There are, however, many inconsistencies within the manuscript that must be clarified prior to acceptance for publication can be recommended.
Title – Please delete “central Europe” and replace it with the proper word. Because your study area is the Bohemian region, Czech Republic. Otherwise, readers will be confused.
Replaced (line 4).
Major points
- This research is fully based on one-hour-long in-depth face-to-face interviews with 20 fishery managers. However, the results and discussion are general, nothing new.
Of cause, participants are experts in the sector, but I believe you should also acquire experts’ knowledge in several fields (e.g. environmental, water, meteorology, disaster prevention, geography...etc) for the recommendations 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
The extra interviews were done and described (lines 111-114). Given that there was not much time, only one interview was conducted with each of the experts.
Other important considerations are state and local level policies in this field. It is impossible to make recommendations without investigating them. Therefore, it will be fine to combine all these things to enhance the research quality.
The state and local policies were investigated and added to the study (lines 128-131, 202-204, 223-225).
- The sample size is 25, excluded 5, total 20. How about the population size?
The sample size is described (lines 110-111).
Which method did you use to select 25 fishery managers?
The method is described (lines 114-115).
- Section 2.1 (study area) seems paraphrase compared to the mentioned paper below.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13499
How Did the Czech Fishing Union Convince over 99% of Czech Recreational Anglers to Report Their Harvested Fish and Their Fishing Visits into Their Angling Logbooks?
The methodology in this paper is similar to the mentioned paper because both papers have similar methods of data collection and analysis. This should not be a problem as the methodology can be repeated if it is similar. The results are new, which is important.
Other comments
Missing references eg. line numbers 26 , 57... etc. Check the whole manuscript and revise them.
The references were added (lines 27, 63). The manuscript was checked for missing references.
Results
Recommendation numbers 3, 4, 6, and 9 should be more explained.
The recommendations are now more explained (lines 186-188, 202-204, 223-225, 228-230).
Conclusions
Conclusions are general, nothing new.
The conclusion was rewritten to be more specific (lines 334-338).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The revised and corrected manuscript greatly improved in structure and quality. However, I have a few comments that you might considere.
Line 128. “(fishing regulations, water regulations, species conservation laws, and aquaculture regulations)”. Which?
It is important to include the number, citation or key of the regulation, rule or law that applies to each case, so that the interested party can corroborate or expand the information according to their needs.
Line 196. “That means lower water depth and slower flow which usually leads to their population decline of the brown trout populations.”
This statement sound confusing. Did the author mean?: That means lower water depth and slower flow which usually leads to the brown trout populations decline.
Line 224. “Anglers must be made aware this law and this policy must be communicated with them”.
This is a very important recommendation generated from this study. Therefore, I would suggest: Anglers have the responsibility to knowledge the law and any policy must be updated and communicated to the entire fishery management and production chain of wild brown trout.
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The revised and corrected manuscript greatly improved in structure and quality. However, I have a few comments that you might considere.
Line 128. “(fishing regulations, water regulations, species conservation laws, and aquaculture regulations)”. Which?
It is important to include the number, citation or key of the regulation, rule or law that applies to each case, so that the interested party can corroborate or expand the information according to their needs.
Author response: I listed the laws including number and name of the rule of law that applies to each of the cases (lines 130-133).
Line 196. “That means lower water depth and slower flow which usually leads to their population decline of the brown trout populations.”
This statement sound confusing. Did the author mean?: That means lower water depth and slower flow which usually leads to the brown trout populations decline.
Author response: The sentence was rewritten as suggested (lines 199-201).
Line 224. “Anglers must be made aware this law and this policy must be communicated with them”.
This is a very important recommendation generated from this study. Therefore, I would suggest: Anglers have the responsibility to knowledge the law and any policy must be updated and communicated to the entire fishery management and production chain of wild brown trout.
Author response: the recommended sentence was added (lines 228-230).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
