Last piece arrives; SRBC receives $68 million for Tioga River restoration
The last big piece needed for the restoration of the Tioga River restoration is now in place.
Tioga River Restoration
- Thread starter afishinado
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JeffP
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Wow! Quite a project! Great news!
That's what I thought but the PFBC ain't going to miss the opportunity to hurl mush bellies in there as quickly as they can.
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Gonna send you a PM.
hemlock
Active member
Would be a great opportunity to restore a brook trout fishery but I imagine that opportunity will be missed, bummer.
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It’ll be a Brookie fishery for a little while, but, the Browns will show up as it continues to recover. They’re probably already there in other parts of the watershed, though I’ve only ever caught Brookies there.
lycoflyfisher
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The tioga river ia already stocked and has been for many years. Not saying its right or wrong. Perhaps the improvement in water quality downstream would allow for the stocking to be moved downstream.
The water quality has been so poor in Blossburg for a long time, having clean water that the community can swim and boat in and hopefully soon fish in is a huge win for the community.
The water quality has been so poor in Blossburg for a long time, having clean water that the community can swim and boat in and hopefully soon fish in is a huge win for the community.
I've caught wild trout well downstream from County Bridge State Park, as well as further up. It is stocked in those areas, but shouldn't be.
From Blossburg on downstream the stream is highly channelized, as it flows through a heavily developed floodplain. After the January 1996 flood the channel was reamed out by heavy machinery.
On Google Maps you can look at satellite imagery of the river from Blossburg on down to the lake and see that it's physically in bad shape.
From Blossburg on downstream the stream is highly channelized, as it flows through a heavily developed floodplain. After the January 1996 flood the channel was reamed out by heavy machinery.
On Google Maps you can look at satellite imagery of the river from Blossburg on down to the lake and see that it's physically in bad shape.
hemlock
Active member
Would probably be controversial in PA but installing a barrier to prohibit fish movement would be a thought. I'm originally from Schuylkill county, I've seen this story play out already unfortunately.
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It’s probably already got Browns somewhere in the upper watershed based on the historical stocking Lyco mentioned. Even if I personally haven’t caught one there.
So did the streams in Skuke County. The Browns were there somewhere and as the watersheds recover they expand and colonize. (Continuing to stock more Browns clearly doesn’t help, but IMO, they would have shown up anyway.) The Brookies show up first with their better acidity tolerance, and for a while, there’s a window that Brookies can tolerate and Browns can’t. But once the water gets to where the Browns can tolerate it, they show up. It’s happening right now to the one Skuke County system that was a couple decades behind the others. Fished a stretch where I had never caught a Brown two weeks ago…I caught 4 Browns, and all the Brookies were dinks, meaning it’s starting.
hemlock
Active member
Barrier plus ongoing fish removal. Not saying you would ever get rid of them entirely but I rather my license dollars go to that instead of stocking fish but I digress.
I'm well aware of the situation in Schuylkill county and I understand the reasons causing brown trout to take over. The PFBC did no favors to brook trout with their fingerling stockings. And they continue on with the program. I've caught these fingerling far far away from where they are stocked.
Ohh well I suppose. Don't worry, ANY TROUT IS A GOOD TROUT! We should all be happy that their are any fish at all in these streams! yeahhhhh I guess....
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It’s a double edge sword. On the one hand it’s neat to see these places recovering and fish recolonizing them. In the one I mentioned, I started catching Fallfish up with the Brookies the last few years. Once they showed up, I knew it was only a matter of time until the Browns did. (Browns have better natural acidity tolerance than Fallfish.) There’s bugs now, Caddis and Mayflies, where there largely wasn’t 10 or 15 years ago. The Brookies were there then though. No clue what they were eating, other than each other, back then.
The coal mines artificially keep the water underground and discharge it (relatively speaking) all at once. So you get a spring like effect, in terms of temperature. This keeps the water in these systems cooler than it would be otherwise and allows for what are actually fairly large wild Trout streams for PA, outside of the limestone belts. If you can treat the mine water.
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The Tioga River has both wild browns and native brook trout. And stockies.
Wild browns were present in the Schuylkill before any fingerlings of any trout species were stocked. In fact, the discovery of low to very low densities of wild brown trout and wild brook trout, depending upon the location, was the impetus for the fingerling stockings in the Schuylkill, which at one point included all three species depending upon the stretch. Stockings of RT and BT ultimately focused on the stretch where the fingerlings did best….Tumbling Run confluence below Pottsville downstream to Rt 443 in Schuylkill Haven. Additionally, the W Br Schuylkill harbored a moderate population of wild brown trout from its confluence with the Schuylkill upstream through Cressona…again, before any fingerling browns were stocked in the Schuylkill.
ST were stocked where it was believed they would have the best chance of survival…upstream from the BT/RT stocked stretch upstream to Middleport. It appeared that only one stocking did well, that being the larger fish (approx 6-7”) from the shut-down of Big Spring, but normal size (2-3”) ST fingerlings that followed never appeared to do well and those stockings were eventually terminated.
Placing the decision to do fingerling stockings in context, at the time of initiation there was no guarantee that Schuylkill R water quality or its limited wild trout populations would improve in the future. The discovery of wild trout and an agency commitment to stocking brought much needed attention to what to many were surprising natural water quality improvements. This helped demonstrate a fisheries need for further enhancements, provided more reasons to make such enhancements, and brought hope to some in communities that this could occur. Furthermore, in some communities there was a lot more to this than fish and fishing.
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