A Tale of Two Streams

[drakeking412]

Yesterday I fished a SWPA ATW for the first time in over a decade. I know we're still in the "busy" period but what I saw was disgusting. Loads of worm cans, bait jars, and soda/energy drinks all over the place. The stream was from what I saw fairly nice and with some work could be a wonderful place to go but it obviously gets pressured beyond belief and would be ruined quickly. General angler attitude was sour at best.

I found myself a spot to fish and after 25 minutes or so an older couple and another gentleman with fishing gear stopped on the bridge above and talked and watched me fish for maybe a half hour and in that time I landed one and missed one. Then he says "well i guess I'll throw in" and comes down the opposite bank and starts to drift powerbait on one rod in the exact drift he's been watching me make and then on another rod throws a spinner within 5' of me. I've started a new never be rude on the river EVER policy so I kept quiet ran my drifts when it was my "turn", caught another one and then told him the hole was his and left.

Flash forward to today where I fished a Keystone Select section. I somehow had most of the stream to myself all day and every angler I did meet was extremely nice and willing to have a nice conversation. There was little to no trash and I enjoyed myself much much more (fishing was way better too ).

Sorry for the rant, I just wanted to outline the polar opposite days that you can have solely based off stream choice or these odd factors like angler mentality and tell this little story. A friend and I have started to hatch a plan to deal with the trash on that stream, I'll post the results when we get around to it. Also those two trout I kept are the first trout I kept in over a decade, I'm not sure why I filleted them but boy do I suck at cleaning fish. I think next time I'm going to cook them "whole", that's what we used to do I'm not sure why I was set on the filet.

https://imgur.com/a/UCGnHKe

One day I'll nail down posting pics in the post. But for now. imgur.

DK

 

[rrt]

Around here with the pandemic, more guys are fishing than normal. Sadly, I have been toting more garbage home than I have for a good many years, though it's still not as bad as dk412 described. And, I don't pick up stuff along the road, just along the stream. On Thursday, I had a full net of styrofoam containers and cans. (To be fair, a couple of the cans looked pretty old.)

Didn't get on the water today; went shopping with my wife for groceries. TP was actually in full supply at one market, though the larger market we went to was still sold out. I know it's foolish to feel silly, but with the bandana I wear, I look like one of the 'bad guys" in the old Western movies and TV shows and do feel kind of silly. (Sorry to go off topic.)

DK has every right to rant about the litter he ran into.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Two types on this forum really when it comes to the PFBC's early season stocking program.

Ones that slob all over the PFBC for stocking. Think the ends justify the means because a few thousand miles of water stays open. Its for the kids etc etc..
Or
Those that recoginize the damage it does to what would otherwise be a tremendous wild trout fishery. Would rather fish the 30,000 +miles? of waterways on public land, in better health etc....

I think its funny two types of theads are on the board right now.


Just an fyi....
The OP is spot on.

LANDOWNER RELATIONS

Pennsylvania has a long and rich history of private landowners allowing the public access to on stream-side lands for fishing. While this practice has benefited generations of anglers, it also means that fishing as we know it in Pennsylvania is also very susceptible to privatization. Of our stocked trout waters, 83% are on private lands. About 70% of our wild trout waters are on private lands and 59% of our Class A trout waters are also on private lands.

The number one reason waters are removed from active management programs (like stocking) by the Commission is because of increased landowner posting in response to poor behavior such as littering, building open fires, trampling farm fields and blocking driveways and access roads. Preserving public access to private lands is a simple matter, but one that requires us all to take action to police ourselves. Recognize that the land you are on may very well be private property and act like a guest. Respect all postings, such as prohibitions against Sunday fishing

https://www.fishandboat.com/Fish/Fishing/Pages/PublicAccessToWaters.aspx



Only guys into stocked trout scream its for the kids but then tell others to take them to catch sunfish at a pond.

We should be stocking trout in waters not capable of supporting wild trout.
You could stock the other waters very heavy or not at all.

 

[Dave_W]

Drakeking,
Interesting observations.

It would be further interesting to repeat this a month or so from now and see what you see then. My guess would be that you might see the opposite conditions(?); fewer anglers on the STW and more anglers and bad behavior on the Keystone(?).

We've certainly seen plenty of complaints about crowds and gnarly behavior on Keystone sections on this forum in recent years.

If you return to these sections in May or June and see the same things you saw this week it would be more convincing.

On a side note:
Regarding the irritating behavior of the folks on the bridge...
This kind of behavior is much more prevalent in surf fishing where lazy anglers cruise the beach in their 4WDs, stop to watch you fish, and then pile out and cast over your lines if they see you hook up. Rude but common.

 

[drakeking412]

Well I guess we'll see because I'm for sure going back to both of them, I'll post results in this thread with maybe some pics too.

That's pretty unbelievable though. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would do that. Not only because of how rude it is but also because it's just a hassle when I could just be actually fishing instead of having Mexican standoffs and trying to wait my turn. Can't understand stupid though.

 

[Acristickid]

People are pigs.

Again, most people are good but there are those that are very lazy and stupid. I’d like to think most people just forget about the trash and that they leave , and that the wind blows trash out of the back of a pick up or out of their car in the parking areas.

Take my dog for a walk on Laurel Mountain almost every day and drive down through Linn run state park and I can’t tell you how many cans and wrappers I pick up each week ,like to think it’s my penance from when I was young and dumb , throwing in cases of beer here or there , breaking bottles just being young and dumb. Bud light , keystone ice colors light are my top three.

Anyways, hopefully we can all be diligent and be a good example by picking up others trash. Also adhere to the belief that if you do pick up the trash so there is none , people are less apt to litter when there is no trash around.

Since I fell in love with a little J 15 years ago or more I make it a point to go each year to the stream clean up through the LJRA. (2 hours away)

Do something, anything. Maybe it’s my upbringing or Boy Scout days or whatever, be a citizen, take your kids out and make a game of picking up trash.

Another weird thing is I’ll let the trash sit there for three days before I pick it up I know in my mind what cans I saw the few days ago and I go back and pick them up. Be safe.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Dk412: Thank you for this post! It isn't anything we all haven't seen, but a reminder of the selfish behaviors of others is good in that is is an indicator of what NOT to do.

When I see what you described, it sickens me.

Also, I applaud your restrain at the bridge. I likely would have done as you did but left right away. If someone wants a bridge hole (or beach) that badly, let 'em have it!

I find these situations (tracs and rude behavior) most common when they are adjacent to higher populations. For example, near Scranton / Wilkes Barre there are a number of productive wild trout streams that are not in town (not the Lackawanna R. at which I expect trash everywhere). They are commonly littered with both things people left and things people brought in (trash bags full of their trash).

I see this on local hiking trails, although it seems to be far less common. It's mostly from folks partying then leaving beer cans and bottles.

I don't get it. But, I was raised to pick up after myself and after others. When my brother and I were young kids my dad would send us around our fishing or camping area with a trash bag to "police the area" for trash left by others. I remember this as far back as the early 70s.

The bait crowd that leaves trash are mainly trout truck chasers. I see it at Lackawanna SP, but only in April and early May. The park is very heavily used, but only the stocked trout fishers seem to be so selfish. I see styrofoam worm containers, powerbait containers, yards and yards of mono, etc.

Side note: If you're spinning reel gets so tangled that you deed to discard a fist sized ball of mono, take spin fishing lessons. You kinda suck at it.

My guess is that littering and fishing an artificial fisheries for stocked trout (and these ARE artificial) is generational and cultural. It's generational in that kids are taught, at least by example, that 's it's OK to leave your crap. Outta sight, outta mind. It's cultural in that people who live in lower income urban environments are used to the presence of trash. Trash thrown around fishing spots is just part of their normal environment.

Clearly, there are exceptions. But, I suspect I am not far off.

If we want things to change for the better, we need to educate kids and patrol during peak littering times. I bet if PAFBC put out a call for it they could find volunteers who would monitor stocked areas and report transgressions. It certainly would be more productive than long posts in an echo chamber.

It's a thought.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

The problem is and always has been the anglers that come to the creeks because of the stocking program.
We will mitigate corona virus with lockdowns and social distancing as to not over tax our healthcare systems. Why do we then over tax our state waterways with not only people in a short time frame but also the fishries with fish?

It's a head scratcher. It's the mentality bred by the program.
It's terrible IMO.

 

[larkmark]

I think landowners close land for a lot of reasons. While littering and bad behavior by people might be a big part there are other reasons too. Some people just do not want the constant intrusion into their property. We have a very tiny stream on a neighbors place no near me. He never posted but lately he just got sick of the endless parade of people tromping through his place after the tiny wild fish. It really is kind of silly. Seeing these guys , all fly fishermen by the way, just repeatedly going up a creek that is about 3 ft wide. They have a muddy path worn on his grass now. He finally had enough.

 

[Mike]

I went for a walk on an bike path this week along an urban/suburban stream. There was a woman standing on the path’s bridge over the creek and I took up a brief conversation with her as we watched a muskrat and she queried about the identification of some swallows that were flying back and forth under the bridge. She said how beautiful it was in this park while all the while sipping from a soda can. I continued on my walk and then retraced my steps about 45 min later. The woman who thought the park was so beautiful was gone, but the can was in the middle if the bridge. So it’s not just fishermen who appreciate the beauty of nature and then go on to trash it, thinking nothing of it.

 

[Mike]

I fish an urban/suburban stocked stream fairly often. I can always find a little litter at most of the stocking points, but despite the environs, it is never totally trashed like I have seen on occasion on some other similar streams. I have also seen rural and suburban streams trashed at times and on many occasions beer has been involved. Years ago (1988) I once proposed no alcohol consumption by anglers along stocked trout waters out of frustration. It did not go over well. Now I think that I most often see plastic water bottles. And who has not seen frequently used campsites trashed in State Forests? Litter is not unique to anglers, and it certainly isn’t just anglers trashing our roadsides.

 

[troutbert]

I've participated in the annual Spring Creek cleanup for many decades now. Even though Spring Creek is one of the most popular fishing streams in PA, the great majority of the trash that we pick up along the stream is not from fishermen. It's from other people.

As a very rough estimate, I'd guess that only 10%, maybe less, of it is from fishermen.

Where the stream is close to a road, the amount of trash is vastly higher than at places where the stream is away from the road. Most of the trash is coming from people in their vehicles, not from fishermen or people out for a walk.

 

[Dave_W]

troutbert wrote:
Where the stream is close to a road, the amount of trash is vastly higher than at places where the stream is away from the road. Most of the trash is coming from people in their vehicles, not from fishermen or people out for a walk.

I'll second this and suggest it's universal along roadside streams - this is garbage being thrown from car windows and is much more prevalent year round than the bait jars and worm containers seen in April (not that this in any way absolves anglers of their culpability, of course).


I think dumping is one of the most stubborn and still widespread problems in rural PA. I don't have data and, just going off my own general observations over the years, I think it may be a bit improved (less common) than a generation ago... but not by much.

Throwing trash off rural bridges still happens. I spend a lot of time looking from bridges on bass rivers in summer and it is still sadly common to see fresh junk on the downstream river bottom every year - bicycles are common for some reason - shopping carts, washing machines... and the countless tires that seem to have a half life of a million years on river bottoms.
My long time pet-peeve are the trash bags full of deer bones/hide dumped along rural roadside pull offs that stink to high heaven by springtime when we park there to go fishing.

Anyway, while we're grumbling about littering...

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Yeah, the rotting deer are nasty!

Again, this habit is generational. People are not born as ignorant, selfish jerks just like they are not born racist. It's taught to them.

I would love to see some early intervention education to accelerate this "throw it over the bank (or bridge) crap. I don't think penalties or law enforcement are very effective at catching this illegal activity when it's done in rural areas.

 

[salmonoid]

acristickid wrote:
People are pigs.

Again, most people are good but there are those that are very lazy and stupid. I’d like to think most people just forget about the trash and that they leave , and that the wind blows trash out of the back of a pick up or out of their car in the parking areas.

Take my dog for a walk on Laurel Mountain almost every day and drive down through Linn run state park and I can’t tell you how many cans and wrappers I pick up each week ,like to think it’s my penance from when I was young and dumb , throwing in cases of beer here or there , breaking bottles just being young and dumb. Bud light , keystone ice colors light are my top three.

Anyways, hopefully we can all be diligent and be a good example by picking up others trash. Also adhere to the belief that if you do pick up the trash so there is none , people are less apt to litter when there is no trash around.

Since I fell in love with a little J 15 years ago or more I make it a point to go each year to the stream clean up through the LJRA. (2 hours away)

Do something, anything. Maybe it’s my upbringing or Boy Scout days or whatever, be a citizen, take your kids out and make a game of picking up trash.

Another weird thing is I’ll let the trash sit there for three days before I pick it up I know in my mind what cans I saw the few days ago and I go back and pick them up. Be safe.

I'd say the majority of the cans I find in the woods are big name, buy-em-by-the-30-pack brands, but yesterday, I found a fresh Sweetwater Hop Hash can. Not your typical rural PA brand Could have been from a crunchy granola hiker, of course.. It was tough, but I resisted the urge to wantonly toss my walk out can and begrudgingly put it in the car.

I also agree that the source of the majority of trash is roads. Or, in the case of some the rural streams I fish, homes on the floodplains in the headwaters, where their kiddie pools, toys, basketballs, etc. get washed downstream during floods.

 

[troutbert]

salmonoid wrote:

I also agree that the source of the majority of trash is roads. Or, in the case of some the rural streams I fish, homes on the floodplains in the headwaters, where their kiddie pools, toys, basketballs, etc. get washed downstream during floods.

Yes, there is a lot of that too.

Years ago (late 1980s maybe) I was fishing on Penns Creek somewhere around Ingleby, which is pretty rural and I was appalled at all the trash along the stream.

There's almost no one living around there, just woods and a few camps.

But it was obviously trash that had been washed down by high water. Probably from Coburn, Spring Mills, Millheim, and all the trash from where Penns Cr and tributaries are paralleled by roads.

 

[Mike]

Likewise in an otherwise beautiful, wooded, walk in stretch of Fishing Ck, York Co. All kinds of household trash, tires, and other junk in the woods probably coming from the Windsor area and washing well downstream. Side note: It also happens to be PFBC property in part of that riparian woodland.

 

[larkmark]

I can't remember the last time I fished that one or more strike indicators didn't float by on their way to some giant pile of plastic in the sea.