An enjoyable morning in the woods.........fish or no fish

[streamerguy]

This spring I've been checking out a bunch of new pieces of water. Some were quite good......and others were not. This little stream I fished Sunday morning was one of my favorites to explore.......even though it didn't produce a single fish. Pretty dinky stream, though it did look very promising and had a bunch of nice plunge pools and even a scenic little waterfall. Was hoping to maybe stumble upon a pile of brookies or maybe a brown or two, but I didn't hook or see a single fish.....except for one hole which held a few tiny dace or chubs. Didn't have any prior knowledge of the place other than the fact that it's not on the PFBC's natural reproduction list. Always fun to check out new places. Off to the next stream!!!

 

[Chaz]

I'd go back and check the temperature on a fairly hot day in the early evening. If it's below 70 degrees, it's probably got trout. Bright sunny days aren't always good for catching and seeing.
If it's cool or cold, wait around till dark, maybe they'll show themselves then.

 

[streamerguy]

The only things I can think of is the stream either has temperature issues(I doubt it though) or maybe it has a history of water quality problems. There didn't really seem like there was anything "wrong" with it. No weird coloring to the rocks, etc. Who knows. It did seem to have a decent amount of insect life though.

Chaz wrote:
Bright sunny days aren't always good for catching and seeing.

Meh. I do just fine on bright sunny days.......especially on these types of streams.

Maybe it is worth another shot. Especially if it contains only a few browns......we all know they can be moody on some streams. If it had brookies I thought for sure they would show themselves. The stream isn't on "the list" but I don't know if it's ever been surveyed or not. There are other decent wild streams very close to this one.

 

[streamerguy]

I will add that where I accessed the stream, there was a big green tank type thing along the road. And I think there was some piping laying around as well. Who knows if that has anything to do with it. Maybe......maybe not.

A cold front did come through a couple days prior, and fishing on small streams isn't always the best right after a cold front. With that said, that day after the cold front I fished another small stream close by and did very well.

 

[k-bob]

interesting thread.... I enjoy a hike to a new place, and you only find trout by looking right?

if there were some dace, maybe the issue isn't very high acidity?...

I think that dace have mouths too small for terrestrials, so they must live on aquatic bugs. so dace or baitfish with small mouths wont be in streams too acidic for many aquatic bugs.

if it isn't overkill acidity or temps, yeah maybe some water quality thing...

 

[streamerguy]

Trout sure do have us scratching our head sometimes.

The stream in the original post seemed great, but didn't produce anything. Friday was sort of the opposite. After fishing a couple other streams I decided to give this little creek a shot.....and even though it may look nice from the photos, it didn't seem all that good in person. Really small stream, very very little holding water(the little plunge pools that looked good from a distance had bottoms that were just flat featureless bedrock), and quite a bit of algae in some areas(water temps felt nice though). My hopes weren't very high. In the section I fished there were only three decent pools, and the slow pool pictured was the biggest by far. BUT, each of those pools held some trout. Even a few in the 12-15in range! The stream this feeds is a sorta popular put and take stream with a half decent population of wild trout.......so it's possible the bigger fish might periodically move up into this smaller trib. I managed two smaller fish.

As k-bob said, you only find trout by looking!

 

[sarce]

Both creeks look good to me. The first one though, I wonder if it has anything to do with lack of spawning habitat? The pics show basically all bedrock and no gravel. I'm sure the pics don't tell the whole story though. Otherwise I'd have to agree with a past water quality issue, and no stocking or migration from nearby streams to restart the population after the water quality improved.

 

[streamerguy]

That's a good point. I too think lack of spawning habitat could be a factor on the first stream........but there was enough imo. I'm leaning towards a past, or current, water quality issue being the primary cause for the lack of fish. And unfortunately, the stream it goes into is a large warmwater fishery.....which doesn't have very many wild trout tribs. I doubt they migrate in and out of it so it would be difficult for the population to bounce back naturally if indeed it was wiped out at some point.

Even though there were a nice amount of fish in the second stream in those couple pools, spawning habitat lacked on that one as well. Like I said, even though it looks good in the photos it had very little holding water and gravel in person. I was shocked to come across about 5 trout(nice ones too for such a tiny creek) in the first decent sized gravel bottom pool I came across. Then there was a long stretch of very shallow riffles and flat bedrock between the next ok pool.....which held a few more trout. That first stream definitely looked the most promising between the two.

Who knows for sure with some of these streams. It sure is fun though to learn the characteristics of each and try to figure out why they may or may not have a population of trout.

 

[Cornholio]

I have been exploring streams in search of wild trout for well over a decade and sometimes you will find a stream that is perfect for trout in every way, but there is no trout. Maybe Brook Trout just never found their way there and maybe Brown Trout never had an opportunity to be introduced, and sometimes I find trout in some really bizarre places where you would never expect to see them.

 

[Chaz]

I still recommend going back and checking the temperature during the early evening, that will tell you if it's a temperature issue. It may also tell you that's it's something else or it has trout, probably browns that come out to feed in low light conditions.
I know of quite a few brownie streams that only fish well when the sun is low in the sky.

 

[k-bob]

Some streams look trouty but don't turn up fish. Others don't look good, but do have fish:

"Last week we were extremely surprised to find brook trout in an unlikely looking stream (Un-named tributary 64346) in the town of Laquin (see picture 1). After arriving at the stream we found the stream had lots of sediment and little water flow. (see picture 2). However, after taking water quality measurements, we found that the stream was cold, and had good pH so it may be fed by some springs and had good water quality that it might hold trout. We began to electroshock the 1st pool and to our surprise we found several small brook trout in that pool and throughout the rest of the 100m section (picture 3). All total we found over 20 brook trout ranging in size from 2 inches to up to almost 6 inches (picture 4). This discovery of just goes to show us that we should judge a stream by its outward appearance that we need to look at the water chemistry and actually sample a stream to determine if it is a good quality stream."

http://wildsonfrack.com/2014/08/16/discovering-pennsylvania-streams-and-their-unknown-fish-assemblages/

(Mike has made similar point here also)