anf brookies

[k-bob]

I may take a trip to anf brookie fishing because I never have. Aware of fertility issues. For ex. image below, a lot of very low buffering pottsville bedrock (purple), but the smallish number of class a streams tend to be in another bedrock (green = shenango). Can work w that.

Any thoughts on habitat issues in tiny a n f brookie streams... is sand type sediment rather common?
Also, is there much posting in the anf generally?

Thanks

 

[k-bob]

Image

 

[RLeep2]

A generally good rule of thumb in the ANF when prospecting for brook trout is that you'll probably have better fishing in streams in the northern half of the forest than the southern half. This is very general, there are always a fair number of exceptions on an individual stream basis. Sand sediment./substrate is, again, generally more common in streams in the southern half of the ANF, particularly in the Clarion basin and this of course, can have an impact on spawning success and brook trout populations..

Due to the way the forest was originally set up from the standpoint of inholdings and surface vs. mineral rights, there is a lot of patchwork land ownership in the region. However, with very few exceptions, I've never ran into access issues that amounted to much of anything.

Hope this helps.

 

[k-bob]

Thanks yes very helpful and I agree that sand type sediment is bad news brookie wise.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Carline looked at some of the substrate stuff in the 80’s and found you can have around 45% substrate less than 2mm in pond spawning brook trout if you have ground water upwelling. Brook trout can spawn in streams with more fines than some people would guess but the ground water upwelling is important. Think of big spring, big fishing creek, falling springs, and other lesser known examples around the state I won’t mention that have brookies. These can be some silty places but that ground water is there and there tend to be areas of more small gravels than sand here and there to spawn in. Another article i’ll attach is one that showed some brook trout streams with majority sand bottoms showing brook trout were removing some sand or selecting gravel patches within the stream. Fines are definitely not good for them but its complicated on when it becomes a hard limit for brookies in a stream not with other factors in attached articles playing a part. I would suspect very little ground water in the high elevation ANF infertile streams but could be wrong. Hope this helps or is interesting.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360575040_Brook_Trout_Spawning_Site_Selection_in_the_Little_Plover_River_WI

https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8659(1980)109%3C453:FOSSSD%3E2.0.CO;2

 

[silverfox]

Maybe not directly answering the question, but here's a little more detailed geology map of the area w/ trout classification overlayed. Note that my colors don't match the PA Geological Survey map colors. My trout classifications don't match PFBC colors either. Purple = wilderness trout stream, Red = Class A brook trout, Orange = stocked, cyan = NHD flowline (surveyed/unsurveyed)/natural reproduction.

Ignore that cyan patch to the west of the reservoir. That should be the purple formation boundary but it got split for some reason when I categorized the formations. That area is certainly dominated by inert formations (slate/sandstone etc.).

 

[k-bob]

Thanks. Interesting to consider sediment issues. Btw, I recall another article by carline that mentioned pottsville bedrock --- purple in my anf-area map in post 2 of this thread -- specifically as being low buffering and a negative sign for the level of trout population.

 

[k-bob]

Sfox yeah I had the same fluky thing happen with bedrock on the east and west of that Reservoir don't know why

 

[k-bob]

 

[Fish Sticks]

View attachment 1641225940

Very interesting wonder if there is a species breakdown in there since the browns seem to not tolerate acidity as much as brookies. Makes sense with less buffering capacity that these streams aren’t crazy high density. PAFB kinda looks at that lack of density as a “problem” and stocks them for fishing reasons despite the fact that they may never have supported what central PA once did in native brook trout. I think unfortunately some people lime bucket non AMD streams that are naturally acidic which would let browns in but take it away from a reference condition rather than restore one like when you treat AMD.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Along the line of your original post here is one of the biggest limiting factors for native brook trout in forested high quality environments……

stocked trout

This article is a study done on 73 allegheny national forest streams assessing if barriers placed upstream of where PA fish and boat places their harmful invasive stocked brown trout protect the native brook trout populations. Dr. Kirk et al. found that out of the sampled reaches on 73 ANF streams, native brook trout were 12x more likely to be found when a barrier was present between the sampled reach and the nearest brown trout stocking location. THATS how harmful these state stockings are. As you pointed out acidity is a natural deterrent in many cases to reproduction. Its more so a detrerent for brown trout. So PA fish and boat is taking streams that have our state fish of greatest conservation need, probably many more resistant to wild brown trout invasion due to acidity, and increasing the introduction effort and risking establishment of wild pops in where we shouod be rallying around native brook trout instead. To be clear this research tested PA fish and boats stocking practices on native brook and demonstrated serious harm(12x more likely thats huge!!). Think about how bad barriers are for trout populations THEN think about how bad stocking invasive brown trout in brook trout water must be if having a barrier inbetween a suitable stream section and a brown trout stocking location makes it 12x more likely to support native brook trout. people don’t realize how bad and dominant an impairment invasive species can be. They tend to assume habitat and water quality always a bigger issue which deff is not true in alot of cases in these fully forested watersheds in state/national forest.

https://easternbrooktrout.org/science-data/science-publications/evaluating-the-trade-offs-between-invasion-and-isolation-for-native-brook-trout-and-nonnative-brown-trout-in-pennsylvania-streams

ANF could tell Pa fish and boat to take a hike with its stockings because it’s federal I believe? Anyone confirm or deny that?

 

[troutbert]

ANF could tell Pa fish and boat to take a hike with its stockings because it’s federal I believe? Anyone confirm or deny that?

That's a question I was wondering about also.

On National PARK land, I'm pretty sure that the Park Service is the decider when it comes to fisheries. I don't think the state is running the show at Yellowstone, Shenandoah NP, and Smoky Mountains NP.

But in the Allegheny National Forest, I think the state is managing the fisheries.

I'm not sure why it would be different between National Parks and National Forests.

And interesting question.

 

[silverfox]

That's a question I was wondering about also.

On National PARK land, I'm pretty sure that the Park Service is the decider when it comes to fisheries. I don't think the state is running the show at Yellowstone, Shenandoah NP, and Smoky Mountains NP.

But in the Allegheny National Forest, I think the state is managing the fisheries.

I'm not sure why it would be different between National Parks and National Forests.

And interesting question.

Right. ANF is managed by USFS not NPS. I wish it was NPS. USFS doesn't have the same mission as NPS unfortunately.

Edit> Interestingly, USFS is coming around on this issue. Interesting timing. Note publication date.

Gone fishing? Biologists share how anglers can support healthy native fish populations | US Forest Service

www.fs.usda.gov

 

[Fish Sticks]

I often wonder if Dr. Kirk intentionally chose 73 allegheny national forest streams to study and demonstrate the harms of PA Fish and Boat’s stocked invasive brown trout on our state fish because USFS could tell PA fish and boat to cease and desist introducing invasive species in those acidic streams that might actually hold their own against invasive brown trout without perpetual reintroductions.

 

[salmonoid]

The main issue that I've encountered on ANF streams is that following the energy boom, the number of well sites and additional access roads built to get to them, there was a huge influx of sediment into the streams. There very well could be additional lurking variables, but prior to all that development, some of the small streams carried some big (for the stream size) fish and I could put up 25 fish days, even in early spring temps and flows. Haven't accomplished numbers like that up there in a long time.

On one stream years back, I found what appeared to be natural gas escaping from a stream. I reported it to DEP, along with a note regarding all the sediment that had showed up in the streams. It took them awhile, but they eventually confirmed via "explosive gas test" that the bubbles I found in the stream were indeed natural gas and had contacted whoever had mineral rights in the area. They noted that when they were there, it was raining and the influx of sediment was "due to the steep hillsides". Nevermind that when you fish up to the headwaters of a stream, and you walk back along the access road, the entire set of tire tracks is sand...

 

[k-bob]

thanks. in other places I have seen what appeared to be sediment from a road fill in holes of a brookie stream ugh

 

[Fish Sticks]

Are these certain streams where sediment/erosion are terrible or is this largely the majority or all of them? I have never been there but not how I pictured a national forest lol, my god.

 

[salmonoid]

Look at a satellite map of the area, for instance:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

or

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

National Forests are often managed for utilization and resource extraction (energy, timber, etc.) and not about conservation or preservation.

For reference, my fishing has been primarily the small tributaries that flow into Kinzua Creek although I've also fished Chappel Fork, which is the next larger east -> west stream to the north of Kinzua.

My feeling is that the geologic properties of the some of the bedrock in the area aren't great for trout, but when you disturb that bedrock, particularly if it is a silty sandstone, you add sediment issues to the challenges the trout face surviving in a stream.

 

[FarmerDave]

View attachment 1641225940

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a BINGO. Thanks K-Bob for the heads up. I hadn't visited this forum for awhile.

Although there are numerous problem in that region, the lack of buffering is a big one. Even where there are no man made acid episodes (AMD from past drilling) there are natural ones. Even if there were no natural ones, precip is somewhat low in PH.

Because of the lack of buffering, you will never have many Class A streams in that region short of a massive airdrop of TUMs.

But those of us who have fished the lessor streams before the lists came out, don't know that they aren't worth fishing.

And here's a little trick if nobody else pointed it out. Most of the Allegheny Plateau was never glaciated. The glaciers sort of went around it. If you lay a glaciation map over the PFBC natural reproduction map, The better streams are likely in the overlap. Why, you ask? Although the native geology still sucks, the glaciers did drag some buffering with it. I don't know if the geology map showed that or not. I didn't look that close. I don't remember where I first read that. It might have been here and posted by an old fart like RleeP (no disrespect intended). When RLP pointed out the better streams are to the north, I already knew that. But a bell went off in my head. That is a long story made short.

If you are looking for where to fish, I'm not good at spoon feeding. I also haven't fished there in quite awhile. But in my experience almost all of the small blue lines have native brookies. I fished many of them before lists were published. The larger streams would also have natives if they weren't betting the shart stocked out of them. But alas, they are not Class A, are wide enough that I can't pee across them, and have access. ... so they get stocked.

Sorry about the crudeness in the last part, but when the heat index approaches 100 I stay inside and get cranky.

 

[RLeep2]

USFS is USDA and hence more geared towards utilization and commercial usage than NPS which is a portion of Interior. It hasn't been that long (in elephant years anyway) since the Feds were mainly responsible for day to day fisheries management in the ANF as well as the majority of stocking decisions. Maybe as recently as the 60's. although I am not certain. My view on proactively working to tilt the species mix in ANF streams towards brook trout is positive for one or two models or showcase streams or situations, but negative so far as trying such a thing in a more widespread manner or area wide. I simply am not that big a believer in the intrinsic or assumed value of brook trout due to their indigenous status.