Aquetong Creek Status

[montcotrout]

I live walking distance from the spring and have recently witnessed heron feeding stream side more than once.
I have also come across quite a few people with fishing gear at the park.
I have fished the entire creek from spring to the Delaware many times over the last 25 years and caught brook trout above the dam, below the dam , and even in the lake before dam removed .
I have caught native brook trout a mile below the spring as recent as last year .
So hoping time and all the efforts will help bring back the population.

I didn't realize you could fish any parts of the creek. I thought it was all park or private property. Great to hear it's fishable and hopefully it rebounds.

 

[wcosner2]

I didn't realize you could fish any parts of the creek. I thought it was all park or private property. Great to hear it's fishable and hopefully it rebounds.

It is mostly private property but there is the main park and then another small stretch of land that is also a park now.

 

[SmashedHackle]

I'm not sure what a TU chapter could do to bring back brook trout to Cooks. But I shared your observation - I caught a few nice brook trout many years ago. In honesty, I have hardly fished it since then, so I can't say what the situation is now.

I have fished it for years. The bookies came from Silver Creek Club. Not to say that there weren't any natives left. But I have poked around many of those headwaters for for years and the browns are everywhere. I think development and warming have hurt those tribs. Also, they used to stock Cooks all the way into Coopersburg, but it isn't great water up there either. More swamp run off than Limestone.

 

[SmashedHackle]

I was the one who submitted the request to PFBC for permission to move 50 ST from Lehigh tribs to Aquetong. And led the actual gathering and re-introduction crew in 2017. (The team was mostly BCTU members.) The two tribs that the fish came from were on the west side of the Lehigh about 4 miles above Glen Onoko. Just above where Bear Creek comes in from the east. They were cut off from the river long ago by railroad infrastructure. They seem to have pretty good water quality, but I'm sure they are higher pH than Aquetong. The fish seemed to take to the new water OK. The population has been surveyed every year since 2018. The population seemed to be increasing until the 2022 survey, which showed a marked drop. In 21, the survey found like 48 fish. The 2022 survey found 17. The local firm that Solebury used to do the stream improvements (Princeton Hydro) also did an electrofishing survey in 2022 and found almost exactly the same number of fish. (So I doubt it was a fluke measurement variation.) We in BCTU and Solebury are very puzzled and concerned about this change. It was all looking good and on an upward trajectory.
As to the fact that the re-introduction was done before the stream improvements, let me explain. It was not ideal, for sure. At that point in 2017, the stream improvements had not even been proposed yet. And some folks in the township were talking about introducing browns and rainbows into the stream. We in BCTU were absolutely panicked about this. We thought that if we could get St reintroduced and create enough publicity about how important and unique the creek is, perhaps that would move public opinion to oppose this. It seems to have worked. There is a recognition among the EAC and the conservation-minded folks in the township that the stream deserves to be protected and improved in as close to a natural (historical) state as possible.
We have been looking at this and thinking about it a lot lately. It seems that brook trout do not populate the lower parts of the creek much if at all. (Based on the stream surveys.) Below about the area where where the old dam was removed, the brook trout don't seem to venture. That area of stream looks like good habitat and the water quality measures don't change from the upstream areas. But the trout just don't seem to go there. We are actively working to find out why, but in the meantime, the portion of the stream that the fish occupy is only a few hundred feet , maybe 500. So it's a tiny habitat.

KeviR - I just walked the Aquetong and was admiring the history. One question I have is, how big did the Brooke's Get? I always wondered if those "stunted growth" fish from PA's Little Creeks were genetically limited or if they would adapt to the waters they were in. (Also, I think that the issues could easily come from a Blue Herron figuring out a new and easy food source is available. Would anyone be opposed to dragging some mature trees into the old lake bed to create some stream cover. As in dead trees across the creek to make a log jam or two. Those fish don't have any aerial cover or places to hide, and there are no mature trees due to the lake bed.) Anyhow, more interested in learning about the fish growth in the new environment. Thanks for the work you have done.

 

[KeviR]

We (Bucks County TU) are working with Solebury on developing a plan for further stream enhancements. There was a bit done (side vanes and cross-logs) in the middle area of the former dam pool. But the upper section closer to the source spring was not addressed yet and that area looks like it might be the best spawning habitat available. We have gotten a plan and input from the TU stream habitat team and Solebury is engaging an engineering firm also. Not sure where these discussions/activities will lead, but we want to improve the physical habitat where we can and make sure that the fish have good access to as much of the upper part of the stream as possible. (Close to the spring source.) They seem to be avoiding going downstream very far, so we want to at least make sure that they have as much habitat as possible in the section they seem to prefer.
You're right about herons - they frequent the stream for sure.
Princeton Hydro was the engineering firm that designed and managed the dam breach and subsequent stream habitat work. As part of that work they had been monitoring the stream annually which included electrofishing surveys. In their latest report that I saw (from 2022) they found that the population had decreased substantially. PFBC also surveyed the stream in 2022 and found the same thing.
As for fish size, there was one larger individual found in the PH survey. It was something like 14.5 or 15". They had a photo of it on the cover of their report. If I remember right, the PFBC survey found what I assume is the same individual. Everything else was 11" or less. The large individual looked suspiciously like a stocked fish.

Our guess is that somebody moved it there. That's scary because if somebody is doing that, they could obviously sabotage the whole project by tossing in something else.
We moved fish from unstocked tributaries that are cut off from the main Lehigh. (That's why those streams still have brook trout only.) And our transfer was in April 2017. So it seems really unlikely that this fish is from that original transfer. We checked with Princeton Hydro and they confirmed that this isn't a stock photo or anything - they say that it was the individual they captured in the survey.
By the way - in both surveys, there were only about 12 individuals found. So please don't get the idea that this is a fishable population. For several years now, Solebury has not allowed fishing in the park. It appears that will continue for the foreseeable future.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

That's a stocked brookie in my book. Hope the additional habitat work near the spring is a success!