Are beaver ponds good or bad for trout?

[TheBluegillMaster]

Are beaver ponds good for trout? We know that beaver ponds add great habitat for trout, but they also add sediment. Ive watched a vox video where they talk about beaver ponds decreasing water temps, but also read that a potential “tailwater” near me is threatened by increased steam temps from beaver ponds? What are your thoughts on beaver ponds?

 

[troutbert]

Beavers and their beaver ponds are a normal part of the landscape. Originally, probably nearly every smallish stream in PA had beaver ponds on it.

The great reduction in beaver populations was an alteration to stream/floodplain systems. Restoring beaver populations would restore the stream/floodplain systems to a conditions closer to original conditions.

Brook trout populations would go up. A beaver pond can hold far more brook trout than a small stream that nearly goes dry in the summer. There is just a lot more habitat there.

And for some reason beaver ponds favor brook trout, rather than brown trout, in streams with mixed populations.

 

[caddisflyer]

My best guess is Beavers that build dams on smaller streams improve habitat for trout. Sediment is sort of a separate issue. Roads and agriculture seem to be the culprit there. The Beavers on larger streams and rivers live in holes in the bank, like a muskrat. They may actually do more harm than good by cutting trees and causing erosion.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Beaver ponds are very good for a stream. What people often don’t understand about them is they are not static they are dynamic. They go through phases. When first established they often provide excellent trout habitat, as they are there for longer they can fill in with sediment or get shallower and don’t hold as many trout(which is jot bad for trout) because then when they fail and the stream rechannelizes they leave a beaver meadow/wetland complex that has good ground water benefits and tree growth is encouraged often in these wet soils with trees whos roots prefer wetter soils like hemlocks that provide awesome shade.

 

[hooker-of-men]

My understanding is that the answer is "yes." They've historically lived together and got along, but the relationship is sort of cyclical. Up to a point, beavers improve/provide habitat, but there's a threshold at which temperature increase pushes the trout out.

I'm blanking on where I recently read this, but I've seen arguments that a misunderstanding of the beneficial part of this cycle helped to motivate private landowners in some places to overzealously remove beavers (along with fur trapping, of course).

Only tangentially related: I'm reading Paul Schneider's The Adirondacks, and there's discussion of beavers slowly backing up streams all the way up and over the other side of mountains so that they flow through trees they prefer. Pretty wild

 

[Fish Sticks]

I often wonder if beavers were the original conservation geneticists. What you describe (damming up a stream on a platue so part if it spills over the other side) could facilitate whats called a “headwater transfer event” where, potentially, an isolated population from one drainage could receive or trade individuals from another isolated population from another drainage that would otherwise not mix genes(essentially a genetic rescue) needed or not. Also given that there are ranges of mountains and hills that divide Delaware, Allegheny, and Susky watersheds wonder if beavers have ever injected a nee species into a watershed?

 

[hooker-of-men]

The specific example Schneider discussed (based on info from a DEC person, but I can't find the damned passage right now...) was actually of beavers stepping the stream back up one side of a drainage pond by pond to shift it over a ridge and into an entirely new drainage. So, even more dramatic than shifting water on a plateau, and definitely having the potential impact of connecting new watersheds/species/strains

 

[wildtrout2]

Back in the 70's I used to fish a very small creek (Rattlesnake) in SGL 180 which had a small beaver pond on it, but it was loaded with natives. Nothing big, but a lot of them. I even remember seeing the beaver on occasion. Ahhh, the good ole days.

 

[Fish Sticks]

The specific example Schneider discussed (based on info from a DEC person, but I can't find the damned passage right now...) was actually of beavers stepping the stream back up one side of a drainage pond by pond to shift it over a ridge and into an entirely new drainage. So, even more dramatic than shifting water on a plateau, and definitely having the potential impact of connecting new watersheds/species/strains

Wow amazing, i did know they could do that.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I have observed a pretty cool transformation on crossforks beaver pond. Other neat thing about beaver ponds is can have a little rocky infertile free stoner and then find a silty beaver pond and find a hex hatch halfway up a mountain

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

My best guess is Beavers that build dams on smaller streams improve habitat for trout. Sediment is sort of a separate issue. Roads and agriculture seem to be the culprit there. The Beavers on larger streams and rivers live in holes in the bank, like a muskrat. They may actually do more harm than good by cutting trees and causing erosion.

Yeah, that’s a good point. I’d imagine in a pre industrial watershed with beavers, you wouldn’t have to worry too much about the silt.

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

Beaver ponds are very good for a stream. What people often don’t understand about them is they are not static they are dynamic. They go through phases. When first established they often provide excellent trout habitat, as they are there for longer they can fill in with sediment or get shallower and don’t hold as many trout(which is jot bad for trout) because then when they fail and the stream rechannelizes they leave a beaver meadow/wetland complex that has good ground water benefits and tree growth is encouraged often in these wet soils with trees whos roots prefer wetter soils like hemlocks that provide awesome shade.

Huh, did not know that. That’s pretty cool

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

I often wonder if beavers were the original conservation geneticists. What you describe (damming up a stream on a platue so part if it spills over the other side) could facilitate whats called a “headwater transfer event” where, potentially, an isolated population from one drainage could receive or trade individuals from another isolated population from another drainage that would otherwise not mix genes(essentially a genetic rescue) needed or not. Also given that there are ranges of mountains and hills that divide Delaware, Allegheny, and Susky watersheds wonder if beavers have ever injected a nee species into a watershed?

That’s an interesting idea. After the ice sheets melted, the brookies would have started somewhere. In lower elevation “swampy” streams, I can definitely see inter watershed transfers happening, and even in tall, mountainous watershed divides, I wouldn’t doubt something like this could occur. As Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic park, “Life finds a way”

 

[Bamboozle]

FWIW - I remember distinctly (because I wet wade 99% of the time) noticing that a particular braid I was fishing upstream on Lyman Run was feeling considerably warmer than the stream section I fished not far above the reservoir..

Soon I figured out why:

The pond was massive and quite possibly full of fish, but I didn't want try try walking through it to find out so I moved about 50 yards to my left and fished the main part of the creek and colder water.

 

[TheBluegillMaster]

Jeez that’s a big beaver pond! That’s one of the downsides of beaver ponds, that they have a larger surface area, therefore can heat easier and faster. In an extremely forested watershed and prior to global warming, beaver ponds probably wouldn’t raise temps too much. But even today there are still some beaver ponds that remain cooler in higher elevation areas and tailwaters.

 

[Bamboozle]

I doubt global warming has anything to do with it as I was fishing in May in upstate PA and it was hardly balmy that day or the week I was up there.

It was the sheer size of that beaver pond which warmed up the outflow so much so I could feel the temperature difference on my legs & feet.

My estimate is it is/was over an acre in size. Here is another view:

 

[tomgamber]

Was a big one like that on top of Keating mtn. in Clinton county. Had snappers and painted turtles and about a billion newts. Beavers were pretty active a one point. I think someone may have trapped them and the last time I saw it someone had breached the dam. Never saw any fish.

 

[mt_flyfisher]

There are some interesting reports on the reintroduction of wolves into the Yellowstone ecosystem and the subsequent beneficial effects that they’ve had on wildlife, beavers and fishing. I spent many summers living on the Yellowstone River north of the Park and I can’t begin to tell you how many great fishing experiences I’ve had there that were the direct results of trees that were felled by beavers.

I’ve also had some fantastic fishing there in beaver ponds on other smaller streams and rivers - close your eyes and imagine that you’re throwing your dry fly into the midst of several hundred large hungry trout and you’ll get the picture.

 

[troutbert]

Only tangentially related: I'm reading Paul Schneider's The Adirondacks, and there's discussion of beavers slowly backing up streams all the way up and over the other side of mountains so that they flow through trees they prefer. Pretty wild

I don't doubt that they could back water up and across low divides. And some places do have very low divides.

But most of our trout streams have much higher divides between them, and it's hard to believe that beaver dams could raise the water high enough to go over those divides. The beaver dams I've seen are roughly 3 feet high or so. Maybe 4 ft.? I don't recall ever seeing one 6 feet high.

 

[troutbert]

Jeez that’s a big beaver pond!

There used to be a beaver pond on Rock Run, Centre County that we estimated at about 3 acres. It went the whole way across the floodplain. It was loaded with brook trout.

My fishing buddy's brother had a camp near there and said he caught brookies there up to 12 inches. We fished it and the biggest we caught was 9 inches, which is a decent PA brookie.

That last time I was there, the pond was totally gone.