Brook Trout Management Study in Western Maryland

[wildtrout2]

Maurice wrote:

wildtrout2 wrote:
Chaz, it seems to me that the only "goal" with the WBTEP is to have a CR program (brookies only) on said streams. I believe this should apply to all native brookie streams on the Class A list.

This could not be farther from the truth...

The goal of the WBTEP was simply to shut the traps of the folks at PATrout who have been blabbering for years that harvest and cropping of wild brook trout is the reason for the brook trout being so small in these small freestone systems.



What the WBTEP did accomplish is increase pressure on these streams by popularizing them.

Natives only get so big, so don't expect to see many big ones anywhere, regardless of the regs. I fish a few of the streams on the WBTEP list fairly often (have for several years), and I have only seen other fisherman ONE time on ONE of these streams! So much for polularizing? These streams are usually tougher to access than most, this keeps most fishers away.

 

[troutbert]

NJAngler wrote:

The WBTEP just isn't working.

Are you sure? Has anyone clearly shown that to be the case?

 

[k-bob]

"The goal of the WBTEP was simply to shut the traps of the folks at PATrout who have been blabbering for years that harvest and cropping of wild brook trout is the reason for the brook trout being so small in these small freestone systems."

Interesting, but it may not work 🙂

After fishing several brookie streams that are probably too small and/or too remote to see much fishing pressure, I think that habitat and hunger, not harvest, are the reasons for the small size of PA mountain freestone brookies. I have even gotten permission to fish a few streams that are heavily posted and remote (1.5 mi from a road), still the fish size is pretty much the same.

Brookies are sometimes the only fish in these highly infertile streams -- there may be no bait fish because their mouths arent big enough for terrestrials. Seems easy to believe that it is infertility not fishing pressure that keeps the fish small. Unless it is mountain lions 🙂

C'est la vie, it's fun to fish with a two weight and dries. And you
gotta love fish that will hit dry flies in 35F water... but that fits with the infertility idea, too.

Not that it really matters, but I dont expect the low level of fisihing pressure on these streams will increase... I say that in part because of the reaction of people here to ultralight fly gear, which makes catching small fish more fun "it'll kill the fish," "you cant really cast a 2 weight," etc...........

 

[k-bob]

"The goal of the WBTEP was simply to shut the traps of the folks at PATrout who have been blabbering for years that harvest and cropping of wild brook trout is the reason for the brook trout being so small in these small freestone systems."

maybe WBTEP was a plot to get some peace and quiet by sending the concerned parties to the surveyed section of wolf swamp run, what a slog! 🙂

 

[wildtrout2]

k-bob wrote:

maybe WBTEP was a plot to get some peace and quiet by sending the concerned parties to the surveyed section of wolf swamp run, what a slog! 🙂

Bob, this is a great example of the tough access I was talking about! lol I have to wonder how many guys who talk about the WBTEP actually fish any of these streams?

 

[k-bob]

Interesting that WBTEP was initiated at least in part over angler concerns that fisherman cropping was reducing the size of brookies in small freestone streams... (Maurice's comments above, and Mike on this thread: WBTEP was at least in part a response to "an angler-perceived problem with harvest.")

Still, PFBC surveys like these, with 600 brookies, none > 9", found in 3 small freestone streams with no other fish present...

http://fishandboat.com/images/fisheries/afm/2006/5x10_23lehigh_tribs.htm

suggest to me that the brookies are small because the streams are so infertile. There isn't enough in-water bug life to support dace or other bait fish with mouths too small for terrestrials. Without aquatic bugs or baitfish, the brookies survive on in inconstent supply of terrestrials, so they will be small, even without fish cropping.

Don't worry, go dry-fly fishing??

 

[Mike]

NJ Angler said: "Mike I"m wondering why biologists thought angler harvest was a 'perceived' problem. The remoteness of the streams I'm familiar with should tell anybody that angler usage is low and that angler harvest even lower."

I think you misinterpreted my comment regarding the perception of a widespread angler harvest problem in wild trout populations. It wasn't biologists who "perceived" that there was a harvest problem; it was a subset of anglers.