sixfootfenwick
Well-known member
Brook Trout Restoration in PA?
Where?
Where?
Why not???Here we go again!!!!
Mike, could you explain this? It sounds like you are talking about seasonal brook trout movement. Could you give a summary of it? Where do brook trout move to and from, and when, and why?...the PFBC study of unstocked Class A BT and ST streams in which biomass of age 1 and older wild trout was less than Class A during the concurrent preseason stocking period and well above Class A in summer, primarily due to seasonal shifts in adult trout densities. Noteworthy is that this Class A biomass shift study occurred during the old statewide opening day time period, prior to the regional opening day program, so it was even later in the early spring period that lower biomasses of wild trout were identified as being present in spring than in summer.
If for behavioral reasons substantial numbers of adult wild trout within stocked sections are also not present or not available in a given section of stocked trout water during the now earlier, colder water, opening weeks, they’re not going to be harvested.
Contact your Commissioner. If you really do live in Mountaintop, he would be the Commissioner for NE Pa. Feel free to mention any part of that approach that you liked and not include anything that you didn’t like. If it stimulated some new thoughts about approaches to deal with the issue of stocking over wild ST, then that’s good. It seems to be a reasonable compromise that might get the ball rolling to some degree for less stocking over a segment of Pa’s wild ST populations.gaslight much? We are in the Conservation forum... I understand the frustration when these discussions bleed out into every thread even mentioning bows or browns, but I think this is exactly where the discussion belongs. 🤷♂️
So Mike, what is the best avenue for the concerned public to advocate for this approach?
See little sandy creek in venango county Pennsylvania. You DO NOT want anyone to try to get rid of the Browns in favor of brookies, trust me. That’s your isolated example.For the most part, a lack of a seed population is not an issue in the state. I'm sure there's a handful of examples where it is. But by and large most watersheds have brookies in various feeders and when the habitat is there, so are the brookies. As such aside from a few examples transplanting isn't gonna do a lot in the long run.
The biggest issues facing brookies are development (as forested streams get developed the streams get silty and warmer), and acid remediation. I think work is being done on those issues. The other big issue is brown trout, which have a token presence just about everywhere and when habitat allows tend to take over brookie populations. The only solution there is removal of browns. And thats a very, very taboo subject. I'd support an isolated example project, say above a dam or something, just to get the fishing public aware that brookies can be good sized in bigger, interconnected waters where they can migrate in and out of feeders without competition. Kettle above Ole Bull has been mentioned and seems a good candidate. But overall, in highly connected streams, I think its impossible to get rid of all the browns without ruining the fishery, so ongoing maintenance would be needed to keep browns at bay, and I think you are more likely to harm a popular brown trout fishery than to create a popular brookie fishery, which isn't gonna go over well.
How does one contact their commissioner? They don’t make the commissioners information available to the public?Contact your Commissioner. If you really do live in Mountaintop, he would be the Commissioner for NE Pa. Feel free to mention any part of that approach that you liked and not include anything that you didn’t like. If it stimulated some new thoughts about approaches to deal with the issue of stocking over wild ST, then that’s good. It seems to be a reasonable compromise that might get the ball rolling to some degree for less stocking over a segment of Pa’s wild ST populations.