Brown Trout Eradication.

This should be done to lightning trout..........


http://cdn.yourepeat.com/media/gif/000/003/920/e1612484dc78bd6b028fa315c3f49534.gif
 
JackM wrote:
And considering this prior thought of someone, "... brown trout tend to outcompete brook trout whenever the stream habitat is beneficial to both species...."

I would say this:

Any stocking will reduce native populations for a period of time. Whether brown, rainbows or hatchery char, not to mention maybe pickerel, or walleye, and uhm, chubs, yeah, chubs.

So, the real squeal of brookie lovers is that brown trout can actually take hold of a good majority of brookie habitats. And, in this they are correct.

So is there anything that can be done to stop or slow this process, or do we abandon ourselves to the inevitable?
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Not to even attempt to answer your question JackM but to add to your list ... there's good evidence that stocking pike over wild pike has a bad effect on the wild ones.

Which, dare I bring it up, also leads me to point out that stocking hatchery strains not only impacts the fish we are all interested in (brookies, pike etc) but also stocking browns (or brookies I suppose) on top of all the other denizens of our creeks also impacts them too: the well, uhm, yeah, chubs, and suckers, and fallfish not to mention amphibians, as well as altering the biomass and species richness of invertebrates. The two dimensional "four legs good, two legs bad" of concentrating on sports fish is only a little bit of the holistic story or stocking impacts.
 
I don't view the battle between browns and brookies as a Darwinian battle. Browns have been stocked over brookies for about 125 years now, I can accept that we'll never see brookies brought back from the dead. However I'd support the removal of brookies from select streams, specifically Fishing Creek, Slate Run and some others.
But the best protection for brookies lies in shaping water and cooling it down, browns may not do as well in very cold streams as far as reproduction, in other words brookies reproduce better in very cold water as compared to browns.
There are many people who believe that brookies in PA are doomed because of the spread of the Hemlock Wooly Adelaide.
As to the point of stocking brook trout over brook trout populations, it is the worst thing you can do. It causes a reduction in the size of the native brook trout. Something none of us want.
 
sarce wrote:
FarmerDave- I think browns are much more pollutant tolerant. I think it's a lot more than a few degrees in temperature. I don't know of any brookies in purely urban streams, but I know plenty of brown trout streams like that.

Krayfish seems to think the "gemmie crowd", whatever that is, wants to restore brookies literally everywhere they once were and eliminate all other fish standing in the way. I was just pointing out that no one has proposed that in this thread before those words get put in people's mouths. The OP said in streams "that historically AND STILL COULD" hold brookies...
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In SE PA there are urban streams with brook trout populations and remarkably they're are some with only brook trout.
 
Well, they are rare, beautiful and exotic as the video says.
 
Just to help Chaz:

"I don't view the battle between browns and brookies as a Darwinian battle. Browns have been stocked over brookies for about 125 years now, I can accept that we'll never see brookies brought back from the dead. However I'd support the removal of brookies browns from select streams, specifically Fishing Creek, Slate Run and some others.

But the best protection for brookies lies in shaping water and cooling it down, browns may not do as well in very cold streams as far as reproduction, in other words brookies reproduce better in very cold water as compared to browns.

There are many people who believe that brookies in PA are doomed because of the spread of the Hemlock Wooly Adelaide.

As to the point of stocking brook trout over brook trout populations, it is the worst thing you can do. It causes a reduction in the size of the native brook trout. Something none of us want."
 
I think Chaz may need more help than that.

Chaz wrote:
...Hemlock Wooly Adelaide.
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That would be the Australian version of the bug? Just arrived on these shores perhaps?
 
Chaz wrote:
I don't view the battle between browns and brookies as a Darwinian battle.
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true, I don't think Darwin could have conceived the idea of man interfering in the struggle between species.

man degraded the brookies habitat, then filled it with brown trout to 'compensate' for what he'd lost.

its an obvious point, but where we didn't degrade, still has native pops - Northern Maine, Canada etc where ST happily coincide with Landlocked salmon, and lakers.

simiallry browns and brookies were introduced out west, where we screwed up the cutthroat and rainbow habitat....

its actually quite an odd feeling to fish somewhere without BT such is their prevalence and our damage to the natal areas.
 
Did you ever consider what browns and brookies look like to a colored-blind person or what they feel like to a blind person? It's mind-boggling.
 
Yo answer your question Jack, no. I've been too busy contemplating what this thread would look like to a blind person. And further, one who did not fish.
 
geebee wrote:
Chaz wrote:
I don't view the battle between browns and brookies as a Darwinian battle.
Click to expand...

man degraded the brookies habitat, then filled it with brown trout to 'compensate' for what he'd lost.
Click to expand...


European Americans stocked brown trout to supplement the depleted brook trout populations. that is true. But even if not depleted, they would have still done the same thing. It's what Europeans did back them. They invaded other lands and wanted to make it more like home.

It's also why we have carp and wild hogs.

It's why Australia has rats, cane frogs, rabbits, fox, and dingo to name a few.

They could have raised and stocked brook trout much more easily than browns, but they wanted browns. That is why Brown trout can now be caught in 6 Continents.

And don't give me any crap that the reason they didn't use brook trout is they are harder to raise. It's BS. True that they are harder to raise in a hatchery, or at lease were before they were selectively bred to thrive in a hatchery environment. But isn't the reason. Think about it. To get started, they had to ship live brown trout, or fertilized brown trout eggs from Europe on a slow boat to start the first brown trout propagation.

No, the decisions was made based on European Americans wanted brown trout. Of course that is only opinion. I wasn't there.

They are here and here to stay, and one of the few things Europeans "introduced" around the world without mucking up the works. Brook trout aren't going away any time soon. If anything, there range is increasing as streams recover.
 
dave: "Brook trout aren't going away any time soon."

yeah, if you put the title below in google and read the excellent article about brookies in connecticut, you see that brookies have a good amount of suitable habitat areas and patches - forested streams, steeper streams - in states like PA and CT.

"Environmental Factors Affecting Brook Trout Occurrence in Headwater Stream Segments" author Kanno, published last year.

 
k-bob wrote:
dave: "Brook trout aren't going away any time soon."

yeah, if you put the title below in google and read the excellent article about brookies in connecticut, you see that brookies have a good amount of suitable habitat areas and patches - forested streams, steeper streams - in states like PA and CT.

"Environmental Factors Affecting Brook Trout Occurrence in Headwater Stream Segments" author Kanno, published last year.
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K-bob. I lived in SE Connecticut back in the early 80s. For a year I lived right on a heavily stocked stream and I do mean on. It was in a converted gris mill.

I made it a mission to find some native brook trout. It was difficult. This was before the internet, so I'd drive around and test small streams that I would pass. It was difficult, but I did find a few, well removed from any road.

The problem then wasn't lack of clean water. The mills were long gone. The problem was that they seemed to stock everything that had a road near it.

I also think that was the first place I ever caught a lightning trout.

Further north they were probably more common, but I lived near the sound. Actually caught wild brook and brown in a tiny stream that flowed directly into brackish water. That was a nice surprise. It was the first time I ever et wild brown trout.

I understand they did change their policy of stocking the shart out or everything.
 
dave. if you can find a free download of that article it has a nice map showing patches and areas of habitat suitable for "ST in CT." I read it for free until I looked at it too many times:)

article again: "Environmental Factors Affecting Brook Trout Occurrence in Headwater Stream Segments" author Kanno, last year.
 
There's an informative, although fairly short, article about the brook trout in Pa, called The True Natives, written by Ken Undercoffer. Just Google it, as I don't know how to post a link. lol
 
Where is KenU anyway? He used to come here, and I figured he'd have chimed in by now. I learned a lot from him on this site.
 
The Kanno paper k-bob mentions above is available on his lab's website here

http://kannofish.weebly.com/publications.html

if anyone wanted to have a look.
 
Eccles wrote:
The Kanno paper k-bob mentions above is available on his lab's website here

http://kannofish.weebly.com/publications.html

if anyone wanted to have a look.
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Damn. It's blocked. My company must also be brown trout fans.;-)

I'll have to check it out this weekend from home. I looked for it, but all places I looked required an account or something. Thanks for posting the link.
 
FarmerDave wrote:
Damn. It's blocked. My company must also be brown trout fans.

I'll have to check it out this weekend from home. I looked for it, but all places I looked required an account or something. Thanks for posting the link.
Click to expand...

If you can't find another way PM me with an email address and I can send you the paper as a .pdf
 
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