Challenge to all Trout Camps

[Swattie87]

I think Pat’s point is that there likely is a token or seed population of Browns already there in many places we think they aren’t, or aren’t catching them. See the EB Fishing Creek discussion with wt2 catching Browns there for example. I was surprised by that too, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. I think this is the case more than we realize.

You also see it a lot on the streams proposed to be added to the Class A list publications, where they show you the biomass of what they shocked. I see a lot that are proposed to be listed as “Brook Trout” based on the listing criteria, but if you look at the biomass data, there will be like 1.56 kg/ha (or whatever) Browns that they found too, along with the 40+ kg/ha Brookies. Enough to be there, and begin a takeover if conditions shift to allow it, but not enough to expect to regularly catch them when fishing it amongst all the Brookies. Especially when considering Browns are generally harder to catch than Brookies. How do you get rid of those? You can’t. Even if you could shock the whole stream and remove all the Browns (which you probably can’t), the trib one ridge over that you think is all Brookies probably has a few Browns in it too, and they can just as easily swim up the stream you just removed them from. And the trib one ridge over from that, and so on. What about the trib 20 miles downstream that is connected by the bigger receiving stream? It’s surely suitable for Trout probably 8 months of the year, if not more, allowing for fish to use it to move. Plenty of evidence of this out there.

Browns are present in EVERY major watershed in PA. Small individual streams, above barriers like waterfalls or dams, or disconnected culverts, sure they exist. But the Browns are there somewhere in that watershed, I guarantee it.

I know of two instances where guys have caught clearly wild Tigers in streams where they, nor I, have ever caught a Brown Trout in. How’d the Tiger get there…?

Edit: Admittedly, there are many streams identified by the PFBC that when surveyed are ALL Brookies too. But, I guarantee there are Browns in the watershed already somewhere, and given the right conditions (PH/habitat/etc), and absent a barrier, they could get to that all Brookie stream and infiltrate it. That’s not allopatric.

 

[Swattie87]

Short(er) version of my above post (#201), and not looking to debate it, just stating my opinion for the nothing that it’s worth…

IMO it’s 4th down and time to punt on any areas where Browns are currently established to any degree. Might as well enjoy the Browns. Focus your time, energy, efforts, and resources where they’ll be more effective…

It should be ALL HANDS ON DECK for identifying and preventing Browns from getting into places they aren’t currently, and/or can be stopped via a natural, or already existing man made barrier. (Making additional artificial barriers via dams or disconnected culverts is also not good for Brook Trout. Plenty of research out there on that point.)

Edit: The above also applies to wild Rainbow populations in PA, where they exist. Rainbow and Brown can be used interchangeably in my mind in this analysis. I just used Browns as they are far more common.

 

[wildtrout2]

I know of two instances where guys have caught clearly wild Tigers in streams where they, nor I, have ever caught a Brown Trout in. How’d the Tiger get there…?

Reminds me of my one and only wild tiger trout. I started fishing Jeans in 2009 and had only ever caught natives there. Then, in 2010 I caught my only wild tiger to date. I went another 6 years wondering how it could be that I caught a tiger trout and never saw, let alone caught, a wild brown? That's when I caught my first wild brown on Jeans, in May 2016. I've since only caught two other wild browns there. They do get around.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Short version of my above post (#201), and not looking to debate it, just stating my opinion for the nothing that it’s worth…

IMO it’s 4th down and time to punt on any areas where Browns are currently established to any degree. Might as well enjoy the Browns.

It should be ALL HANDS ON DECK for identifying and preventing Browns from getting into places they aren’t currently, or can be stopped via a natural, or already existing man made barrier. (Making additional artificial barriers via dams or disconnected culverts is also not good for Brook Trout. Plenty of research out there on that point.)

Also research that shows brook trout populations in connected streams recover faster after natural disasters ie floods than those with barriers whether natural waterfalls or a perched culvert. John Niles while at Susquehanna U had some interesting data from the Loyalsock drainage over a 10yr period starting before 2011.

 

[Swattie87]

Also research that shows brook trout populations in connected streams recover faster after natural disasters ie floods than those with barriers whether natural waterfalls or a perched culvert. John Niles while at Susquehanna U had some interesting data from the Loyalsock drainage over a 10yr period starting before 2011.

Yep, that was the primary study that was in my head too!

 

[Mike]

I used to think that too. And I know you have lots of experience too.

But on virtually all of them, a brown has turned up, either by me or a reliable source. On a lot of brook trout streams, if we know someones gonna be on it, we ask them to tell us if they turn up a brown. Over the years its amazing that a stream you know of 1000's of brook trout, and then, yep, 1 brown.

The only ones I even suspect may be allopatric anymore, are above waterfalls, or else recently reclaimed from acid. And I will say I dont think there's a single one I'm 100% sure of. Would love to compare notes in PM to see if any of your suspected allopatric streams, or mine, are refuted by the other.

Troutbert’s comment is right on track. The exception is one that I would not expect anglers to know about. Summer pH and alkalinity are generally a bit higher than during much of the rest of the year. This allows a few BT to probe their way just slightly into the lower end of what one would think would be purely ST territory, and is ST territory for most of the year.


A case that I recall vividly was that we had three sampling sites in the ST portion of Northkill Ck, which comes off the Blue Mtns in Berks Co. It had summer alkalinity of 2-3 ppm below a small trib that exited from a SGL pond. Upstream from the confluence of that trib the alkalinity would drop to 1 ppm or less. It was a documented acid precip influenced stream. We would almost always catch a fingerling or yearling BT in that site, but only somewhere in the 150 or so meters below the trib. The trib, by the way, was also a ST stream, but the summer alkalinity and pH were driven up by photosynthetic processes in the pond. The trib did very quickly what often happens gradually in a purely ST segment as it flows downstream. The pH and alkalinity rise ever so gradually and slightly. The few (1) BT found in any given year most likely probed up into ST territory from the much shorter BT segment downstream in Northkill because of the marginally and seasonally acceptable chemistry.

To complete the picture, the downstream BT population only occupied a short stretch of a mile or so because it would nearly completely and instantaneously disappear due to the influence of a warm ag trib. Its stretch was exactly where the BT would be expected in comparison to the location of the ST. The BT stretch was low gradient and thus more sluggish, had much more sediment, paralleled ag areas, and occurred downstream from a major interstate crossing, which likely exposed it to warmer water temps during summer storms and more sedimentation.

 

[pcray1231]

Reminds me of my one and only wild tiger trout. I started fishing Jeans in 2009 and had only ever caught natives there. Then, in 2010 I caught my only wild tiger to date. I went another 6 years wondering how it could be that I caught a tiger trout and never saw, let alone caught, a wild brown? That's when I caught my first wild brown on Jeans, in May 2016. I've since only caught two other wild browns there. They do get around.

They're still there as of August. Sorry. Way up in there too.

Used to think some of the streams in Black Mo area were brookies only, as well as further north in Clearfield County. But virtually all of those were squashed as well with browns turning up. NW PA, the Clarion/Tionesta drainages which run pretty acidic. At least a brown or 2 in every one of those tribs man. Throughout NC PA, potter, Tioga. Just every one of em. Galbraith in the spring creek drainage, kind of goes under by the mouth, and has a little cemet dam, and thought it was all brookies up, till an 8" parr marked butter brown decided to take my Adams and let me hold him.

Most of the ones I still suspect are Poconos area with waterfalls, where you see mixed/mostly brown below and just brookies above, sharp delineation. There's 4 or 5 I can think of. But its not like I'd be all that shocked if a brown were caught upstream on some of those either. At my camp, Tubbs Run drainage, we have a spring that forms a swamp in the yard, no outlet, miles from flowing water. Dug a hole with a shovel and lined it with stone, it fills up and stays cold, dad keeps his minnows in it. Have found washed out brookies and browns in it. They are freakin underground! Even here in Lebanon, there's a tiny Hammer trib that has a handful of brookies in a steep section. On top of those cascades I landed a 2" brown.

I know a lot of brookie streams and being like 99% brookies is the norm, but almost all have a token brown population. Lack of brown trout seeds is not what keeps most brook trout streams from being taken over by browns.

 

[Swattie87]

They're still there as of August. Sorry. Way up in there too.

Nice’n deep like?

 

[pcray1231]

Nice’n deep like?

lol. Yeah.

 

[Swattie87]

lol. Yeah.

Needed to lighten up this thread.

I remember you saying that before about the spring at your camp. Forgot to look in it when we were up a few years ago. Next time.

 

[pcray1231]

Mike, the Northkill is an interesting one. I have caught the odd brown the whole way up to the source(s), its one of the more obvious ones that they are there, no question. But above the section by the road where it sort of splits up and comes back together just below the one bridge, above that its far more brookies than browns, yeah.

Right around the lower public area, below the camp but above the 1st bridge, was always the battle ground. Some years its mostly brookies and some mostly browns, it goes back and forth. But the area down towards 78 was always primarily browns.

 

[Swattie87]

On a similar note to Pat’s camp spring, I also have a recurring water intrusion into my basement dream, where I find Brown Trout in my sump pit after it recedes.

I assume this is normal?

 

[pcray1231]

On a similar note to Pat’s camp spring, I also have a recurring water intrusion into my basement dream, where I find Brown Trout in my sump pit after it recedes

You have to taste it to find out if its wild.

 

[pcray1231]

I was looking for a list of supposedly allopatric brook trout streams. I see a lot of discussion on them, but I've never seen a list of any sort. My log now says I've fished over 700 wild trout streams in PA in my lifetime, and by number, the majority of those were primarily brook trout streams. I am not 100% sure I have fished ANY truly allopatric streams. There's a few I kind of suspect might be and haven't disproven it, but I can count those on 1 hand.

In googling, the only one I found named is Council Run in Centre County (tributary to Beech Creek). A fish commission memo from 2012 describes it as allopatric brook trout in recommending class A status. Which caused me to fish it. And I caught a brown among the brookies. I haven't spent a lot of time in that Beech Creek watershed, and there's a lot of water there. A lot of streams I haven't fished. But an upper end trib had a brown in it, which isn't a good sign for the rest being truly allopatric, you know? And when one the fish commission says is allopatric, isn't, you start to question if anyone really knows the streams they think are allopatric are actually allopatric. And likewise, you have your own mental list of "might be allopatric", and enough of those get dropped that you kind of lose any real faith that the rest will hold up. Again, on LAND, at my camp, on the upper end of a brookie drainage, we dug a hole in the ground with a shovel in an area that stayed green year round, it filled up with water, lined the puddle with stone, no stream coming in or out. Looked at the hole some time later and a brown trout had appeared, from underground.

That's just how it's gone for me in PA. So many of ones I thought "could be" have proven not to be, and brown trout are appearing in unconnected puddles from underground.

I've also been told that some streams in the Moshannon area are allopatric. I can't say I've fished every single one, I've spent relatively little time in that watershed. But Sixmile and Black Bear watersheds definitely have browns, have also got a Tiger in the watershed on a stream I'm yet to actually catch a brown on. These are in the upper end of the Moshannon watershed. For Black Mo, I've caught a brown in Benner Run too, which is an upper end tributary, and a stream I once thought could be allopatric brook trout. I have not yet caught a brown in Rock Run, but that runs in below Benner, so browns certainly have access to the mouth, and I'd be more surprised if there weren't browns up there than if there were. Some of the tribs that run in above the lake, certainly possible, again now you're talking about a barrier. And sure, maybe there are moments in time where a trib to some of these tribs, say a tiny unnamed trib to a stream like Benner Run, could be allopatric, but I don't think that means there was never a brown trout there. You're just talking really tiny areas now in a watershed that's 99% brookies, there's probably more time than not that there doesn't happen to be a brown in that spot. But it doesn't mean they don't have access, or if that stream somehow began to favor browns they wouldn't pop up.

That has just been my experience in PA. Again, I'd absolutely love someone to give me a list of allopatric brook trout streams. I want them to be out there. I don't doubt there's a few dozen, and I probably know of 3-6 of those, but in all cases I am aware of they involve barriers such as waterfalls or dams. And most of the ones I do suspect, with waterfalls, are Pocono region, bedrock waterfalls are just more common there.

I have plenty of experience in NW and NC PA, but one area I do not know well at all is from the Pine drainage over to Wilkes Barre/Scranton. Lycoming Creek, Loyalsock, Fishing Creek, etc, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were a couple allopatric possibilities in that region. I also think it's possible in areas where wild trout are largely absent, for instance, SW PA, that if you have one isolated brookie stream in a drainage that otherwise lacks wild trout, that could be a situation where there's no source for browns. Possibly a mine acid situation somewhere, an unaffected trib to severely acidic stream, so the acid acts as your barrier but you have a remnant brookie population in the trib, I could see that.

If there's one person who I believe is searching hard for, and probably has found, some trickles that are truly allopatric, it's Kbob! He's the type that will say I'm looking for 4th order streams above a waterfall that come out of the Denovian Shale formation in a pocket of virgin hemlock without woolly adelgids that have never been fished on a Tuesday in February. And I respect the heck out of that!!!!

 

[Tom1980]

The Native Fish stance is entirely uncompromising and you fanatically spread the science gospel justifying it. It's okay wear it.

If it helps: Change the concept to Brook trout. Is there a possibility that stocking stunts brook trout. I don't see why we wouldn't want to know. Larger fish are appealing to anglers. If we can show through study that our wild trout grow larger in the absence of stocking it might help. Perhaps the mover is the most adaptable and the most impacted by stocking. We know the importance of these trout that move to the overall health of the wild trout communities.

There are studies. Many.
It's odd you claim that the NFC is entirely uncompromising and they fanatically spread the science gospel justifying it, while seeking a scientific study to rewrite the gospel in an uncompromising way because the written gospel doesn't say what you want it to.

Pick one.

https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8659%281992%29121%3C0287%3AIBNBTA%3E2.3.CO%3B2

Canadian Science Publishing

Canadian Science Publishing

https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8659%282000%29129%3C0613%3AIOCOGO%3E2.0.CO%3B2

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2307/2269561

https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02755947.2013.830998

Canadian Science Publishing

These are only a few to get your desired result.

See I don't subscribe to your mantra "it's about the fish". It isn't. You have made it about the SIZE of the fish. That is what you are selling.
One of the same things the public lives about stocked fish.

Zero is going to change. You aren't changing culture. Just polishing a turd.

 

[Tom1980]

I think the thing that frustrates people in "tHe NaTIvE cAmP", is the wording and who is being demonized for not playing along.

I don't make a petition to reduce jail terms for violence then go to battered womens shelter for signatures and expect them to sign it. I certainly wouldn't blast them for not playing along either.

I also don't make petitions that have one subset that a group is for (not stocking over wild trout) and have the end goal (the proliferation of population planter brown trout) be totally against an organizations ethics and mission, then can't understand why they would resist it.

Why would the NFC sign this petition if that is the end goal? One of their missions is the expansion and protection of brook trout in PA.
🤦 It's brain dead thinking.

I bet we could expand native plants by selling beautiful invasive flowers to the public and take the funds to do native plant introductions.
We should get the Native Plant Society to partner up on the idea.
Or maybe that goes against their mission and public education and outreach. 🤔
Or maybe they are just uncompromising jerks.
I can't decide.🥴

Our Mission

PNPS Background The Pennsylvania Native Plant Society had a beginning in 1979, when, through initiatives of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, and the...

www.panativeplantsociety.org

WhAT aRe tHeY prOteCtInG!😱

I've said all I have to say on this subject.

 

[Mike]

They're still there as of August. Sorry. Way up in there too.

Used to think some of the streams in Black Mo area were brookies only, as well as further north in Clearfield County. But virtually all of those were squashed as well with browns turning up. NW PA, the Clarion/Tionesta drainages which run pretty acidic. At least a brown or 2 in every one of those tribs man. Throughout NC PA, potter, Tioga. Just every one of em. Galbraith in the spring creek drainage, kind of goes under by the mouth, and has a little cemet dam, and thought it was all brookies up, till an 8" parr marked butter brown decided to take my Adams and let me hold him.

Most of the ones I still suspect are Poconos area with waterfalls, where you see mixed/mostly brown below and just brookies above, sharp delineation. There's 4 or 5 I can think of. But its not like I'd be all that shocked if a brown were caught upstream on some of those either. At my camp, Tubbs Run drainage, we have a spring that forms a swamp in the yard, no outlet, miles from flowing water. Dug a hole with a shovel and lined it with stone, it fills up and stays cold, dad keeps his minnows in it. Have found washed out brookies and browns in it. They are freakin underground! Even here in Lebanon, there's a tiny Hammer trib that has a handful of brookies in a steep section. On top of those cascades I landed a 2" brown.

I know a lot of brookie streams and being like 99% brookies is the norm, but almost all have a token brown population. Lack of brown trout seeds is not what keeps most brook trout streams from being taken over by browns.

Allopatry: Some of the tribs in the upper Schuylkill and Ltl Schuylkill basins, in both cases upstream from Port Clinton to the headwaters.

 

[krayfish2]

In a few years when there's another catastrophic flooding event, how does one go about removing the browns and rainbows that have infiltrated your brookie nirvana? Would headlamp and frog gig be the most effective method? If possible, I'd like to have someone respond by attaching at least 40 studies and a minimum of two dozen links that I can look at.

Good luck with your battle against mother nature. She's undefeated.

I recently joined the NCC (native cougar coalition). We are looking to restore the cats to their historically inhabited range here in PA. I can post some links if anyone is interested.

 

[k-bob]

Pat thanks for comments

Maybe some small streams above dams, lot of small reservoirs out there, have no browns? ... I wouldn't know I fish dry flies in the middle of the day!

 

[Swattie87]

Allopatry: Some of the tribs in the upper Schuylkill and Ltl Schuylkill basins, in both cases upstream from Port Clinton to the headwaters.

Are there barriers on those streams? Definitely plenty of Browns in those systems.