Clarks Creek - A disaster in the making

[JackM]

Also, if anyone has pictures of this disaster, please post them.

 

[troutbert]

Streams that flow through old growth forests, that were never logged or roaded, have high amounts of large woody debris (downed trees). That is the normal situation.

Most PA flyfishers have never seen this condition. So their idea of what is "normal" comes from looking at streams that are extremely altered.

In most cases are streams have been channelized, converted from multiple channel systems to a single channel, straightened, relocated, with large woody debris removed.

 

[Bamboozle]

JackM wrote:
"I also know that getting the trees out would be a huge undertaking and beyond the scope of most volunteer groups."

I have an idea (hear me out):

When state prisoners go to SCI Camp Hill for classification, the tamest among them should be given an option to join a work crew that is tasked to carry out needed conservation/restoration projects across the state. In exchange, they would be awarded "good time" credit against their sentence.

But, now that we have the personnel, to what work shall we put them? An educated stream engineer could determine how and in what manner to ameliorate this downed-tree problem.

I could imagine a crew with chainsaws, axes and manual saws could chop away at these log jams and haul out, or allow to be hauled out, free for the taking, the woody debris deemed to be excessive.

CONSERVATION BOOT CAMP

If you are serious, I go on record as supporting something like that 3000% and for roadside litter clean up and a bunch of other programs as well, however I believe it is a pipedream.

In regards to the clean-up, many years I read about a creek someplace with a similar problem and the folks that coordinated the clean-up used teams of draft horses and men from the nearby Amish community to haul out the logs. I believe the stream was in Indiana or Ohio and the thought was the horses would be a less disruptive to the surrounding area than bulldozers.

Ironically, in the 19th century, switchback narrow gauge railroads once traversed from 2nd Mountain to Peters Mountain in the Clarks Valley during logging operations in those valleys. One RR crossing over Clark’s Creek was only a mile upstream of The Victoria Furnace. Remnants of that crossing remain in the streambed to this day.

 

[ColdBore]

Bamboozle wrote:

In regards to the clean-up, many years I read about a creek someplace with a similar problem and the folks that coordinated the clean-up used teams of draft horses and men from the nearby Amish community to haul out the logs. I believe the stream was in Indiana or Ohio and the thought was the horses would be a less disruptive to the surrounding area than bulldozers.

From my earlier response....

ColdBore wrote:

krayfish2 wrote:

...but.... I'm short of a pulling horse team ...

When the Shenango River Watchers went in about ten years ago for a major clearing, they took local Amish and their horses with them. The SRW guys would chainsaw, the Amish would hook up and drag. A week later, other than tree trunks pulled into the woods, you'd never know they were there. The horses did virtually no damage and left very little trace of being there.

They made about 20 miles of river navigable and safe(-ish anyway) again for canoers and kayakers.

www.shenangoriverwatchers.org (I think).

It might be worth a call to ask them for a little guidance on how and where to begin.

 

[Bamboozle]

ColdBore wrote:

Bamboozle wrote:

In regards to the clean-up, many years I read about a creek someplace with a similar problem and the folks that coordinated the clean-up used teams of draft horses and men from the nearby Amish community to haul out the logs. I believe the stream was in Indiana or Ohio and the thought was the horses would be a less disruptive to the surrounding area than bulldozers.

From my earlier response....

ColdBore wrote:

krayfish2 wrote:

...but.... I'm short of a pulling horse team ...

When the Shenango River Watchers went in about ten years ago for a major clearing, they took local Amish and their horses with them. The SRW guys would chainsaw, the Amish would hook up and drag. A week later, other than tree trunks pulled into the woods, you'd never know they were there. The horses did virtually no damage and left very little trace of being there.

They made about 20 miles of river navigable and safe(-ish anyway) again for canoers and kayakers.

www.shenangoriverwatchers.org (I think).

It might be worth a call to ask them for a little guidance on how and where to begin.

That's it, thanks for the link!!

 

[Bamboozle]

troutbert wrote:
Streams that flow through old growth forests, that were never logged or roaded, have high amounts of large woody debris (downed trees). That is the normal situation.

Most PA flyfishers have never seen this condition. So their idea of what is "normal" comes from looking at streams that are extremely altered.

In most cases are streams have been channelized, converted from multiple channel systems to a single channel, straightened, relocated, with large woody debris removed.

The Clark's Valley was logged and IS logged to this day, however the situation now is NOT normal. The problems are caused by the wooly adelgid, an invasive insect.

The area surrounding Clark’s Creek is surrounded with hemlocks, right up to the banks of the stream. I noticed the problem about 10 years ago when the forest floor started to become carpeted with millions of healthy green hemlock needles. Later, entire “healthy” trees sans any needles would fall over, sometimes exasperated by heavy rains however, those trees were also in a weakened condition because of the wooly adelgid.

I noticed a similar “canary in the coal mine” at a place I fish in Western Franklin County. One trip I noticed millions of hemlocks needles on the forest floor. The next time I went there, tons of dead trees had fallen. In the case of this creek, the trees fell across the creek channel, but not always IN the creek, however moving upstream was almost impossible with huge trees blocking your way.

Climbing over them was often impossible so you have to walk around one, sometime four or five huge trees just to move a few yards upstream. The result is you spend more time bushwhacking than fishing.

 

[Bamboozle]

The whole situation at Clark’s is very sad for me as I only stared fishing there in the early 2000’s. The steam and surrounding area are beautiful and make you feel like you are 1000 miles away from everywhere, not 15 miles from Harrisburg.

The water is/was cold, even in August. On hot summer days when I would drive the 90 minutes it takes me to get there, you could feel the temperature drop 10 – 15 degrees as you walked from the parking areas to the stream. It was like air conditioning!!

I am older and lazier these days, however Clark’s was one of the only “local” places where I spent an entire day. On more than few occasions, I would arrive before sun-up and cook breakfast in the dark, right in the parking lot before heading a mile or so downstream to begin fishing.

The steam is a decent size and wading WAS easy. I preferred a 7’6” to 8’0” rod there, but even a 9’ rod was fine. You never felt like you were hemmed in. I’d fish upstream, covering every inch of creek back to the trail to that parking area by noon or 1:00 pm, then retreat back to my car for a leisurely lunch and some beers. Afterwards it was back down to begin fishing upstream from where I left off until dark, with an easy hike along a different trail back to the car.

At times, the FFO stretch could get crowded, but that was usually in the days immediately following a stocking. If you skipped those dates, by late spring into summer the crowds had dwindled. On many outings, I was “unlucky” if I encountered three or four others while fishing so it was easy to feel like you had the place to yourself. If you stuck it out until dusk or dark, you WERE alone.

The fishing was good most times with a TON of fish in the creek. There were no “major” hatches (although I once encounted a Hex hatch there) so you had to “figure it out;” MY favorite type of fly-fishing. About 99% of my fish were caught on the surface, mainly on high floating foam terrestrials, caddis and midges.

Some fish could be EXTREMELY fussy, but if I just kept moving past the finicky fish, you would always find a moron willing to grab the same fly. This is one of the reasons not being able to freely move along the stream is such a problem, unless of course you enjoy getting skunked.

Catching 20+ fish was a good day but bettering that number wasn’t hard. Most of the fish were stockers but in recent years, I had a few days where I caught more wild browns than hatchery fish. I also managed several fish at or over 20” (stockers) however, the stretches where I caught those fish are totally jammed with fallen trees and unfishable today…

Despite being somewhat of a wild trout snob, I relished my time on Clark’s and considered it one of my “happy places,” a place where just being there put a smile on my face no matter how many fish I caught or didn’t catch.

Now the days of breakfasts and a whole day on Clark’s are just a fond memory. It’s not worth the 90 minute drive for me to try and poke my rod tip into the log jams in the hopes of catching fish…

…and a whole day of “fishing” on Clark’s would probably be an hour or two.

 

[TimMurphy]

Bamboozle wrote:

troutbert wrote:
Streams that flow through old growth forests, that were never logged or roaded, have high amounts of large woody debris (downed trees). That is the normal situation.

Most PA flyfishers have never seen this condition. So their idea of what is "normal" comes from looking at streams that are extremely altered.

In most cases are streams have been channelized, converted from multiple channel systems to a single channel, straightened, relocated, with large woody debris removed.

The Clark's Valley was logged and IS logged to this day, however the situation now is NOT normal. The problems are caused by the wooly adelgid, an invasive insect.

The area surrounding Clark’s Creek is surrounded with hemlocks, right up to the banks of the stream. I noticed the problem about 10 years ago when the forest floor started to become carpeted with millions of healthy green hemlock needles. Later, entire “healthy” trees sans any needles would fall over, sometimes exasperated by heavy rains however, those trees were also in a weakened condition because of the wooly adelgid.

I noticed a similar “canary in the coal mine” at a place I fish in Western Franklin County. One trip I noticed millions of hemlocks needles on the forest floor. The next time I went there, tons of dead trees had fallen. In the case of this creek, the trees fell across the creek channel, but not always IN the creek, however moving upstream was almost impossible with huge trees blocking your way.

Climbing over them was often impossible so you have to walk around one, sometime four or five huge trees just to move a few yards upstream. The result is you spend more time bushwhacking than fishing.

Dear Bamboozle,

Not to pile on, but I am surprised that Troubert totally discounts the fact that the trees on Clark's should not be dead? Sure, over the course of 10 or 15 years trees will die and fall to the forest floor and find there way into streams. That is definitely a natural occurrence.

But on Clark's hundreds, and perhaps maybe even a thousand trees were killed by an invasive insect. The vast majority of the trees would still be standing if not for the agelid. What happened on Clark's is not a natural occurrence by any reasonable definition. It certainly is not part of the natural evolution of the stream.

Cross the river and head to Western Perry County. In the streams that form the headwaters of Sherman's Creek you can see where the natural process of dead falls took place during the extreme high water events during Hurricanes Floyd and Daniel.

I had fished those streams prior to the back to back Hurricanes, and surveyed the damage immediately after. You couldn't have pushed the dead falls out with a fleet of CAT D9's, there were so many trees down.

However, those streams are totally unlike Clark's Creek in that they flow with a much higher gradient. Subsequent high water events managed to move a substantial portion of the trees felled by the Hurricanes, and those that weren't moved rotted away in most cases. There are still some jumbles of dead wood to navigate but the majority of the water in those head water streams flows relatively unimpeded.

That isn't the story with Clark's. The log jams are growing continually there. And there are still hundreds of dead trees that have yet to fall across the creek, but that could do so at any time.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

P.S. Thanks for your stories about Clark's. Now I know I wasn't dreaming when I smelled bacon and eggs on some mornings. ;-)

 

[redietz]

My experiences with Clark's, going back to the 80's, are similar to Bamboozle's, except it was a longer drive, so I'd arrive too late for breakfast.

My fondest memory of the place were once when, pitching a dry ant pattern to the same spot under a hemlock, I caught nine trout on the first ten casts of the day. I missed the tenth.

It's the only stream that I've fished at least 25 times and have never been skunked. (I've actually fished it a lot more than that,)

I don't go nowadays for the same reasons everyone here is complaining about. It's like watching an old friend die a slow death.

 

[afishinado]

I agree that naturally occurring woody debris should not be removed from a stream in most cases because it's part of a natural process and is beneficial to the stream and fish.

But I agree with Tim. The hemlocks along Clark's were damaged and killed by an invasive insect which is not a natural occurrence. When human intervention or accident messes things up, the right thing to do is to remediate the situation.

With that being said, it appears there is not a groundswell of support by fly anglers to try to get this done. If that's the case I agree with Mike; more anglers would be able to fish and enjoy the stream section under open regs.

 

[SteveG]

It's a shame that everyone seems to be so quick to throw in the towel on Clarks Creek and let it degrade to being a stocked put and take fishery. I've taken water temps this past Summer and it has remained within range of ethical catch and release practices. Due to the tiny mountain trickles that constantly feed it cool water.

If in fact the hemlock woolly adelgid is the primary culprit, would not the best course of action be to plant other suitable native trees? I believe this has already been occurring to some degree, as I have seen evidence of some planted, but I do not know which organization did so.

there are still plenty of wild brook and brown trout in the c&r stretch.

 

[afishinado]

SteveG wrote:
It's a shame that everyone seems to be so quick to throw in the towel on Clarks Creek and let it degrade to being a stocked put and take fishery. I've taken water temps this past Summer and it has remained within range of ethical catch and release practices. Due to the tiny mountain trickles that constantly feed it cool water.

If in fact the hemlock woolly adelgid is the primary culprit, would not the best course of action be to plant other suitable native trees? I believe this has already been occurring to some degree, as I have seen evidence of some planted, but I do not know which organization did so.

there are still plenty of wild brook and brown trout in the c&r stretch.

I don't see anyone throwing in the towel since no towel has ever been in hand. The fallen tree problem on Clarks happened and has been discussed for close to a decade now, and I'm not aware of any effort by any organization to address it.

 

[Bamboozle]

It is a HUGH problem to address so “throwing in the towel” is more of a reaction than an ultimatum. It is worse in the middle of the FFO stretch so if anyone hasn't seen it firsthand, they need to before assuming it is just a matter of a volunteer group or two and a dozen chainsaws.

I remember a long time back when a massive tree fell into one of my absolute favorite holes at Clark’s. The tree rendered the hole unfishable but I figured a heavy rain might solve the problem. Well, as Tim Murphy mentioned, gradient and DeHart reservoir combine to moderate the flows in Clark’s so big trees become a permanent fixture. Years later, I studied that tree for hours and a day figuring I would bring my chainsaw some day and get rid of it myself. I “threw in the towel” after determining it would take me months of visits just to put a dent in it.

That tree and about four others are still there…

The problem at Clark’s is many of the trees are HUGE, lying on top of one another or in massive tangled piles on the ground and in the creek. I can tell you from experience that bucking trees that size in those positions is a massive & dangerous challenge requiring expertise and the right equipment. In addition, many trees would need to be pulled from the creek before they could be cut up.

Using heavy equipment for that job would tear up the woods, banks & streambed because not all of the trees can be removed from the same side so crossing the creek numerous times in numerous locations with heavy equipment, plus building temporary roads or paths through the woods would be required. That is why others in similar situations have used draft horses. Finally, you have to get the cut up timber out of there and either dispose of it or find someone who will.

After all of that work, what do we do about the woolly adelgid and all of the OTHER trees that will die and fall into the creek necessitating another massive clean-up in 10-20 years?

That is why others in similar situations have thrown in the towel…

This much I also know, the PA Game Commission won’t take the trees out nor will the Fish Commission for many reasons which include funding, other priorities and projects that benefit more folks. Can someone get them to change their minds, I do not know. I asked once…

If you went the volunteer route, can you get the permission from the Game Commission to do the work on their property and/or secure the necessary permits? If you get the permission and permits, do you mess up the creek and scar the woods with heavy equipment or can you find teams of draft horses to do the work? Last, there is the cost that I imagine would be staggering for a volunteer group to assume or raise funds for…

…and what do we do about the woolly adelgid and all of the OTHER trees that will die and fall into the creek necessitating another massive clean-up in 10-20 years?

Color me a pessimist or a towel thrower but I just don’t see any of it being feasible any time soon.

However, anyone wishing to prove me and many others wrong only need to walk the 2.4 miles of the Clark’s FFO, count the number of dead and dying trees that will have to be removed, then call the PA Game Commission and ask them if you can and how to proceed.

I’ll be happy to help in any way if you get past that point.

 

[SteveG]

I actually went and decided to walk Clark's earlier today. While the situation is at its worst of the FF only area, a vast majority of the all tackle water is fine. I saw plenty of wild fish as well.

The "throwing in the towel" comment was directed at the idea of removing any regulation, and just managing it as a stocked trout fishery. It's a great wild brook and brown trout fishery.

As I've said prior, the log jams don't seem to be terribly affecting the water temperature, and the continued presence of wild fish shows that they are reproducing just fine.

 

[Bamboozle]

SteveG wrote:
I actually went and decided to walk Clark's earlier today. While the situation is at its worst of the FF only area, a vast majority of the all tackle water is fine.

Above (Sec. 2 & 3) or below (Sec. 5) the FFO waters?

 

[troutbert]

Has there been an electrofishing survey in recent years?

If so, how is the wild trout population?

 

[SteveG]

My walk today was above the FF area. I rarely fish below it, due to the amount of private property.

I don't have any info about surveys. Personally, I'm of the opinion that it's stocked not due to low biomass, but to have easier to catch fish. Due to the bank height, water flatness in many areas, casting obstructions, and glare/shadows depending on Sun angle, the wild fish can be a great challenge.

 

[Bamboozle]

I remember calling the fisheries biologist for that region about 10 years ago and telling him about the number of wild fish I was catching in the FFO stretch.

I told him that interestingly enough, it was always in the same few holes/stretches in the beat I typically fished and rarely in other spots. He was surprised so I figure a survey hadn't been done for awhile in that section however, a Clarks Creek Watershed Coldwater Conservation Plan was completed in 2012. I don't think any surveys have been done since.

The good news is there a group called the Clarks Creek Watershed Preservation Association doing good although it's more stewardship and trash clean-ups than tree removal.

The Doc Fritchey Chapter of TU is also helping by planting white pine seedlings furnished by the PA Game Commission, doing stream work and trash clean-up.

If any organizations would have a finger on the pulse of the problem and any potential for tree removal, it's them.

 

[ihiker13]

Dear Board,

I know it's been beat to death here on the board, but if there ever was a creek that needed chainsaw work this is it.

I spent a couple of hours today checking out all my old haunts, and by old, I mean pre-Floyd and Ivan. I had a hard time even getting within sight of the creek in some old spots, and when I did I was greeted by flat cesspools locked between logjams.

I understand and appreciate the idea of woody debris providing habit and cover, but the reality of that being a success depends on the stream having a gradient steeper than your average dive bar pool table.

I don't think Clarks drops more than 50 feet in elevation from DeHart Dam to the river, and that's over 15 road miles, and probably close to 20 stream miles? Every single logjam is filled with sandy silt and leaf debris, and that is not good for the stream by any stretch.

I know the creek has been hit with a half dozen hundred year floods in the last 15 years. That's why it needs some corrective action. If not, when the next one hits I'm afraid all of the logjams will release? If that happens we'll wind up with with an 100 foot wide sand wash like they have in the SW deserts.

Honestly, can anything be done before that happens?

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Stumbled across this while searching whether it's "Clark" or "Clark's" Creek because we were just hiking there yesterday (5-6-23) and found your post very interesting. You said about swamps resulting from downed trees and now, 4 years later, that is exactly what is happening. We were surprised at the number of trees jamming up the creek and were wondering if it's possible to form a group of people to volunteer to help clean it up? Are there restrictions? I known it's SGL so I'm not sure if that would allowed.

 

[salmo]

I haven’t fished Clark’s in over five years - maybe six or seven. Is the fallen tree situation the same above the reservoir?