Another thing I wondered is there are some stretches where the wood is so thick its gotta be hard to survey, i wonder if they even can in some spots. For example i know a stretch where a bunch of cross stream logs create a 3 or 4 foot deep scour hole under them that looks really fishy. No idea how theyd shock that.
Yea they dry up a decent amount but there is usually a trickle left where the stream bed intercepts the rough elevation of the bank along the rt 325 side. The trails on clarks that cross these tricklers have larger stepping stones often and sometimes they create a mini pool/dam effect and you can see what looks like a lone minow scatter when you step over them but if you look closely its a wild brookie. App trail parkinglot just upstream of the corrugated steel culvert being a notable example but theres more they pretty much all have em. I have never checked out the decent sized trib down near the baileys grove area that comes off private property. Not sure if they are in there
Yes, I have observed some electrofishing and seen this first hand. I watched them survey a section of a NC freestone stream. Most of the stretch was pretty straight and had habitat that was thin to modest at best. They got trout but they ran small to modest in size.
I saw a PFBC team survey hammer creek because they were collecting fin clips for Dr. Meredith Barton’s chesapeake bay watershed brook trout genetics data. They were explaining to me that extreme depth is a major issue to with or without wood too. Clarks has some deep holes under that wood i bet there are big stockers and some medium sized wild fish under there who knows maybe large I dunno
Yes, definitely. I've seen that too while observing electrofishing. They wear the same type of wading gear that we do, so have the same wading limitations. And we know from fishing that some places are just too deep to wade.
Any idea as to the effective depth for electrofishing? Can fish in very deep pools/holes get missed?
extension.psu.edu
The problem with a Clarks clean-up is the Game Commission "manages" the land surrounding the creek in the FFO section and couldn't care less about the creek and the PFBC won't because of the PAGC.
It doesn’t need to be “cleaned up” its in the middle of a mostly undisturbed forrest. The trees falling in the stream is the clean up of extensive historical logging. Its just going to take a long time and every time we mess with creeks like this we just reset the clock on achieving the end benefits.
Even with that legacy sediment your still seeing erosion of it that is giving way to side channel formation around parts of the large woody debris (like root wads) that used to abut the steep banks making a more complex channel form. That sediment that eroded goes downstream and will deposit on the upstream side of large woody debris and potentially start the same process(island formation/side channels from sediment deposition upstream of LWD and water going around it causing erosion.
It would be interesting to see how Clark's Creek heals over the next 25 or so years. It sure look like in the pain in the butt to fish. I haven't fished Clark's in a long time. It will be interesting to see if the new growth will draw beaver or not.With clarks being a cold tailwater that happens to be completely forested there is one undeniable impairment holding that stream back.
Silt?
Big spring, falling springs, and many other spring creeks that support native brook trout are just as silty in clarks in many places. Similarly to clarks in some places clean gravel is interspersed behind and between vegetation. Bob carline has shown also that its more about the upwelling rate of ground water rather than sediment particle size. The substrate in this study might be qualified as “silt” visually by many anglers. “45% of the substrate, by weight, averaged less than 2 mm in diameter.”
Alot of those downed trees seem to have downwelling in-front of them and upwelling from the hyporheic behind them as suggested by various types of cress looking vegetation. There also happens to be exposed fine gravel in these areas behind or beneath the downed trees.
Features of Successful Spawning Site Development for Brook Trout in Wisconsin Ponds
Lack of spawning areas limits standing crops of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) in many small, spring-fed ponds in northern Wisconsin. A new method for developing spawning areas includes measu...www.tandfonline.com
Could there be more ideal substrate conditions? Probably
Does anyone else wonder why the completely forested ice cold tail water originating from Harrisburg’s drinking water supply thats smack dab in the wilderness has abysmal wild trout numbers?……but still supports wild native brook that have an overblown image of being impossibly fastidious?
Welllll…..
The brook trout are very possible sabotaged genetically through introgression from the TONS of harchery brook trout stocked there.
Stocked invasive trout species galore
PFBC stocks it
Dauphin county anglers stocks it
Theres a hatchery on it for christs sake, fish coming from the coop.
Happen to know Its privately stocked on several properties for private events
Think there is an additional hatchery that slings pellet heads in there from leb co as well.
Santa clause, puxatawny phill, and lachupacabra stock it
I can believe it fished better when casting was easy and there were big riffly areas/ pools for floating dries through. I am sure catch rates were higher without all the wood and with the HWA the stream recruiting wood at an unatural rate. But given all that its still a completely forested cold tailwater with excellent water quality. If crap holes like trindle spring run and spring creek in Harrisburg can be class A (or dang near it id guess in springs case)with just as much silt could it be the the stream itself is not the rate limiting step? Could putting 11-14” fat ravenous and aggressive invasive species by the tens of thousands into a small to medium sized creek have anything to do with it?
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Thank you Tim! It happens to almost every thread and it’s gotten old. I find the ability to “ignore” certain members to be a great feature and improvement to PA Flyfish.
