Electro Shocking

[SNJChef]

Has anyone used a company to Electro shock their stream to get a baseline on the streams health and wild/native population?

Much appreciated

 

[lycoflyfisher]

There are consulting firms that conduct electrofishing surveys, they likely would not use the same metrics PA Fish and Boat does for biomass. If in PA, you could request data for that stream from PFBC, or if nearby a college with an aquatics/fisheries program you could try to contact the professor to see if they would have interest surveying the stream.

Depending on size of stream, there may be very few options outside of the state agencies (PFBC and DEP) that have the necessary equipment to conduct a thorough survey.

 

[Mike]

If it is a Pa stream that has never been surveyed, then you may be able to get an Area Fisheries Manager’s crew to EF the stream in the name of an Unassessed waters survey.” Be forewarned that sampling site selection requirements or protocols may not match up with the specific stretch of “your” stream that you had in mind. Sites are supposed to be as close to the downstream limit of the stream’s wild trout population as possible, yet still meet the minimum number of wild trout collected from specific year classes in order to qualify as a wild trout stream. For this reason most streams around the state are and were first sampled at their mouths for this specific project (the official protocol) unless the AFM’s or their crews had enough experience to judge where wild trout populations would most likely be close to disappearing along a streams’ lengths. In those cases, sampling would begin at those points and not at the mouths. This has been common in SE Pa, for example, due to staff experience and because many streams warm so fast on a longitudinal basis that wild trout populations commonly do not extend for the full stream length.

 

[Millsertime]

Depending on location of stream....

Aquatic Resource Consulting, Stroudsburg, PA

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[Fish Sticks]

Depending on location of stream....

Aquatic Resource Consulting, Stroudsburg, PA

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If there are brook trout FWS is looking to genotype the Susquehanna river brook trout population and take fin clips from different populations. They are not going to be using a protocol like a normal electrosurvey and don’t think they record a lot of data but i stayed like 20 feet behind tge pa fish and boat crew that my local creek and just watched and it gave me a good idea of what was in there

 

[SNJChef]

Thanks for the information, I have some avenues to look into.