FBC Hatchery article

[Solitariolupo]

I was using musky as an example of stocking and the natural reproduction. Also musky are actually native to some parts of PA. That's what can happen when they would stock something more native to PA then brown or a rainbow trout. With the trout to spawn in the waterway, the percentage is very low. Just a FYI rainbow and Browns need to be stocked every year cause they are invasive. Imagine if they stocked the native lakers and trophy brookies. Possibility of them spawning could be higher. JMO. Copied and paste right off fbc site.


8. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF STOCKED FISH REPRODUCE IN A STREAM?
Nearly all the species stocked from state hatcheries are capable of spawning in the wild. The exceptions are hybrids such as tiger muskellunge, hybrid striped bass, and saugeye.

In the case of trout, if some make it through the summer and find suitable habitat, natural reproduction might occur. Whether or not those young trout make it through the first year of life depends largely on the habitat, particularly summer water temperatures. Many of the streams we manage with stocking of trout are at their very best seasonal trout habitat. They lose flow and experience elevated temperatures during much of the summer and trout don't do well there.

We do not stock hatchery trout to spawn and provide any contribution to the wild trout community. This would be too expensive. We place them out there for anglers to have a chance to fish for them and to catch them. In several places we stock fingerling trout on a put-grow-and-take basis. In those cases the habitat is suitable for year-round survival, but spawning and nursery habitat may be missing. So we add the stocked trout.

 

[salmonoid]

troutbert wrote:

Dave_W wrote:

PFBC will likely propose closing a state hatchery or two, and local opposition and political influence will likely fight to keep those hatcheries open (as happened a couple years ago with Bellefonte).

And the Oswayo hatchery, at the same time as the Bellefonte hatchery.

Some years back, the PFBC hired a consulting firm to evaluate their hatchery system. The firm concluded that the PFBC should close the Reynoldsdale hatchery because their numbers showed that it was the least efficient hatchery.

But "local opposition and political influence" kept it open. So it goes.

And they also invested 6-7 million dollars in upgrading Reynoldsdale in 2015.

While I agree that some oversight may be lost if co-op nurseries start picking up some of the slack, I don't see the delta in stocked fish being covered entirely by additional co-op output. Co-op nurseries and the organizations that run them are running flush with cash either, nor do they necessarily have the capacity to raise that many additional fish. I think it could be a net win for wild fish, but with some losses in some streams that will see additional co-op fish.

 

[troutbert]

I agree that it is unlikely that coops will be able to increase production much. Because of the labor and money constraints mentioned.

But also because it would be difficult to find sites and get permits for new coop hatchery development.

These days it would be much harder to get permits to divert water out of a native brook trout stream to supply water to a hatchery than it was in the old days.

 

[troutbert]

Solitariolupo wrote:
I was using musky as an example of stocking and the natural reproduction. Also musky are actually native to some parts of PA. That's what can happen when they would stock something more native to PA then brown or a rainbow trout. With the trout to spawn in the waterway, the percentage is very low. Just a FYI rainbow and Browns need to be stocked every year cause they are invasive. Imagine if they stocked the native lakers and trophy brookies. Possibility of them spawning could be higher.

Wild (self-sustaining) brown trout populations are very common in PA, and in many states in the US.

Rainbow trout populations are much less common in PA than browns, but there are some. And wild rainbows are also found in many other states where they were not found originally.

 

[CRB]

And the PAFBC will not even give the landowner of a raceway a brake on a fishing license. A few raceways have been lost to FBC lack of forethought or vision of that big picture.

What do the volunteers get out of it?

Try that in a work place environment.

The problem is the entire organization is reactionary to ideas that were planned out a decade before. The variable license increase issue is an example that should have been pushed years ago before the mass exodus to senior life time licenses. That decision is in my opinion what is wrong with FBC.
The model that rewards the fisherman who can fish the most with reduced license fees just calls out that there are problems. Moneys will continue to drop as the population grows older.

 

[DGC]

Decreasing numbers of PA residents consider fishing licenses and particularly trout stamps to be worth their hard earned dollars, at least as regards competition with other ways of spending discretionary income.

Revenues, currently near record level, were bolstered by the last fee increase and some additional interest, apparently, created by the multi-year license offerings (even though revenues from those are only added year-to-year for comparison purposes).

Evidence is available for all to see on spreadsheet. The high water mark for the general license was 1990; for the trout stamp it was 1995. In 2016, slightly less than 6 out of every 10 bothered to buy a trout stamp though they bought a general license.

PA Fishing License Sales History from 1919 in Excel Format

What to make of this? Way too many demographic, cultural and economic reasons to count.

 

[ryansheehan]

Solitariolupo wrote:
I was using musky as an example of stocking and the natural reproduction. Also musky are actually native to some parts of PA. That's what can happen when they would stock something more native to PA then brown or a rainbow trout. With the trout to spawn in the waterway, the percentage is very low. Just a FYI rainbow and Browns need to be stocked every year cause they are invasive. Imagine if they stocked the native lakers and trophy brookies. Possibility of them spawning could be higher. JMO. Copied and paste right off fbc site.

Rainbows and Browns need to be stocked every year because they are invasive species? Thats not an accurate statement. There are many streams with wild, non native trout in them. Where the water quality and temperatures are favorable wild browns and bows exist. There are streams that are stocked each year that get too warm in the summer so the trout die. It has nothing to do with them being invasive species, the native brookies would not survive either.