Fingerling Programs in Your Neck of the Woods

[Fishidiot]

In another current thread about Donegal Creek, Mike has revealed that the PFBC fingerling (FG) program has produced poor results. Closer to me, we're getting similar disappointing results on Green Spring Creek after a couple years. Do you have a successful FG program that you're familiar with, especially if it is a smaller stream? Are brook trout (ST) FGs working near you?

FG programs across PA have had very mixed results - often poorer than expected. Furthermore, this isn't a new trend. FGs have been attempted time and time again for over fifty years - sometimes on the same waters repeatedly - and the results often continue to disappoint. One thing that does seem somewhat consistent to me, is that where FGs have been stocked, they tend to do better on larger waterways (Yough, LJ, Tully, Skuke, Allegheny, Lehigh, etc). Efforts in smaller waters don't seem to do as well. Smaller waters like Donegal and Green Spring, although they have the cold water, just don't seem to work with FGs. In lower Letort, they did well and were eventually tapered off and replaced by wild trout, as is the case with LJ.

Also of note, brook trout FG programs have been especially unproductive. I can't think of any currently successful ST FG programs anywhere in PA at this time (Skuke maybe?). Let us know of any ST FGs that are working in your neck of the woods. Perhaps the PFBCs strain of hatchery fish may be an issue or some other aspect. I dunno. I'm still in favor of stocking FGs from time to time...but the overall success of these programs has been mixed. They're not always a panacea for creating a great fishery. So lets talk about FG programs. How have FG programs worked out in your neck of the woods? What is your opinion on fingerling programs?

 

[OldLefty]

PFBC has a fingerling program on White Deer Creek. It appears to have been unsuccessful, to say the least.

The one successful program on a smaller waterway of which I'm aware is Pohopoco Creek below Beltzville dam. It is a tailwater.

 

[RLeep2]

The only successful trout fingerling programs I know of in medium to smaller trout streams were not in PA and they used "feral" (their terminology..) rather than hatchery strain brood fish. Additionally, probably in the majority of cases, they were accompanied by habitat enhancement efforts that included a lot of in-channel device work, which for the most part would be wasted effort on most PA freestones.

 

[pcray1231]

Your observation that larger waterways do better, and that brook trout have been largely unsuccessful, go hand in hand. Brookies tend to thrive in smaller waters where other species don't.

I'd guess part of it is genetics, i.e. yes, the pfbc strain of hatchery fish is an issue, whereas "wild stock" transplants may succeed.

Another part of it is simply this. If a stream is capable of holding fish year round, it generally does. With wild fish. So we take streams where wild fish have not succeeded. We throw fingerlings in there, and expect them to do better? Should we be surprised?

The situations where fingerlings may actually work:

1. Temps are good. Habitat is good. Forage base is good. The ONLY thing the stream lacks is suitable gravels for breeding, or else a water quality problem that effects egg survival but not adults. i.e. reproduction is the only problem. Too much silt could be one example of such an issue. Very large rivers, such as the Allegheny and Yough, tend to not be able to breed trout as well, other than in a few tributaries (though the amount of breeding area available is small compared to the massive amounts of habitat, and also somewhat isolated from it, so you may get some wild fish but will never get enough to populate the available habitat). Another example is lakes. Erie is the obvious example, though the same could probably be done in the Allegheny Reservoir, among others (and happens "accidently" from stocked trout to some degree).

I think we used to see this problem as common in larger waters. For example the lower Letort and LJR. But I think we're finding it's more rare than realized, though the one place it fits is many large tailwaters. Hence, fingerling success on tailwaters.

2. A stream was previously incapable of holding significant wild fish populations for one reason or another, but has recovered. The lower Letort, LJR, and many others likely fit this. The stream will want to form a wild fishery, but isolation from other wild populations from which to "seed" determines if and how quickly it happens.

If a stream is totally isolated, say, above an AMD stream, or above a large waterfall, then it won't repopulate on it's own. Fingerlings will succeed, and with difficulty, may eventually seed a new wild population. Wild transplants would be better.

If it's partially isolated, the wild trout re-population may merely be a slow process. In the meantime, fingerlings may succeed, but are likely to slow the re-population process.

 

[streamerguy]

Fishidiot wrote:
Do you have a successful FG program that you're familiar with, especially if it is a smaller stream?

The fingerling program the PFBC has going on a smallish stream I fish in the nw part of the state is very unsuccessful. I actually had the opportunity to tag along with them last summer when they electrofished the stream........and as expected, we shocked up very few fingerling stockies.

Most of the fish would either move upstream of the special regs area where there's better habitat, or they'd book out of the stream all together. I've heard multiple reports of the fingerlings being caught in the bigger stream it flows into.

Habitat greatly lacks in the area where they're stocked......and even where there is good habitat there would still be very few fingerling stocked fish.

In the areas upstream where the habitat is better the stream has healthy numbers of trout on its own, and that's where a bunch of the fingerlings are swimming up to........which isn't good imo.

I caught maybe 10(if that) 1-full-year(or more) holdover fin-clipped fingerlings.......and that's counting the entire stream, not just the area where they're stocked.

(edit: these are fingerling brown trout)

 

[KenU]

To pcray1231:

You're right on the mark.

100 years ago PA tried to restore its brook trout populations after the devastation caused by the massive and unregulated logging that destroyed many of our trout streams. Fingerlings were planted in many streams including Kettle Creek, which was the last to be lost to the loggers. Because the habitat had been destroyed this didn't work, so we turned to raising catachables. That quickly evolved into what is now a "put-and-take" fishery. Many streams did eventually recover and could again sustain a wild trout fishery (with conservative management) if given the chance. But now so many PA anglers have grown so accustom to putting their fish in one day and catching them the next that "put-and-take" has become 'traditional' angling.

This is changing, but oh so slowly.

 

[ebroesicke]

It has become an entitlement program. Why fix the actual problem (habitat etc) when we can just dump some fish in a stream?

 

[DGC]

Sticking to my area, i.e. Cumberland Valley, the Green Spring stockings have only been a couple of years and last year around this time there was a huge fish kill at the hatchery that may have affected downstream areas and the 2012 and particularly the 2013 plants. We have also had ridiculously bad storm events happen not long after fall stockings the last few years--more than a few actually.

But you would think that if wild browns took hold at Donegal, they could very well take hold at Green Spring, though the Donegal browns seem to have come from holdover adult spawning success, not fingerling plants.

I don't know about now, but in years gone by biologists in a number of states were like zealous missionaries trying to jumpstart wild trout populations where none existed before, even before A River Runs Through It. These (usually fingerling) plants were under the radar and not listed anywhere except maybe in the Federal report.

I am sure they still do this to some extent--I doubt that every fingerling or YOY planting shows up on the PFBC Fingerling Stocking site. But as to jumpstarting a new stream, quite a bit of that effort has already taken place. Like pcray said, if conditions are already good, then wild trout are usually already there. Take a look at the natural reproduction list for your area, and try to think of a stream missing from the list that has adequate conditions. I would have a hard time coming up with a stream to try.

As FI said, even back then, using fingerlings to jumpstart a wild population met with marginal results. There are some notable exceptions in the realm of put and grow, however, which is what the current fingerling stocking program in PA seems to be about, given its emphasis on lakes and larger streams.

But let's say you wanted to create a new wild fishery, where to look? Consider that water quality is better than it used to be, and buffers are more numerous than they used to be, though air temps are higher than they used to be and precipitation less. It's the marginal streams (thermally speaking) and comeback stories where the effort could be concentrated. I would happily trade resumption of these efforts in exchange for umpteen surveys of known Class A streams.

In the effort to assess previously unsurveyed streams, there are bound to be some very nice streams with no trout where a fingerling jumpstart would be worth the effort. I can't be the only one to look at that program in that way.

If you can create just one wild trout stream out of nothing, how much effort does that deserve? Put another way, how many fingerling "failures" are acceptable on the way to creating just one wild trout stream? I don't know how to quantify that, but I think the ends in this instance justify considerable effort.

Though it is much more labor and money intensive than using hatchery fingerlings, the literature supports the use of wild donor stream YOY to jumpstart a target stream.

 

[MKern]

Kish Creek is fairly successful. It seems to have taken quite a few years though. When I first moved to Mifflin County, 8 years ago, the fingerling stocking was in its second or third year and I didn't catch any fingerling holdovers.

However, the last three years or so I, and friends, have been catching more and more bows that appear to be wild, especially when compared to the tradition look of stocked adults.

I believe they have even even starting stocking fingerling every other year now.

Side note: even starting catching colorful bows up honey creek. I'm not sure I am completely stoked about it, but browns are invasive too.

 

[SteveG]

I walked Green Spring for the first time a few days ago. It is very silty, and the amount of algal bloom, coupled with lack of aquatic vegetation, makes me suspect that manure and other fertilizer could be a big problem there via high nutrient loads. Oxygen levels were checked multiple times around the time of the fish kill, but I'm curious what the levels are at night when respiration occurs.

 

[salmonoid]

DGC wrote:
But you would think that if wild browns took hold at Donegal, they could very well take hold at Green Spring, though the Donegal browns seem to have come from holdover adult spawning success, not fingerling plants.

This is most definitely the case, because the fingerlings stocked for the Donegal study were rainbow trout The success of the browns in Donegal has more to do with the tapering off of stocking than anything else, IMO.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

In all actuality, the wild brown trout in Donegal are more than likely the descendants of vibert box plantings done a number of years ago in the headwaters.

This would explain why they took hold better than simple fingerling or adult trout stockings. The tapering off of adult trout stocking only helped thier cause but they had long been there by then.

 

[LetortAngler]

I have read of another type of fingerling stocking that could possibly result in a self-sustaining population of wild trout, and this would be the stocking of wild brown fingerlings into high quality cold-watered streams that are currently being stocked to keep fish levels high. Streams like the Quittie and Donegal come to mind where I could see a experimental wild fingerling program take place where better habitat exists. If this has been done by PBC, I'm not sure. I have read reports about other state programs successfully establishing high wild trout populations by eliminating stocked fingerlings, and stocking wild fingerlings from neighboring streams in their place with promising results.

 

[PennKev]

^Gee, sounds like something I suggested trying a while back

 

[streamerguy]

LetortAngler wrote:
....where better habitat exists.....

That's the kicker. If the habitat and water quality is already good, the stream likely already has a good population of wild fish.

Now stocking a stream(with good habitat and water quality) with wild fingerlings with possible genetic differences than the current wild trout(that may not be doing well) in the stream would be interesting. Would that new population take off? If the stream is better suitable for the new strain.....maybe. Who knows. The stream I was discussing in my first post I believe should be left alone.....but this may have some interesting results on other streams.

 

[Chaz]

Survivability of stocked fish is very low in PA mostly due to the type of fish raised in the hatcheries, but I do agree with what Pat said in his post.
If the PFBC had a program of restoring wild populations that included using wild fish hatched in hatcheries in the watersheds they plan to put the fish, it might work. But the habitat has to be there for the fish to survive and the regulations have to be there to provide no harvest until the fish reach a certain size, let's say 9 inches.
Too often there is no real thought to planting fingerlings considering all of these factors. There is a reason why wild trout aren't there in the streams that have survivable stream temperatures, and the pressure anglers place on PFBC to do something is usually misguided in that anglers seem to think that because fingerling stocking will work because they work in other places, it's simply not working in PA for the reasons Pat states.
It takes many years for fingerling stockings to "work" and that is relative because what's the goal. Is it to simply create a fishery where none exists and rely on fingerling stockings forever and a day. If that's what you want that's what it takes. Or is it stock fingerlings for a few years and hope they take to the stream, it doesn't work in PA.

 

[JackM]

We have a fingerling program in the Laurel Highlands: it is natural reproduction in 80% of the native brook char streams. Is that redundant in PA?

 

[troutbert]

How well does the fingerling program work on large rivers such as the Yough, Clarion River, and Allegheny River below Kinzua Dam?

Are all the adult trout caught at those places the result of fingerlings, are or some of them wild fish?

If the fingerling program does work at these places, why does it not work in a place like Bald Eagle Creek from the mouth of Spring Creek down to the lake?

Some years back the PFBC tried stocking fingerling browns there, but after several years the area fisheries manager concluded that it wasn't working so discontinued it.

The conditions are good all through that stretch, regarding water temps, base flow, food supply, habitat. There are wild browns in the whole stretch year around.

 

[pcray1231]

How well does the fingerling program work on large rivers such as the Yough, Clarion River, and Allegheny River below Kinzua Dam?

What's your definition of success? In the above examples, SOME fish survive to adulthood. I don't have the % for any of them, but I believe it's considerably different for all 3. Which is a fair indication that any 2 waterways are very hard to compare.

Are all the adult trout caught at those places the result of fingerlings, are or some of them wild fish?

My understanding is that, yes, all 3 have some wild fish, but the majority are fingerlings. These are examples where the only appropriate breeding habitat happens in tributaries. Sure, some fish are born in tribs and make their way back. But the breeding areas are small compared to the available habitat, and fairly removed, so they cannot hope to sustain wild trout populations approaching what the habitat could support. Hence, some fingerling success.

If the fingerling program does work at these places, why does it not work in a place like Bald Eagle Creek from the mouth of Spring Creek down to the lake?

Because unlike the others here, there's no real lack of wild fish. So, for one, a healthy population of wild fish EAT fingerlings. And what they don't eat, they outcompete.

For fingerling success, you need a situation where the potential re-supply of wild fish is too small to make full use of the available habitat. Failure means there's either already enough wild fish, or else, there's no year-round trout habitat to begin with. In lower Bald Eagle, there's already enough wild fish.

The key concept is "what's the limiting factor on trout populations?" For fingerlings to work, the limiting factor has to be limited to reproductive success.

 

[Chaz]

I'm going to guess that in large rivers trout fingerlings don't survive well because the toothy fish eat the fingerlings.