Hammer creek conservation thread

[troutbert]

This is exactly why we can't even have conversations about things like this. Not a single person suggested using piscicides on Hammer Creek or "restocking with heritage strain native species", yet here we are.

How about the next time you want to claim that anyone said something, you actually quote where they said it? Go ahead, show me where anyone suggested using rotenone on Hammer creek.

We can have conversations on conservation.

The secret is to never reply to trolls.

 

[Fish Sticks]

100mph is in reference to the experiment you want. You're not isolating any variables. I'm having a hard time understanding what you want to do exactly or where you want to do it. I'll go ahead and assume you just want your experiment in the hammer creek watershed.

Correct me if im wrong, but some things I think you mention include:

Stop stocking BT and RT to protect ST from predation and because stocking BT and RT downstream of ST apparently is a major factor in preventing gene flow in ST.

Stock super male BT and RT so that they will breed with wild BT and RT and eliminate both populations.

Eliminate all hatcheries in the watershed because they use up cold water and limit the downstream range of ST within the watershed. Which then limits the maximum size of ST.

Poison the entire watershed then restock with heritage strain native species. I know rotenone kills trout, I'm not sure of its affect on other fish and I don't care enough to look it up.

I'm sure you have more ideas that I'm missing. You guys keep throwing out all of these ideas and I have no clue what you really want to do.

I would hope you guys agree that trying all of these ideas at once would be a terrible experiment.

I'm clear you want to restore the native ST population in hammer creek. If you could explain clearly how you want to do it, then come up with controlled experiment it would be a lot easier to take you seriously.

So you basically just compiled subjects I talked about state wide, in other states, and across the country intended to share examples of a variety of the efforts that have been undertaken by states who actually manage their native fish and the accused me of wanting to hodgepodge all of them in the hammer on my own when I just told you I’m not even in the decision makers seat. I Literally just told you I am going to be seeking technical support from the most knowledgeable people about this subject and implementing what they recommmed as a volunteer and you accuse me of having “an agenda”. Do you think I made up supermales or genetic rescues or invented it and now tend to apply it on my own. Do you think PAFB and all these organizations are just going to let me waltz in there and do this stuff in my own even if it’s not indicated…..are you somehow afraid I actually could do all this tuff on my own without the backing of federal science agencies, multiple NGO’s and the fish commission if it is indicated. And then it brings up the real question at stake here, are you going to continue to let me out fishing preferences and fee floating anxiety about loosing brown trout in one single stream in this state stand in the way of what’s best for brook trout if all those experts say it is in fact what needs to happen. See here I have not said at ANY point that any of this is known to be indicated in the hammer, all I have done is said these techniques are being used and there is reason to belive that if experts prescribe it for a given stream that meets the criteria that we have a reasonable expectation there is high likelyhood of some success. Any indication you have that I can some how on my own do this or unilaterally intend to or am capable of is from your own free floating anxiety about one stream of invasive brown trout out of 86,000 stream miles equating to a World War Two invasion of the little J, penns, spring ect. It’s just irrational fear obscuring an objective evaluation of the restoration tools on the hammer by experts who I know you would not be so bold against if they were aloud to come on here and rip you guys apart over your critiques of their research findings and baseless disagreements.

 

[silverfox]

Why do you doubt it? The Fish Commission began stocking brown trout in large numbers in the 1880s.

Brown trout are non-native but "took" when introduced in many places in the US in the east, midwest and west and in many different types of waters. And Canada, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile and other countries.

There is a Penn State study on Kettle Creek that George Harvey was involved with in the 1940s that found brown in Kettle Creek.

The book Vanishing Trout talks about brown trout populations in the Loyalsock drainage and other PA streams. It was written in the early 1930s and the author was old and nearly blind when he wrote it, and books typically take a few years to write and publish so he was almost certainly writing about observations in the 1920s and earlier.

Joe Humphries fished Spring Creek in the 1940s and said that catching native brook trout was rare then. It was already mostly a brown trout stream by that time.

Is there some theory that brown trout were widely stocked, but didn't "take" from the 1880s through the 1960s, then suddenly did begin to "take" after that?

I've never heard that. And what would the possible explanation be?

My point is that there's no chance every population in this state originated from a shipment of eggs from Germany in the late 1880s. Further that while the current generation of hatchery brown trout might not be fit for survival in the wild, that wasn't always the case.

In the streams that were stocked in the late 1800's/early 1900's I'm sure those fish spread. I'm sure even where we transported them by railcars etc. they spread within those watersheds. There is an awful lot of separation though and from the early limited amount of fish, it's just not feasible that there was some monumental effort undertaken to spread brown trout to every corner of the state.

I personally believe there are a lot of populations that were started more recently. Even in my lifetime, on some streams that I never saw wild browns on, now they're there. One I grew up fishing and still fish today some 30 years later. There were no railcars to that stream back then and there certainly wasn't a wild population until fairly recently.

Edit> One of the reasons on that particular stream that there were no wild browns anywhere near it was it used to be pretty polluted and didn't really support much life.

 

[silverfox]

We can have conversations on conservation.

The secret is to never reply to trolls.

Yeah, it's clear now that's his intent.

 

[silverfox]

So you basically just compiled subjects I talked about state wide, in other states, and across the country intended to share examples of a variety of the efforts that have been undertaken by states who actually manage their native fish and the accused me of wanting to hodgepodge all of them in the hammer on my own when I just told you I’m not even in the decision makers seat. I Literally just told you I am going to be seeking technical support from the most knowledgeable people about this subject and implementing what they recommmed as a volunteer and you accuse me of having “an agenda”. Do you think I made up supermales or genetic rescues or invented it and now tend to apply it on my own. Do you think PAFB and all these organizations are just going to let me waltz in there and do this stuff in my own even if it’s not indicated…..are you somehow afraid I actually could do all this tuff on my own without the backing of federal science agencies, multiple NGO’s and the fish commission if it is indicated. And then it brings up the real question at stake here, are you going to continue to let me out fishing preferences and fee floating anxiety about loosing brown trout in one single stream in this state stand in the way of what’s best for brook trout if all those experts say it is in fact what needs to happen. See here I have not said at ANY point that any of this is known to be indicated in the hammer, all I have done is said these techniques are being used and there is reason to belive that if experts prescribe it for a given stream that meets the criteria that we have a reasonable expectation there is high likelyhood of some success. Any indication you have that I can some how on my own do this or unilaterally intend to or am capable of is from your own free floating anxiety about one stream of invasive brown trout out of 86,000 stream miles equating to a World War Two invasion of the little J, penns, spring ect. It’s just irrational fear obscuring an objective evaluation of the restoration tools on the hammer by experts who I know you would not be so bold against if they were aloud to come on here and rip you guys apart over your critiques of their research findings and baseless disagreements.

After the last factless diatribe, I think it's clear it's a waste of time responding to him. See you in a few min. 😉

 

[moon1284]

After the last factless diatribe, I think it's clear it's a waste of time responding to him. See you in a few min. 😉

The title of the thread has hammer creek in it. You guys talked about all of those solutions. Like I said in my post I made the assumption it was for hammer.

To be as clear as possible, what do you think should be done to hammer?

 

[JeffP]

How about before you all remove the wild brown trout from Hammer Creek you work to restore the headwaters, get the livestock out of the stream and it’s tributaries, improve riparian buffers, stabilize some of the constantly eroding banks, divert runoff from the gravel road and cleanup all the stream side litter? I’ll help. Let me know when. Geezus.

I think that is the plan. I get why someone who has fished Hammer and caught a lot of nice trout would have reservations focusing on brook trout at the expense of an established brown trout population. Lancaster County hardly has a reputation as a great wild trout area. It's not like I've fished Hammer a ton, but I live in the area. Memories of a 12 inch brookie and fish literally flopping up Walnut Run in the fall make me think of what was lost. If you look at the Doc Fritchey website, they have put in some great projects and seem to have the technical skills to get things done.

 

[Swattie87]

We can have conversations on conservation.

The better question for this thread seems to be can we have conservation on conversations though?

 

[Fish Sticks]

The title of the thread has hammer creek in it. You guys talked about all of those solutions. Like I said in my post I made the assumption it was for hammer.

To be as clear as possible, what do you think should be done to hammer?

What is recommended by the experts actively conducting this research, that’s what I think should be done. The truth is what I think should be done is irrelevant because yes I can share their research and share their explanations given to me but they are the real qualified decision makers. I want to do what will work and if they say a certain technique will or will not work On the Hammer then that’s what I will or won’t get behind based solely on their recommendations.

 

[moon1284]

What is recommended by the experts actively conducting this research, that’s what I think should be done. The truth is what I think should be done is irrelevant because yes I can share their research and share their explanations given to me but they are the real qualified decision makers. I want to do what will work and if they say a certain technique will or will not work On the Hammer then that’s what I will or won’t get behind based solely on their recommendations.

And that is???

 

[silverfox]

The better question for this thread seems to be can we have conservation on conversations though?

Well, I mean it is a "forum". Kind of gets quite real quick when there's a conservation of conversations. Look at all the entertainment this thread has provided.

 

[Fish Sticks]

How about before you all remove the wild brown trout from Hammer Creek you work to restore the headwaters, get the livestock out of the stream and it’s tributaries, improve riparian buffers, stabilize some of the constantly eroding banks, divert runoff from the gravel road and cleanup all the stream side litter? I’ll help. Let me know when. Geezus.

The only problem is restoration problems without accounting for “biotic” interactions aka invasive species often help brown trout take over the stream like in this case study. So those things are good for water quality we intend to do a lot of those things with the intention of realizing the improvements in stream health you speak of, it’s just that as this pine creek case study shows that clean cold water doesn’t guarantee that brook trout will survive when invasive species are present. And in fact Doug deiterman and John hoxmeir did a review article on brook trout and brown trout habitat that said in bold that efforts to address one or two factors in a stream like habitat and water quality are unlikely to succeed if biotic factors are not addressed. Again it’s the idea of clean cold water as a panacea propagating the myth that we can afford to avoid the impacts of invasive species while spending millions of dollars of conservation money that really needs to be stretched and made as effective as possible. So much is just sediment and nutrient reduction which is important but people confuse hitting those goals as some kind of guarantee that we are in fact restoring for our target species. To be clear brook trout benefit from these types of projects built to the us fish and wild life habitats suitability index when alone but check out the case study, there are real concerns about what we are really doing with habitat work labeled as “for brook trout” without addressing brown trout in sympatric populations. https://www.kiaptuwish.org/wp-conte...tion-Manuscript_Wild-Trout-Symposium_0917.pdf

For anyone who points out it’s just one case study I will acknowledge that but will say this is an active area of research right now and we are going to get a high quality study on this topic in the near future that could really potentially confirm and daylight this concerning phenomenon. I will post in here if it becomes available no matter the outcome (agrees with the case study or disproves it) stay tuned.

 

[Swattie87]

Well, I mean it is a "forum". Kind of gets quite real quick when there's a conservation of conversations. Look at all the entertainment this thread has provided.

Best thread since the site conversion IMO.

 

[Fish Sticks]

And that is???

Electrosurvey this summer and await genetic data from fin clips to be processed. In addition to getting more water quality data as well. Can’t come to them and ask them for an answer before gathering the data.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Best thread since the site conversion IMO.

Have distinct feeling in future beers will be cracked in person by all members of this thread/conversation

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Have distinct feeling in future beers will be cracked in person by all members of this thread/conversation

Streamside on hammer with stocked trout over the fire?

 

[moon1284]

Have distinct feeling in future beers will be cracked in person by all members of this thread/conversation

I like drinking beers so we see eye to eye on something!

In all honesty it looks like a very nice project that was well though out. I am the camp of fix the big problem first, then the little ones. To me, the big problem there is being addressed with the habitat work.

I think the non native fish are a very minor problem (yes I used that term instead of invasive on purpose). But the way to prove that is to fix the habitat first. Once that's done and if the ST population takes a nose dive, I'd think the next step is ending stocking there. From there if ST doesnt improve you could go to some of the more radical approaches including the supermale approach (which I don't think will work), and finally poison.

Quite frankly, I don't think anything will get rid of BTs there. To me, in simple terms, the creek is better BT water than ST water and BT will find their way back in and dominate. And I think that is true with 95% of larger water in PA that held ST (at least part of the year) 100+ years ago.

BT don't automatically out compete ST or other native species. There are other factors in play. I don't know what they are but I can point to Maine as an example. BT were stocked throughout ME around the same time they were in PA. There are very few wild BT in ME. The middle Kennebec was a tremendous BT fishery as little as 15 years ago. It absolutely sucks now.

It's the same thing with RT. There are next to no wild RT in PA. I don't know why either. There are several populations in NY, and plenty in other states in the NE.

 

[silverfox]

I like drinking beers so we see eye to eye on something!

In all honesty it looks like a very nice project that was well though out. I am the camp of fix the big problem first, then the little ones. To me, the big problem there is being addressed with the habitat work.

I think the non native fish are a very minor problem (yes I used that term instead of invasive on purpose). But the way to prove that is to fix the habitat first. Once that's done and if the ST population takes a nose dive, I'd think the next step is ending stocking there. From there if ST doesnt improve you could go to some of the more radical approaches including the supermale approach (which I don't think will work), and finally poison.

Quite frankly, I don't think anything will get rid of BTs there. To me, in simple terms, the creek is better BT water than ST water and BT will find their way back in and dominate. And I think that is true with 95% of larger water in PA that held ST (at least part of the year) 100+ years ago.

BT don't automatically out compete ST or other native species. There are other factors in play. I don't know what they are but I can point to Maine as an example. BT were stocked throughout ME around the same time they were in PA. There are very few wild BT in ME. The middle Kennebec was a tremendous BT fishery as little as 15 years ago. It absolutely sucks now.

It's the same thing with RT. There are next to no wild RT in PA. I don't know why either. There are several populations in NY, and plenty in other states in the NE.

I swore I wouldn't respond to you, but since you're actually talking about the subject and not misquoting or making personal attacks, I'll bite.

I'm not sure I subscribe to the "field of dreams" concept in general, but c'est la vie. Especially in this state.

In general, I don't think it's necessarily fair or wise to compare PA to ME or UT or CA or WA for that matter. The BT issues in ME are anyone's guess, but I'd bet it's temperature, and maybe poor source stock along w/ other issues.

Down south, RT are the primary issue species. To the point they displace BT. I always think it's funny how there's no feverish support for wild RT in PA like there is for BT. Really shows it's all about species preference, nothing else.

 

[moon1284]

I swore I wouldn't respond to you, but since you're actually talking about the subject and not misquoting or making personal attacks, I'll bite.

I'm not sure I subscribe to the "field of dreams" concept in general, but c'est la vie. Especially in this state.

In general, I don't think it's necessarily fair or wise to compare PA to ME or UT or CA or WA for that matter. The BT issues in ME are anyone's guess, but I'd bet it's temperature, and maybe poor source stock along w/ other issues.

Down south, RT are the primary issue species. To the point they displace BT. I always think it's funny how there's no feverish support for wild RT in PA like there is for BT. Really shows it's all about species preference, nothing else.

So I've never misquoted and my personal attacks were pretty tame. I disagree temp is the issue in ME because a lot of these waters have good ST and LLS populations. Granted LLS have a higher temperature tolerance than BT, but the ST are still there.

Agree RT are a problem in the south. There's not support for wild RT in PA because with the exception of Big Spring, Falling Spring and probably a couple others I don't know about wild RT in PA (and most of NY) are generally the size of ST and will never provide a good recreational fishery. Big Spring provides such a unique RT fishery there's really no way it will ever get messed with.

I used to see very big presumably wild BT in Big Spring when I first started fishing it (07 or so). I can't remember the last time I saw one.

To get any traction towards removal of RT in Big Spring, there would need to be a good population of ST over say 15-inches. I'm not saying that wouldn't happen if RT were eradicated, but I think fighting for removal of RT from Big Spring is more or less a waste of time. There are better battles to fight.

 

[pcray1231]

Is there some theory that brown trout were widely stocked, but didn't "take" from the 1880s through the 1960s, then suddenly did begin to "take" after that?

I think it's quite the opposite. They took like wildfire in the 1880's into the early 1990's. More recent stockings have had less success as far becoming naturalized. I'm not saying NONE. But by and large wild stock already existed and the uptake of modern stockie DNA is limited to an extent.