Heritage Strain Brook Trout

[Wildbrowntrout]

I was recently reading a post from 2010 about the word "sensitive" in relation to brook trout. As I got further into the pages, I saw some talk about "Heritage Strain Brookies" and I realized that I might have a stream like this at my hunting cabin property. I know the history of the place back to when the first people went there. There was a lot of logging done, but in different parts of the property that are nowhere close to the creek. No human, (from our cabin at least, it's heavily posted and enforced to outsiders), has been down to the creek. Ever. Not even for driving deer. Until of course, I hiked over to it with my fly rod and caught a bunch of brookies. No brownies caught or even seen. (Creek is about 1ft wide and at the time, like 6" deep.) My question is, what are the chances that it could be a heritage strain brook trout stream this day and age? Also, there is another that people have been near a lot that is smaller than the first one, and still holds trout. Before anybody says "they just swam up from a stocked creek, it's FAR too shallow and filled with waterfalls over 2ft high. Not saying that a brookie couldn't jump a 2 foot waterfall, but it seems unlikely for them to swim up a creek like this. Thanks guys!

 

[sandfly]

if there was logging in the area, then most likely the brookies were wiped out, and replaced with other from elsewhere.

 

[Wildbrowntrout]

Logging was only twice, once 3 years ago, and the other, 1 year ago. I have 1800 acres, and the creek is on the edge of the property... 4 miles away. Logs were hauled off in the opposite direction. No way logging could have interfered. History of I being private however only goes back to 1903 where a bunch of Italians and others came and mined coal up in some of the mountains higher up.

 

[salmonoid]

So when it was logged 3 years ago, where they cutting virgin timber? If not, it was logged sometime in the past 200 years...

 

[mr7183]

Think Kitchen Creek in RGSP has heritage strain brookies?

 

[SteveG]

There are likely only a handful of areas in the state that have never been logged. I was in one once, and it was like a different world from the typical forest just on the other side of the road. Largest hemlocks I've ever seen, and the falls and plunge pools of the creek were beautiful.

 

[pcray1231]

Yeah, the logging devastation is not modern times. Modern selective logging and small clearcuts don't wipe out full watersheds these days. We're talking about the late 1800s, early 1900s. 99% of the trees in the northern tier were taken in a 40-50 year period, and clearcutting left solid areas the size of counties barren simultaneously.

Brookies were wiped out or nearly so from areas as large as say, the Pine Creek drainage.

But on a larger scale, as the areas recover, watersheds would repopulate from areas not yet hit. Then when those regions get hit and recover, they repopulate from the 1st watershed.

Overall, I'm sure there's plenty of "original" DNA left. But originally, each watershed likely had a unique strain. Today most probably have a mish mash of original strains mixed together with some stockie influence thrown in for good measure.

To find a truly intact heritage strain, you'd be looking not only for isolation in the form of waterfalls, but also likely a substantial area of virgin forest. Or maybe in southeast pa, which was settled more slowly with ancient homesteads and thus never devastated large watersheds so uniformly and quickly.

 

[troutbert]

There was a study that strongly indicates that the genetics most of the brook trout in NJ are closely derived from the original strains, not from hatchery fish brought in from elsewhere.

I think the same is probably true in PA.

 

[pcray1231]

Derived from a mix of original heritage strains, yeah. But that's not a heritage strain. A heritage strain is a non mix, still relatively pure. Like where Pine Creek drainage fish are substantially different than Kettle Creek drainage fish are different than 1st Fork drainage fish. What we probably have now is all those heritage strains blended. I wouldn't be shocked if there's still substantial differences between Allegheny, Susquehanna, and Delaware fish, though. Different mixes.

New Jersey is probably more likely to find such a true heritage strain than most of PA, and southern PA more likely than northern. If it was settled slowly one homestead at a time you got more of a chance. Never was there a massive disruption to all parts of a watershed at the same relative time. The northern tier situation would be more difficult, although I'm sure pockets survived, they likely were small and well mixed when the watershed recovered.

Limestone are good bets too. Warmed water temps and massive flooding from deforested regions would be far less devastating if you have karst and large cold springs. It'd also reduce siltation from direct runoff.

 

[troutbert]

pcray1231 wrote:
Derived from a mix of original heritage strains, yeah.

That's not at all what the study found.

You can find the study here:
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/bkt_genetics.htm

 

[pcray1231]

I got a different take from it.

It did reveal that most, but not all, populations had not been impacted by stocked fish interbreeding with the native population. That's a good thing, and yeah, I suspect the same is more often than not true here.

It also revealed large differences between populations in unconnected watersheds, which is hardly a surprise. Equivalent of our Delaware, Susquehanna, and Allegheny drainage. As I said, yes, I'd think these would be unrelated here too. An Allegheny trib won't repopulate from Susquehanna fish.

But between streams in connected watersheds, real differences where found but far lesser. What's that mean? I dunno, and either did the researchers, because we don't know what degree of difference there'd be if they were truly heritage strains vs. repopulated from a common population 130 years ago and then largely isolated to genetically diverge from that point forward.

They did say the Delaware tributaries had the least uniqueness. That means a more recent common ancestor. Due to less heritage like populations? Or just being a larger river and thus more natural travel?

 

[JeffK]

I'm pretty familiar with the NJ work and it is amazing that in an abused place like NJ there are strong indications that some heritage strains survived. In some areas of North Central NJ the hatchery genes popped up, but in the Raritan drainage the evidence was strong for heritage strains. The Delaware tribs weren't studied much so there is a lack of data.

Roughly 30 streams were studied in an assortment of drainages. The study was done at East Stroudsburg U using old equipment, so the amount of work that could be done was limited. With state-of-art sampling equipment, the work could go a lot faster.

The first thing noted was that the fish in each stream could be identified as coming from that stream with 95% confidence. Each stream does have its own population.

The evidence for heritage strain in the absence of old samples is that each drainage could also be identified and within each drainage the fish varied along its length in a manner that suggested recolonization after the glacial events.

For a long time NJ stocked the Nassua strain of brookies, which can be identified. Before NJ built its hatchery in 1912, they got brookies from PA hatcheries, notably the Queen City/Little Lehigh hatchery. Who knows what that could do. Also there are two oddballs; one stream within 3 miles of Manhattan and one stream in the Trump Golf Course in Camden Co. It's hard to say much about these because there are no near neighbors. The urban stream fish survived because a club built a small dam for a swimming hole in which a few brookies survived. NJ claimed it's brookies were wiped out in the drought of the 1880's. While it was a major population collapse, brookies found places to survive and many streams came back. A few fish can find odd places to survive.

 

[troutbert]

JeffK wrote:
I'm pretty familiar with the NJ work and it is amazing that in an abused place like NJ there are strong indications that some heritage strains survived. In some areas of North Central NJ the hatchery genes popped up, but in the Raritan drainage the evidence was strong for heritage strains. The Delaware tribs weren't studied much so there is a lack of data.

Roughly 30 streams were studied in an assortment of drainages. The study was done at East Stroudsburg U using old equipment, so the amount of work that could be done was limited. With state-of-art sampling equipment, the work could go a lot faster.

The first thing noted was that the fish in each stream could be identified as coming from that stream with 95% confidence. Each stream does have its own population.

The evidence for heritage strain in the absence of old samples is that each drainage could also be identified and within each drainage the fish varied along its length in a manner that suggested recolonization after the glacial events.

In some ways it's amazing that so much of the original brook trout genetics remains, but it's also understandable.

There are historical accounts of people fishing for native brook trout all through the logging boom era (roughly 1860s to 1920) and in the years following.

I never read any historical account that said the brook trout were wiped out.

What they say is that the brookie populations in the lower, larger waters of the big freestone drainages were hammered, but the brookies remained in the smaller headwaters and tribs streams.

This is the account given in The Vanishing Trout. Charles Lose fished NC PA through the logging boom. He talks about the loss of the brook trout in the big water on the Loyalsock, but also talks about the brookies still being in the smaller streams.

And this corresponds to the other historical accounts from Kettle Creek and other places. On the smaller streams the logging surely hurt the populations, but there is no indication from the historical record that it eradicated them.

There are photos and descriptions of people fishing for brookies at the splash dams and sawmill ponds that were very common during the boom, and for years after.

Suppose all the trees were cut down in brookie streams today. Would the brook trout would be eradicated? No. The water comes out of the ground at about 48F - 50F in the mountain streams. So the upper parts of the stream would stay cold enough for brookies even if all the shade was eliminated.

And after logging or severe fires eliminate the tree canopy, brush and other vegetation comes in very quickly, providing some shade, and stabilizing the soils and banks.

There was massive clearcutting in many places in the west at a later date than PA's logging boom, in places like Oregon, Washington, British Columbia.

I've seen some of these places in the Coast Range in Oregon. They cut every tree in the drainage. Those areas are growing back now with small diameter trees, and incredibly thick brush. But there are NO large old trees left. They cut ALL of them.

But the trout and salmon were never eradicated. The populations were no doubt hurt badly, but they were not eliminated. They are still there.

 

[Swattie87]

A lasting impact from the logging era in PA I think is that the surviving, headwater Brook Trout that ultimately repopulated logged areas likely have even further shifted our current wild strains toward smaller, rapidly maturing, headwater type fish. Sure there is likely some varying stockie strain in there too, but for the most part the individual genetics of the fish that inhabited the lower reaches of the larger NC freestoners are gone. These fish were larger, and likely marginally more temperature tolerant than the Brookies in the headwaters of the watershed. Those types of Brookies generally stopped existing in those streams after their watersheds were initially logged. The introduction of species (Brown Trout/Smallmouth Bass) that can out-compete Brookies in these larger, more fertile, but marginal temperature wise environments doesn't help either. Our current Brookies are built to do exactly what they're doing...grow up fast, and survive and reproduce in an environment with cold water and relatively little food.

As far at the strains across different watersheds, it makes sense that as you go downstream the genetic variation increases...As a subset of the whole, fish in Cross Fork Creek are genetically more similar than all fish in the Kettle Creek watershed. Fish in the Kettle Creek watershed are genetically more similar than all fish in the WB Susky watershed. Fish in the WB Susky watershed are genetically more similar than all fish in the Susky watershed. Etc. I'm sure the genetics are different now than they were in all of these environments (at least to some degree) prior to the logging era, but the above applies pre-logging and post-logging. For example the mouths of Cross Fork Creek and Hammersley Fork are about 3 stream miles apart, connected by Kettle Creek. Kettle Creek and Pine Creek's mouths are about 40 stream miles apart, connected by the WB Susky. It's much more likely that a Brookie moves between Cross Fork and Hammersley and reproduces than between Kettle Creek and Pine Creek. Although both circumstances are certainly possible.