sarce
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2013
- Messages
- 1,504
In short: my home stream needs some big time help.
I started fishing this little creek, an unnamed trib to the East Branch Brandywine south of Downingtown, when I was 12 or 13. A housing development was in the first planning stages and a DEP (I think) survey of the creek downhill of the site turned up native brook trout. My dad read about it in the newspaper and told me about it. One summer day, I walked about half an hour from my house to get to this creek. I crept up to the edge of the water above a deep undercut bank. When I looked over the edge, five native brookies were looking back at me. I've been fishing there (first with spinners, later with flies) ever since.
The little creek was awesome!! There were always at least one or two 8-9" brookies in every pool, and 4 or 5 in the deepest holes. There were loads of creek chubs and blacknose dace as well, which I would occasionally net for bass bait. Young brookies often turned up in the net as well (I resisted the temptation to use them for bait :-D ). All of this existed within earshot of lawn mowers and barking dogs in the huge neighborhood just up the road.
For a while when I was younger I felt uncomfortable going there alone. Locals use the unpaved road here for all kinds of questionable purposes. One day dad and I drove up the road, occasionally dodging dumped window AC units along the way. Most of the pulloffs are dumping areas for christmas trees and broken furniture. I've even seen a few drug deals take place while I was fishing quietly in the woods away from the road and out of sight to anyone not looking closely.
Fast forward to yesterday. I am moving to the DC area in September so I wanted to fish this creek before I left. I fished the entire accessible length of creek and hit double digits for the first time ever here. So what's the problem??
The stream has degraded quickly in the past 7-8 years. Many of the tree root systems that used to hold trout have washed away and the pools partially filled in with silt. The channel is about 1.5-2X wider in places than I remember it, and most pools have gotten shallower. Log jams that used to make nice plunge pools below them have been blown out and the sediment they held back filled in the plunge pools. The one positive: the water itself still runs cold and clean.
9 of the 10 brookies I caught yesterday were less than 4" long. I fished about one mile of water, maybe a little more. I intentionally spooked and walked through every pool after fishing it to try and see how many adult trout I could find. I counted exactly 14 total. Based on that, I would estimate the adult trout population has declined by 70-80% in the past 7 years.
I was very encouraged to see so many young of the year (YOY) brook trout. I can't say I have ever seen so many! In several pools I counted at least 10 little guys. But it makes me wonder...if the creek can only support 1-2 dozen adult trout now...where are all of these little guys going to grow up?? Is the explosion of young trout just mother nature's last-ditch effort to keep the population alive?
I realize fish populations go in cycles, but if the habitat is continually disappearing, I fear all of these young trout will essentially go to waste. If we can go a year or two without more of the massive rainstorms that have been rearranging this stream seemingly multiple times a year, there should be some recovery. 2012 was a good year with good numbers of adult fish, but not how it used to be.
I am not sure the cause of the decline can be placed on one thing. I included satellite maps from sometime between 2003-2006 (loosely drew the watershed boundary on this) and another from google earth today. On the old one, you can see that the watershed has been pretty developed for decades now. On today's map, you can see the new development I mentioned on the southern edge of the watershed.
As I mentioned, flooding has been a major issue here. Every time one flushes the silt out of some pools and makes a few new ones...another flood fills them back in before the fish can establish themselves. The constant flooding has widened the channel and taken out tree root habitat. I don't know that the new development is to blame, but it may have been the tipping point. Either that, or we have just been unlucky with weather.
I would like to get an idea if there is any chance that some habitat work could be done on this little creek. A few crib shelters and some erosion control would do wonders. I have no idea if the property owners would go for it, but for where this creek is, it seems too special to lose. If nothing is done and we don't catch a break with the flooding, these trout will be gone within 10 years (probably within 5).
If anyone would like to check out the creek for themselves, shoot me a PM. I do not think now is the time to be secretive about it (just about anyone could figure it out from the info and pics I've given here). I have told a few forum members about it in the past. I could meet up to show anyone around before the end of the month (except tomorrow and this coming weekend). The fishing is mediocre, but it is still a neat place just to see that these fish are still holding on where they are...and to see the damage that has been done.
BTW, this stream is not on the PFBC natural reproduction list.
Here are some pics from yesterday...sorry some are a bit blurry, my phone camera wasn't doing so well with the lighting.
I started fishing this little creek, an unnamed trib to the East Branch Brandywine south of Downingtown, when I was 12 or 13. A housing development was in the first planning stages and a DEP (I think) survey of the creek downhill of the site turned up native brook trout. My dad read about it in the newspaper and told me about it. One summer day, I walked about half an hour from my house to get to this creek. I crept up to the edge of the water above a deep undercut bank. When I looked over the edge, five native brookies were looking back at me. I've been fishing there (first with spinners, later with flies) ever since.
The little creek was awesome!! There were always at least one or two 8-9" brookies in every pool, and 4 or 5 in the deepest holes. There were loads of creek chubs and blacknose dace as well, which I would occasionally net for bass bait. Young brookies often turned up in the net as well (I resisted the temptation to use them for bait :-D ). All of this existed within earshot of lawn mowers and barking dogs in the huge neighborhood just up the road.
For a while when I was younger I felt uncomfortable going there alone. Locals use the unpaved road here for all kinds of questionable purposes. One day dad and I drove up the road, occasionally dodging dumped window AC units along the way. Most of the pulloffs are dumping areas for christmas trees and broken furniture. I've even seen a few drug deals take place while I was fishing quietly in the woods away from the road and out of sight to anyone not looking closely.
Fast forward to yesterday. I am moving to the DC area in September so I wanted to fish this creek before I left. I fished the entire accessible length of creek and hit double digits for the first time ever here. So what's the problem??
The stream has degraded quickly in the past 7-8 years. Many of the tree root systems that used to hold trout have washed away and the pools partially filled in with silt. The channel is about 1.5-2X wider in places than I remember it, and most pools have gotten shallower. Log jams that used to make nice plunge pools below them have been blown out and the sediment they held back filled in the plunge pools. The one positive: the water itself still runs cold and clean.
9 of the 10 brookies I caught yesterday were less than 4" long. I fished about one mile of water, maybe a little more. I intentionally spooked and walked through every pool after fishing it to try and see how many adult trout I could find. I counted exactly 14 total. Based on that, I would estimate the adult trout population has declined by 70-80% in the past 7 years.
I was very encouraged to see so many young of the year (YOY) brook trout. I can't say I have ever seen so many! In several pools I counted at least 10 little guys. But it makes me wonder...if the creek can only support 1-2 dozen adult trout now...where are all of these little guys going to grow up?? Is the explosion of young trout just mother nature's last-ditch effort to keep the population alive?
I realize fish populations go in cycles, but if the habitat is continually disappearing, I fear all of these young trout will essentially go to waste. If we can go a year or two without more of the massive rainstorms that have been rearranging this stream seemingly multiple times a year, there should be some recovery. 2012 was a good year with good numbers of adult fish, but not how it used to be.
I am not sure the cause of the decline can be placed on one thing. I included satellite maps from sometime between 2003-2006 (loosely drew the watershed boundary on this) and another from google earth today. On the old one, you can see that the watershed has been pretty developed for decades now. On today's map, you can see the new development I mentioned on the southern edge of the watershed.
As I mentioned, flooding has been a major issue here. Every time one flushes the silt out of some pools and makes a few new ones...another flood fills them back in before the fish can establish themselves. The constant flooding has widened the channel and taken out tree root habitat. I don't know that the new development is to blame, but it may have been the tipping point. Either that, or we have just been unlucky with weather.
I would like to get an idea if there is any chance that some habitat work could be done on this little creek. A few crib shelters and some erosion control would do wonders. I have no idea if the property owners would go for it, but for where this creek is, it seems too special to lose. If nothing is done and we don't catch a break with the flooding, these trout will be gone within 10 years (probably within 5).
If anyone would like to check out the creek for themselves, shoot me a PM. I do not think now is the time to be secretive about it (just about anyone could figure it out from the info and pics I've given here). I have told a few forum members about it in the past. I could meet up to show anyone around before the end of the month (except tomorrow and this coming weekend). The fishing is mediocre, but it is still a neat place just to see that these fish are still holding on where they are...and to see the damage that has been done.
BTW, this stream is not on the PFBC natural reproduction list.
Here are some pics from yesterday...sorry some are a bit blurry, my phone camera wasn't doing so well with the lighting.
