Interesting, albeit heavy-handed read about Project Future (remember that?)

[Nymph-wristed]

I like the part about how stocked trout like people :lol:

http://articles.philly.com/1991-07-26/news/25783376_1_hatchery-trout-wild-trout-brook-and-rainbow

Prime example of how PFBC can spin science into propaganda in any direction it would like...

 

[Mike]

Remember, the article is from 1991.

Also, "like people" was in reference to how a mass of hatchery trout, expecting to be fed, would follow people as they walked along a raceway.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

Mike wrote:
Remember, the article is from 1991.

Also, "like people" was in reference to how a mass of hatchery trout, expecting to be fed, would follow people as they walked along a raceway.

Yes, no doubt quoted out of context, I hope. But that's not how it necessarily reads or how the non-fishing public read it at the time. I was a college student in NEPA at the time, and I was all for letting wild fish thrive and not stocking over wild populations. Still am. But since I live in Philly, I selfishly would like to fish places other than Valley every week.

The piece is a mess in other ways too, however. Where did the wild browns come from, I wonder, if no hatchery fish survive?

The only even-handed comments seem to come from the man releasing stockies in the Ridley FFO....

 

[troutbert]

Interesting article, thanks for posting it.

I'm not clear what is meant by spin in the article, though.

 

[Mike]

The comment about PFBC trout not surviving did not come from a PFBC employee.

Like Troutbert, I am wondering what you are referring to as spin.

I am also not fully understanding your comment about Valley Ck or Valley Ck alternatives.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Bachman wasn't a PFBC employee?

 

[Mike]

According to the article he was employed by Maryland at that time.

Readers may also find the Valley Ck info interesting in the context of some Troutbert comments in the past regarding the pressure exerted at times by those who don't want a stream removed from the stocking program. This article appeared almost a decade later, yet it was still apparently a topic of discussion.

 

[troutbert]

The article has me curious about the history of Operation Future, and what led up to it.

Mike, maybe you can answer that.

Can you describe what led to the Fish Commission's decision to begin Operation Future?

The article talks about the Bachman study's influence. But wasn't the direction of trout fisheries management in the US moving in that direction for many years before the late 1970s?

Yellowstone Park moved in that direction in the 1940s. Michigan shifted towards wild trout management pretty early (early 1960s?), as I recall. And some of the western states. I'm not sure when Montana made the move.

 

[troutbert]

Nymph-wristed wrote:

Where did the wild browns come from, I wonder, if no hatchery fish survive?

Brown trout were imported from Europe and Great Britain and introduced into PA streams in the 1800s, and have been reproducing ever since.

Their situation is the same as the introduced species carp and English sparrows. The environment here was suitable to them, so they immediately formed self maintaining populations. Their populations are maintained in the same way as native species, through natural reproduction.

No further stocking is needed to maintain the population.

Another example is smallmouth bass in the Delaware River, the Susquehanna and their many tributaries. They were not native to these drainages, but once introduced there, they reproduced and spread, and formed well established populations that are self maintaining.

It's exactly the same with the brown trout.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I'm not understanding why that needed pointed out.

Did the fish not survive or did they?
If he was a PFBC employee they survived and when he wasn't they did?

 

[Mike]

The program did not have a name until the six years of work behind it was almost completed. It had its roots in the effort to find a better way to manage stocked trout fisheries and allocate adult stocked trout based on a stream Section classification system rather than political ( county lines) boundaries and characteristics within those boundaries, such as license sales, amount of public land, and I recall correctly, census data.

As part of the new system management was going to include removing stream sections with high biomasses of wild trout from the stocking program, but there was no preconceived notion of what a high biomass was. That was going to be based on the six years of stocked trout stream surveys, which included many wild trout streams that happened to be stocked as well. It took six years because EVERY stocked trout stream was surveyed in the state, and not just minor surveys,,given the breadth of biological, chemical, physical, and social data that were collected and the percentage of each section's length that needed to be electrofished.

Protocols were developed in 1975, many of which we still follow today, and surveys began in 1976. The first three surveys in which I participated as a first year seasonal at the time (1976) were Havice, Treaster, and Meadow Cks/Rns in Mifflin Co.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

I haven't seen the historical data back that far, but I know the current move to stop stocking coincides with an era of dwindling licence sales. Did Operation Future arise in an era when dwindling licence sales began?

I didn't mean to disparage the PFBC here, but the article itself has an agenda from the title onward. If the tenor of it came from the interview with Bachman, and he was integral in the formative years of Operation Future, then I just wonder if he was a fisherman's best ally.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

troutbert wrote:

Nymph-wristed wrote:

Where did the wild browns come from, I wonder, if no hatchery fish survive?

Brown trout were imported from Europe and Great Britain and introduced into PA streams in the 1800s, and have been reproducing ever since.

Their situation is the same as the introduced species carp and English sparrows. The environment here was suitable to them, so they immediately formed self maintaining populations. Their populations are maintained in the same way as native species, through natural reproduction.

No further stocking is needed to maintain the population.

Another example is smallmouth bass in the Delaware River, the Susquehanna and their many tributaries. They were not native to these drainages, but once introduced there, they reproduced and spread, and formed well established populations that are self maintaining.

It's exactly the same with the brown trout.

Well aware of all this. I just fear we are moving to a time when I can't take my kid for some stockies down the street. The only wild trout on public land near me is Valley. I just wonder if Operation Future and our current path are tied to things, like budgets and dwindling interest, that had little to do with the science of the time. FFO and DHALO are tied to an old way of thinking too. Are they next to go and will science be used to justify?

 

[allan_s]

So you are upset that PFBC stopped stocking a lot of wild trout streams with Operation Future?

 

[troutbert]

Nymph-wristed wrote:

troutbert wrote:

Nymph-wristed wrote:

Where did the wild browns come from, I wonder, if no hatchery fish survive?

Brown trout were imported from Europe and Great Britain and introduced into PA streams in the 1800s, and have been reproducing ever since.

Their situation is the same as the introduced species carp and English sparrows. The environment here was suitable to them, so they immediately formed self maintaining populations. Their populations are maintained in the same way as native species, through natural reproduction.

No further stocking is needed to maintain the population.

Another example is smallmouth bass in the Delaware River, the Susquehanna and their many tributaries. They were not native to these drainages, but once introduced there, they reproduced and spread, and formed well established populations that are self maintaining.

It's exactly the same with the brown trout.

Well aware of all this.

If you knew all that, why did you ask:

"Where did the wild browns come from, I wonder, if no hatchery fish survive?"

My reply was simply answering that question.

 

[AndyP]

I don't get where the OP is headed with this. There is plenty of stocked water in SEPA to take your kid to go fishing. And a few places for wild fish too ....

 

[Nymph-wristed]

troutbert wrote:

Nymph-wristed wrote:

troutbert wrote:

Nymph-wristed wrote:

Where did the wild browns come from, I wonder, if no hatchery fish survive?

Brown trout were imported from Europe and Great Britain and introduced into PA streams in the 1800s, and have been reproducing ever since.

Their situation is the same as the introduced species carp and English sparrows. The environment here was suitable to them, so they immediately formed self maintaining populations. Their populations are maintained in the same way as native species, through natural reproduction.

No further stocking is needed to maintain the population.

Another example is smallmouth bass in the Delaware River, the Susquehanna and their many tributaries. They were not native to these drainages, but once introduced there, they reproduced and spread, and formed well established populations that are self maintaining.

It's exactly the same with the brown trout.

Well aware of all this.

If you knew all that, why did you ask:

"Where did the wild browns come from, I wonder, if no hatchery fish survive?"

My reply was simply answering that question.

Sorry, it was a hypothetical question asked of a fallacy in the original story that's all. Someone who didn't know better would believe the logical fallacy that because no stocked trout lived in Bachman's study that stocked trout don't live and hold over and become wild fish, the wild fish we are fighting to protect today.

I just ask questions. It's a curse to be cynical of the messages I want to believe as well as the messages I don't. I have fly fished for years (I am 47). I belong to TU and Stripers Forever. But I was the liberal who felt sorry for Charleton Heston when Michael Moore jumped him at home. I will sit through a cringe worthy Fox News broadcast to test my conviction to something I just heard on MSNBC. This article is bad journalism, and if the tenor of it was sparked by a scientist who's research purportedly lead the charge for that last sea change in PFBC policy, I just think we should question the latest move. Mentored Youth, debating non-hunter's access to SGL's, opening more streams to bait fishermen. Is it science or a budget crisis? Or is it a chicken/egg situation? Fewer licenses because management and stocking of ATW's has declined to the point that the kids would rather chase carp and flatheads? Just questions, fellas...

I also appreciate Mike's input. He is a real resource to this site! I am not attacking the PFBC, but I am questioning the motive for the move to opening wild streams to all tackle and bait when all tackle and bait used to be reserved for "pelletheads" and "lawn chair anglers."