LJRA To Discuss Upper Bells Gap Run Brown Trout Removal

[silverfox]

If the PFBC does not give "two wet f*cks about brook trout" as you say, why is it that in 1983 they increased the minimum size limit for creeling native brook trout from 6" to 7" after their biologists learned that the fastest growing native brookies were reaching 6" just about the same time as when fishing pressure was highest on native brookie streams; and therefore the fastest growers were getting cropped off in favor of the slow growers? This change was done expressly and specifically to protect native brook trout. Any intelligent angler who fishes for native brookies will tell you that this regulation change made a huge difference in the size of native brookies. I have my fishing data to prove it.

If you don't think the PFBC cares about native brook trout, would you be in favor of changing the minimum size back to 6"?

in 1983. Since then?

I do believe there are some folks at PFBC who do care. The stocking authorization should help brook trout. However, just like the 1983 size limit change, it also benefits brown trout and rainbow trout. So it's hardly a brook trout regulation. I liked the analogy someone posted on Facebook. A vehicle code that applies to all vehicles can't be considered an antique vehicle code just because antique vehicles are vehicles.

They may increase the size limit again, and again, it might benefit brook trout more than other species. However, yet again (reinforcing what I said in post #159) they'll apply it to all species. So the only people who realize it's primarily for brook trout are people who understand trout length differences between species and put 2 and 2 together. They just can't quite seem to do anything specifically for brook trout. They don't seem to have any problem doing things explicitly for brown trout though. Their bias keeps getting more and more obvious by the day.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

Franks PFBC brook trout conservation logic summed up:

Forty years ago I bought my kid a birthday present but haven't lifted a finger since other than my middle.

I'm a good Dad.
🤣

There is so much more to do and that could be done. I mean really low hanging fruit too.
Like not stocking over them.

But this one act, almost a half century ago makes it all good.😂

 

[FrankTroutAngler]

Yes plenty read up.

One thing you’ll learn about me is what I say is driven by the fisheries science I read. Otherwise I would never be able to keep up with all the “what aboutisms” and baseless attacks on brook trout conservation Bdhoover mentioned.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/rec.12925

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rec.13678

https://www.kiaptuwish.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Pine-Creek-Case-Study_Final-Presentation-Manuscript_Wild-Trout-Symposium_0917.pdf

Any chance you can just state in your own words how they are misappropriating funds rather than linking me to a bunch of scientific studies done in other states and then having me try to figure out how exactly they show the PFBC is misappropriating funds?

 

[sixfootfenwick]

in 1983. Since then?

I do believe there are some folks at PFBC who do care. The stocking authorization should help brook trout. However, just like the 1983 size limit change, it also benefits brown trout and rainbow trout. So it's hardly a brook trout regulation. I liked the analogy someone posted on Facebook. A vehicle code that applies to all vehicles can't be considered an antique vehicle code just because antique vehicles are vehicles.

They may increase the size limit again, and again, it might benefit brook trout more than other species. However, yet again (reinforcing what I said in post #159) they'll apply it to all species. So the only people who realize it's primarily for brook trout are people who understand trout length differences between species and put 2 and 2 together. They just can't quite seem to do anything specifically for brook trout. They don't seem to have any problem doing things explicitly for brown trout though. Their bias keeps getting more and more obvious by the day.

Frank won't see that analogy. He deleted his comments in that thread and left.

 

[silverfox]

Franks PFBC brook trout conservation logic summed up:

Forty years ago I bought my kid a birthday present but haven't lifted a finger since other than my middle.

I'm a good Dad.
🤣

There is so much more to do and that could be done. I mean really low hanging fruit too.
Like not stocking over them.

But this one act, almost a half century ago makes it all good.😂

All they needed to do was pose for a photo op on an aircraft carrier with a banner saying mission accomplished.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Any chance you can just state in your own words how they are misappropriating funds rather than linking me to a bunch of scientific studies done in other states and then having me try to figure out how exactly they show the PFBC is misappropriating funds?

This research shows brook trout cannot benefit from engineered habitat projects that are supposedly to help brook trout if invasive brown trout are present because the brook trout get pushed out and the brown trout wind up using the deeper habitat with overhead cover to grow the population and push out the brook trout. So PFBC’s stream projects and sanctioned projects for jack dams, lunker bunkers, mudsills ect on streams with both species is essentially brook trout erradication branded as brook trout conservation.

 

[troutbert]

No one has presented any evidence that the PFBC has opposed this project.

 

[Fish Sticks]

If the PFBC does not give "two wet f*cks about brook trout" as you say, why is it that in 1983 they increased the minimum size limit for creeling native brook trout from 6" to 7" after their biologists learned that the fastest growing native brookies were reaching 6" just about the same time as when fishing pressure was highest on native brookie streams; and therefore the fastest growers were getting cropped off in favor of the slow growers? This change was done expressly and specifically to protect native brook trout. Any intelligent angler who fishes for native brookies will tell you that this regulation change made a huge difference in the size of native brookies. I have my fishing data to prove it.

If you don't think the PFBC cares about native brook trout, would you be in favor of changing the minimum size back to 6"?

If they cared about brook trout they would have made it c and r brook trout or made it 7” brook trout and named the species specifically.

 

[silverfox]

No one has presented any evidence that the PFBC has opposed this project.

As Mike said earlier, there is a big difference between PFBC approving permits and PFBC actively supporting/promoting, or initiating the project.

I have zero doubts they'll approve the project. I would bet cold hard cash that is the absolute extent of their involvement. I would absolutely love to be proven wrong.

 

[Fish Sticks]

No one has presented any evidence that the PFBC has opposed this project.

No one here claimed they had denied the permit. I said they would do it but “like a 7year old made to do their homework” if you look back

 

[sixfootfenwick]

Here is so more info from the LJRA on it

 

[sixfootfenwick]

 

[sixfootfenwick]

That last comment is telling.

 

[FrankTroutAngler]

in 1983. Since then?

I do believe there are some folks at PFBC who do care. The stocking authorization should help brook trout. However, just like the 1983 size limit change, it also benefits brown trout and rainbow trout. So it's hardly a brook trout regulation. I liked the analogy someone posted on Facebook. A vehicle code that applies to all vehicles can't be considered an antique vehicle code just because antique vehicles are vehicles.

They may increase the size limit again, and again, it might benefit brook trout more than other species. However, yet again (reinforcing what I said in post #159) they'll apply it to all species. So the only people who realize it's primarily for brook trout are people who understand trout length differences between species and put 2 and 2 together. They just can't quite seem to do anything specifically for brook trout. They don't seem to have any problem doing things explicitly for brown trout though. Their bias keeps getting more and more obvious by the day.

The change to a 7" minimum size limit done in 1983 is still in effect and working well to this day.

The problem with the vehicle code analogy on Facebook is that it was not done to regulate antique vehicles and then applied to all vehicles. The minimum size limit changing from 6" to 7" was done specifically and expressly to aid native brook trout but included all other trout species for ease of understanding for the fishing public and for law enforcement. In logic terms, the analogy on Facebook is what is called a False Analogy.

I can think of at least a dozen streams in just Blair County alone that have native brook trout and no other species of trout. Seems to me the 7" minimum size limit is specifically for native brook trout in those streams. Ditto the creel limit going from 8 to 5 many years ago. That protected native brook trout as well.

 

[Zak]

My statement of 100% failure is absolutely a very serious post. Any biologist is going to tell you if you don't remove almost all of the brown trout they're going to come back and quickly. It's just the way it is if the habitat and food sources are there they're going to make their way back especially when you're leaving for miles of stream with wild Browns available to repopulate. You're clearly a really intelligent person and your posts are well put together and well thought out. I respect your thoughts completely but in this case I know from experience and for fact that those fish are going to move right back in there and angling pressure isn't going to do a darn thing about it simply because no matter what you do you're not going to generate enough fishing pressure there to matter. Regardless of whether I support this cause or don't is Irrelevant in the fact that you're not going to get enough angling pressure in there killing the remainder of the browns, not that that would work anyways. And unless they shock everything multiple times day after day after day you're not going to catch all the Browns in that 2 mi section anyhow and they're just going to come back. The PA fishing boat commission shocks the same 300 yard stretch of stream two days in a row and I could be corrected but I still don't think they catch all the fish in that stretch during those two days in most cases. I know some in here don't like Browns and that's fine, that's your opinion and I respect it. But you have to agree that this attempt isn't going to work. It might feel good but it's a poor effort at best. And to do it during Prime spawning season is even more irresponsible when your whole effort is to restore the very fish you are stressing during their most critical time of the year. This all just seems like fugazi to me.

I'm actually surprised this is legal without a permit and maybe the fishing boat commission still has to weigh in on it. There is no way I would personally allow an electric fishing effort during spawning season for Pennsylvania wild trout regardless of the species. Nobody's really addressing that issue in this post.

 

[Zak]

To me this effort is akin to when they told everybody to start stepping on spotted Lantern flies at the beginning of that outbreak. I don't think anybody really thought that effort was going to be fruitful and sure as heck spotted Lantern flies are all over the place and still spreading. That's basically what we're doing here by Shocking two of six miles. It's just an absolutely pointless effort to make some people feel good about themselves.

 

[Fish Sticks]

My statement of 100% failure is absolutely a very serious post. Any biologist is going to tell you if you don't remove almost all of the brown trout they're going to come back and quickly. It's just the way it is if the habitat and food sources are there they're going to make their way back especially when you're leaving for miles of stream with wild Browns available to repopulate. You're clearly a really intelligent person and your posts are well put together and well thought out. I respect your thoughts completely but in this case I know from experience and for fact that those fish are going to move right back in there and angling pressure isn't going to do a darn thing about it simply because no matter what you do you're not going to generate enough fishing pressure there to matter. Regardless of whether I support this cause or don't is Irrelevant in the fact that you're not going to get enough angling pressure in there killing the remainder of the browns, not that that would work anyways. And unless they shock everything multiple times day after day after day you're not going to catch all the Browns in that 2 mi section anyhow and they're just going to come back. The PA fishing boat commission shocks the same 300 yard stretch of stream two days in a row and I could be corrected but I still don't think they catch all the fish in that stretch during those two days in most cases. I know some in here don't like Browns and that's fine, that's your opinion and I respect it. But you have to agree that this attempt isn't going to work. It might feel good but it's a poor effort at best. And to do it during Prime spawning season is even more irresponsible when your whole effort is to restore the very fish you are stressing during their most critical time of the year. This all just seems like fugazi to me.

I'm actually surprised this is legal without a permit and maybe the fishing boat commission still has to weigh in on it. There is no way I would personally allow an electric fishing effort during spawning season for Pennsylvania wild trout regardless of the species. Nobody's really addressing that issue in this post.

You must have missed my above post with a biologist who published a paper named Phaedra Budy who does not agree with you. Maybe the biologists should speak for themselves

 

[FrankTroutAngler]

Oh lord. Don't go there. The moment they used $20,000 for lunker bunkers on spruce creek I lost just about all the respect I had for them. I don't know how many perched culverts exist on brook trout streams on public land throughout the northern tier, but I bet they could've found one of those instead of Donny Beaver's private fish hatchery.

The stream improvement work done on Spruce Creek aided wild brown trout. I see no misappropriation of funds there.

 

[troutbert]

My statement of 100% failure is absolutely a very serious post. Any biologist is going to tell you if you don't remove almost all of the brown trout they're going to come back and quickly.

Everyone knows this. No one claimed that the brown trout would be eradicated.

 

[silverfox]

The change to a 7" minimum size limit done in 1983 is still in effect and working well to this day.

The problem with the vehicle code analogy on Facebook is that it was not done to regulate antique vehicles and then applied to all vehicles. The minimum size limit changing from 6" to 7" was done specifically and expressly to aid native brook trout but included all other trout species for ease of understanding for the fishing public and for law enforcement. In logic terms, the analogy on Facebook is what is called a False Analogy.

I can think of at least a dozen streams in just Blair County alone that have native brook trout and no other species of trout. Seems to me the 7" minimum size limit is specifically for native brook trout in those streams. Ditto the creel limit going from 8 to 5 many years ago. That protected native brook trout as well.

Absolutely none of that changes the fact that they applied the reg to all species. Other states have regs that differentiate species. Most of them in fact. That's been my issue w/ the length reg as it applies to brook trout. I've never argued the positive impact its had. Only that it can't be considered a "brook trout regulation" because it's applied to all species.