MD Brook Trout - Catoctin water temp study

[sarce]

A few years ago I got together with my local DC-area TU chapter and launched an effort to study summer water temps on Catoctin Mountain brook trout streams. Given all the brook trout conservation talk on the site lately, I wanted to share the study findings. You can view an abridged report at the link below, which also includes a link to a PDF download of the full report.
NCC-TU

I'll caveat this report with the following:
- we only analyzed one summer's worth of data. In academic circles that would be considered limited sample size.
- none of the volunteers who did this project are fisheries biologists or ecologists or climate scientists. I'm an engineer by day. I caution anyone from taking anything said here as gospel. But I would like to think it's still very interesting and informative. Especially since there was a pretty big data hole around these small Catoctin Mountain brook trout streams.
- given that we are all volunteers doing this for free, the data analysis isn't all that rigorous - but I will toot our horn for putting in a ton of work to collect the data. It's also been shared with DNR and they've made use of it for some internal initiatives.

Hope you all enjoy!

 

[silverfox]

A few years ago I got together with my local DC-area TU chapter and launched an effort to study summer water temps on Catoctin Mountain brook trout streams. Given all the brook trout conservation talk on the site lately, I wanted to share the study findings. You can view an abridged report at the link below, which also includes a link to a PDF download of the full report.
NCC-TU

I'll caveat this report with the following:
- we only analyzed one summer's worth of data. In academic circles that would be considered limited sample size.
- none of the volunteers who did this project are fisheries biologists or ecologists or climate scientists. I'm an engineer by day. I caution anyone from taking anything said here as gospel. But I would like to think it's still very interesting and informative. Especially since there was a pretty big data hole around these small Catoctin Mountain brook trout streams.
- given that we are all volunteers doing this for free, the data analysis isn't all that rigorous - but I will toot our horn for putting in a ton of work to collect the data. It's also been shared with DNR and they've made use of it for some internal initiatives.

Hope you all enjoy!

I remember reading that a while ago. Cool you were a part of it!

Have you seen this?

Chesapeake Bay Activities | U.S. Geological Survey

chesapeake.usgs.gov

or this:

CATO_FinalReport_14Dec17.pdf

drive.google.com

 

[sarce]

I remember reading that a while ago. Cool you were a part of it!

Have you seen this?

Chesapeake Bay Activities | U.S. Geological Survey

chesapeake.usgs.gov

I have! We designed ours to try and get all the brook trout streams on the mountain that weren't covered in that USGS study.

I had the knowledge for where to put the data loggers, how to access all the streams and get way up near their sources (purely because I'd fished all of it before). Dr. Hitt (who is behind the map you just sent) helped us determine how far apart to space the devices to make it cost efficient but still useful. We'd never done anything like this as a TU chapter before so it was a fun challenge figuring out how to organize it and install the equipment in the streams. But it was incredibly worthwhile, ultimately we recorded data in every KM of every brook trout stream, minus a few instruments that were lost to floods.

 

[sarce]

I remember reading that a while ago. Cool you were a part of it!

Have you seen this?

Chesapeake Bay Activities | U.S. Geological Survey

chesapeake.usgs.gov

or this:

CATO_FinalReport_14Dec17.pdf

drive.google.com

That full report is interesting, saying brown trout were most dense in Blue Blazes Creek. I fished Blue Blazes last year in my quest for 100 MD streams. I didn't find a single pool on the entire stream, much less any trout. I've heard it used to hold brook trout but there is absolutely no habitat remaining.

 

[glamcaster]

great work!