Yea most states near us have fabled allopatric brook trout waters except us and we have the most cold ground water and stream miles out of any of them. We also happen to coincidentally be the wild wild west of stocked invasive species. 😭
I was just reading something today that classified Pennsylvania as:
I'm not sure I'd agree with that characterization. Is the statement factually accurate? I suppose so. Are those healthy populations living in intact watersheds with connectivity to larger systems devoid of nonnative species? No. As one of two sentences defining Pennsylvania's brook trout populations, I think it's a mischaracterization.
Class A PFBC listing for one species does not equal allopatric. There is a threshold that the other species has to meet before the stream section gets the "mixed" tag
Oh yea streams that have 55 degree spring seeps popping out everywhere creating excellent thermal micro habitat that happen to have other species occupying them instead. Even the freestones, upper savage river is at a more southern latitude and has similar elevation to our potter/tioga county streams that are about the entire distance of PA south to north away from the savage.
Oh absolutely, but with segloch I don’t think you can go there and expect to catch a brook trout anymore.
Right, but the map lists Spring Creek Section #2 from Houserville to Fisherman's Paradise, not the headwaters or tributaries.
That our biggest, richest, most famous wild trout fisheries are all brown trout fisheries.
This is a PAFB document quote
Prepare for the, "it's the sediment, urban development, water quality, pollution, aliens, bigfoot, Illuminati, cars, planes, eagles, computers, divine intervention" comments.
You forgot "mountain lion sightings"... Doesn't anyone talk about those anymore?
I agree that that is the explanation for the messed up map.
Well, there's still a lot of human intervention in GIS map making. Even if it's automated from some dataset, and even if the dataset was somehow algorithmically generated, there should be a QC process as part of anything published. One would think...
Yea its a good book if your looking to try a nee area of the state or familiarizing yourself with the state. I feel the fishing recommendations are pretty accurate. I mean some things are going ti change like posted land on yellow creek for example ect. But I will still reference it if I am going to check out a new stream on the other side of the state or something.
I failed to mention that there are several fairly detailed maps in the book with access areas, Game Lands boundaries, cross streets, etc.
I was really focused on state agency published content. There are a lot of publications from private authors that give good detailed information. This is really more about how the state(s) themselves promote brook trout in their literature and online resources.
I'd add that, in my opinion, most of the brook trout found below the ditch are all either hatchery fish or recent descendants of recently stocked hatchery fish. I also agree that it's highly unlikely that any brook trout in Big Spring, even in the ditch, are direct descendants of the original brook trout that evolved there. If anything, they're a mix of "heritage" genetics and hatchery strains from when the hatchery operated there. So it's highly probable to accurately proclaim that all of the brook trout in big spring are hatchery brook trout in one form or another. All that said, I'm not a splitter, and I hate the heritage strain stuff. I think we have to focus on the species, not genetically unique subsets of the species.
