Petition to end the practice of stocking over wild native brook trout.

silverfox "This also doesn't account for streams like the Nescopeck where most of the tribs are Class A brook but the mainstem itself is stocked."

I have fished all of these many tiny overgrown and very cold class A nescopeck tribs repeatedly over the last dozen years. And some others that arent class A. Never caught or seen a single BT (nor have I witnessed another person fishing such tiny and very overgrown tribs for that matter). My 2000 dated Landis says the nescopeck was stocked then, 20 years ago. I doubt BT will now suddenly take over all those 7' wide supercold Nescopeck tribs unless the stocking is stopped.

Rleep "Additionally, as I am sure you are aware, streams are dynamic systems and species colonization has a lot more to do with agreeable physical and chemical conditions than who dumped a bucket of brown trout 17 feet downstream from the bottom of the Class A ST section."

indeed.
 
slight correction. I have fished all of the nescopeck class a tribs w sections on public land. a few, like long run, have no public land section. bummer!

but I dont think it is just me; the pfbc surveyed a mess of these teeny Nescopeck tribs in 99. report mentions that the nescopeck was already stocked then.

very little mention of BT in the many surveyed Nescpoeck tribs; most had 0 BT: lotsa brookies, some sculpins, dace.

https://files.dep.state.pa.us/Water/Drinking%20Water%20and%20Facility%20Regulation/WaterQualityPortalFiles/Class_A_PFBC_Reports/Nescopeck%20Basin_Creasy_Conety_Long_Lil_Nescopeck_UNTs_to_Nescopeck.pdf

BTW not really recommending fishing these tribs, unless brushy and brutal is what you want
 
Well, I could get all long winded and pedantic about this stuff but I don't think I will. Wild trout are just as important to me as they ever were; I'm just not as sharply opinionated about all of it as I once was.

I do not understand and cannot really approve of a policy of the cessation of all stocking over any wild ST population as proposed in the petition. The key words here are "all" and "any". Any approach that does not take into account the broadly subjective and different situations in our wild ST populations seems to me to be more about dogma and ideology than sound fisheries management where wild trout are primary but the social aspects of fisheries management, while secondary, are acknowledged and not cast aside solely in the interest of dogma.

Show me a wild ST population that is currently being stocked over where it is clear that the damage to the wild fishery done by stocking is primary and I'll be the first guy to stand with you and call for a cessation of stocking. But what are we to do with the stream sections where the relationship between stocking and wild ST abundance is secondary or even tertiary? Stream sections with historically incidental ST populations where it is highly unlikely that a cessation in stocking would do any good at all. Do we stop stocking them as well and all but completely remove their viability as angling destinations? Is the presence of any wild brook trout at all in these stream sections justification for depriving some of our less enlightened brethren of their previous enjoyment of these stream sections as stocked fisheries?

These are (to me anyway..) complex and difficult questions largely because they, in the end, often turn on matters of preference rather than science. I only know that I would be a lot happier with the petition if it more clearly acknowledged the variations in wild brook trout populations and made proposals of stocking cessation accordingly.

That’s all…:)

On edit.. I said I wasn't going to get all long winded and I guess I didn't quite manage it. All the same, this is pretty short winded for me...
 
RLeep2 wrote:

Show me a wild ST population that is currently being stocked over where it is clear that the damage to the wild fishery done by stocking is primary and I'll be the first guy to stand with you and call for a cessation of stocking. But what are we to do with the stream sections where the relationship between stocking and wild ST abundance is secondary or even tertiary? Stream sections with historically incidental ST populations where it is highly unlikely that a cessation in stocking would do any good at all. Do we stop stocking them as well and all but completely remove their viability as angling destinations?
Click to expand...


How would you suggest making the distinction between the two categories:

1) Streams where ending stocking over brook trout would help their populations.

2) Streams where ending stocking over brook trout would not help their populations?

I doubt that category 2 exists at all, but I'm willing to listen.








 
RLeep2 wrote:
Well, I could get all long winded and pedantic about this stuff but I don't think I will. Wild trout are just as important to me as they ever were; I'm just not as sharply opinionated about all of it as I once was.

I do not understand and cannot really approve of a policy of the cessation of all stocking over any wild ST population as proposed in the petition. The key words here are "all" and "any". Any approach that does not take into account the broadly subjective and different situations in our wild ST populations seems to me to be more about dogma and ideology than sound fisheries management where wild trout are primary but the social aspects of fisheries management, while secondary, are acknowledged and not cast aside solely in the interest of dogma.

Show me a wild ST population that is currently being stocked over where it is clear that the damage to the wild fishery done by stocking is primary and I'll be the first guy to stand with you and call for a cessation of stocking. But what are we to do with the stream sections where the relationship between stocking and wild ST abundance is secondary or even tertiary? Stream sections with historically incidental ST populations where it is highly unlikely that a cessation in stocking would do any good at all. Do we stop stocking them as well and all but completely remove their viability as angling destinations? Is the presence of any wild brook trout at all in these stream sections justification for depriving some of our less enlightened brethren of their previous enjoyment of these stream sections as stocked fisheries?

These are (to me anyway..) complex and difficult questions largely because they, in the end, often turn on matters of preference rather than science. I only know that I would be a lot happier with the petition if it more clearly acknowledged the variations in wild brook trout populations and made proposals of stocking cessation accordingly.

That’s all…:)

On edit.. I said I wasn't going to get all long winded and I guess I didn't quite manage it. All the same, this is pretty short winded for me...
Click to expand...

I mentioned this before, but I'll say it again here. I'm/we're opposed to the practice of stocking over wild native brook trout. Period. If PFBC wants to identify what biomass rating is worthy of sacrifice, that's their prerogative, not mine, and not my place to tell them where it might make sense or not.

For me personally, this is binary. I don't support stocking over wild native brook trout.
 
Shenandoah National Park has a large mileage of streams with native brook trout. None of that stream mileage is stocked with hatchery trout.

Would it be possible to scientifically identify which of that mileage the brook trout population would be unaffected by initiating stocking of hatchery trout, along with a bag limit of 5 brookies per day, minimum size 7 inches?

And would any of you support stocking and general regs and a 5 per day bag limit in Shenandoah Park?
 
>>How would you suggest making the distinction between the two categories:

1) Streams where ending stocking over brook trout would help their populations.

2) Streams where ending stocking over brook trout would not help their populations?

I doubt that category 2 exists at all, but I'm willing to listen.>>

Please excuse my copy/paste method of quoting. I never learned to use the nifty quote function. Maybe I will someday. It's just that new stuff keeps getting harder and harder to retain once learned...:)

I don't have a clear cutoff to suggest in answer to your question, largely because of the definitional fuzziness of the word "viable". For me, viable and hence worthy of cessation of stocking would mean a population of wild ST I found it worthwhile to fish over. I actually have a pretty low bar for this. If I could catch or miss 8 or 10 wild brookies in a morning's effort (covering a mile or more of stream) and one or two were legal or nearly so, I'd be OK with ceasing to stock such a place.

The problem is (IMO anyway..) that, in my anecdotal experience in the 20% or so of the state closest to my home in the NW, there are many, many more populations that fit your category two than category one (if we replace your word "help" with my above cited definition of "viable"). This is compounded by my belief that in the majority of these streams, suppression of wild brook trout abundance is far more a function of habitat, ongoing E&S issues and other natural factors than anything to do with stocking or harvest. My sense is that, for example, pretty much the entire southern half of the ANF is in this category with nominal and scattered exceptions. It may be that you can stop stocking streams like Blue Jay Run and Salmon Creek and find that due to these limiting conditions of physical origin, you get a 15% increase in wild ST abundance after 5 years, just to pick a number out of the air and that is as good as it gets. It's sort of a good seed in poor soil type thing. No matter how much you water it, it isn't going to do very well. Is a stream section that is moved from the lower half of class D to the top half of D in this way and permanently removed from stocking a satisfactory outcome? It might be for you and I, but we are not the only stakeholders.

And of course it goes without saying that I would support any cessation of stocking in any stream section where it could be demonstrated that stocking/harvest and not the broad range of habitat/degradation factors were the primary limiting factors in brook trout abundance. I just think such places are the exception rather than the rule, at least in NW Pa.



 
>>For me personally, this is binary. I don't support stocking over wild native brook trout.>>

That's fine and even commendable, IMO. But when you run headlong into the binary folks on the other end of the issue, it doesn't always make the most fertile ground for progress. And I would imagine you're more interested in progress than purity..


 
RLeep2 wrote:
>>For me personally, this is binary. I don't support stocking over wild native brook trout.>>

That's fine and even commendable, IMO. But when you run headlong into the binary folks on the other end of the issue, it doesn't always make the most fertile ground for progress. And I would imagine you're more interested in progress than purity..
Click to expand...

I do get the argument. I just personally can't say that I think there are exceptions. The science paints a very clear picture of what happens. The results are either significant or minor depending on other conditions.

I think a significant variable here is targeted biomass. I personally don't believe every population has to be Class A or it's a prime candidate for stocking. That's the current trend here. I'll mention Piney Run again. I know for certain there is unnecessary incidental mortality due to stocking. If stocking were ceased there, it wouldn't become class a, BUT, it would undoubtedly reduce or eliminate the majority of accidental wanton waste which would result in more wild brook trout.

That's the crux of my main issue with stocking over wild brook trout. You take a stream where there aren't very many legal-sized wild fish and dump hatchery fish in it attracting hordes of anglers who inevitably catch sub-legal fish which results in increased mortality. So we're just unnecessarily killing fish for what?
 
Havice and Treaster are 2 other streams that probably should not be stocked.
 
Jeff P,
Not being critical here, but what would be your objective in those cases? Both have populations of mixed brook and brown trout already, at least I assume that they still do because that was the situation in May, 1976 when I was one of the crew members who surveyed them.
If that has not changed over a 45 yr period, and I don’t know that it hasn’t, then what would you see as being the gain?
 
wildtrout2 wrote:
Drakes Creek comes to mind, as I keep up with this thread.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It's amazing that they are still stocking that small stream. They could put the hatchery trout in the Lehigh River rather than dumping them right on top of native brook trout.

 
JeffP wrote:
Havice and Treaster are 2 other streams that probably should not be stocked.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Here's another one: Pleasant Stream, Lycoming County.

I don't know if anyone mentioned that one yet.

 
troutbert wrote:
wildtrout2 wrote:
Drakes Creek comes to mind, as I keep up with this thread.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It's amazing that they are still stocking that small stream. They could put the hatchery trout in the Lehigh River rather than dumping them right on top of native brook trout.
Click to expand...
Drakes Creek is a neat little native brookie stream. Even though a ONE lane dirt road follows it's length, due to it's steepness, it's quite tricky getting down to most of the stream, except near the bottom.
I honestly don't think it gets much attention at all after "opening day" because of the DOD getting to it.

I fished Drakes several times back in the early 2000's, and the brook trout numbers were decent for the size of the stream. I actually caught a 9" native, which surprised me.
 
Mike wrote:
Jeff P,
Not being critical here, but what would be your objective in those cases? Both have populations of mixed brook and brown trout already, at least I assume that they still do because that was the situation in May, 1976 when I was one of the crew members who surveyed them.
If that has not changed over a 45 yr period, and I don’t know that it hasn’t, then what would you see as being the gain?
Click to expand...

300 trout a piece (or whatever each stream's allocation is) that can go into a stream that doesn't have a viable population of fish.

A few hours back on a PFBC truck driver's log, that could be used to deliver fish to streams that need them to create an Opening day/week fishery.

Less competition for the wild fish that are there.

What are your arguments for continuing to stock those streams (aside from stocking does no harm)? From a biologist's perspective, what are the benefits of stocking?

Stocked fish are expensive fish. Why put expensive fish in streams that are doing just fine without them?
 
troutbert wrote:
JeffP wrote:
Havice and Treaster are 2 other streams that probably should not be stocked.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Here's another one: Pleasant Stream, Lycoming County.

I don't know if anyone mentioned that one yet.
Click to expand...

Pleasant stream receives a small number of fish from pfbc from watching them stock. I know a coop stocks as well but I do not know numbers. The stocking by the state only happens in the lower watershed, while I have caught a few brookies down there it has rather poor habitat due to flooding, road and camp driveway encroachments. It is amazing that any fish survived the flooding that stream has endured in the past decade, but there are still fish. As long as the stocking is small numbers and low in the watershed I would think it's effect is minimal in this case.
 
Mike wrote:
Jeff P,
Not being critical here, but what would be your objective in those cases? Both have populations of mixed brook and brown trout already, at least I assume that they still do because that was the situation in May, 1976 when I was one of the crew members who surveyed them.
If that has not changed over a 45 yr period, and I don’t know that it hasn’t, then what would you see as being the gain?
Click to expand...

Mike, why do you support stocking over native brook trout in these streams, while supporting not stocking over native brook trout in some other streams?

What are the differences, the factors that you use to break these streams into the two categories?

I. Streams with native brook trout that are OK to stock over.

II. Streams with native brook trout that are not OK to stock over.

If stocking over native brookies is harmful in some streams, why would it not be in other streams? Are there physical characteristics or water quality involved or what?

Could you apply this system to Shenandoah Park and identify the stream mileage where you could run a stocked trout program and not harm the brookie populations?
 
If you're digging yourself deeper into a hole, the first thing to do is put down the shovel.
 
I did not have to read your long lasting blows of bold! Really, you are quite --
--------------------how to say, -----------------LIMP!

You never got it from the start and you will never get it in the end.

You pick, you, I pick all! You flaunt your stick, and i love the ugly stick.


You are for you and i am for all. I love the less and you worship the all. Too bad you lost the feel!


Maxima12
 
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