Acristickid
Well-known member
Commission eyes Plan 'B' for trout streams
By Bob Frye, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, August 8, 2010
About the writer
Bob Frye is the Tribune-Review outdoors editor. He can be reached at 724-838-5148 or via e-mail.
What makes a wild trout stream? And when, if ever, should such waters be stocked?
Those are questions the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission will explore in the coming months.
According to Leroy Young, director of the bureau of fisheries, the commission staff this year will be monitoring streams that are known to hold high Class B populations of wild trout, with the goal of determining whether some of those should be taken off the stocking list.
Class B streams are the second-best wild trout streams in the state, based on the quantity of fish on a given section of water. Only Class A streams are better. Class A waters are never stocked, while Class B waters can be, and some — about 19 percent of the total — are.
Fisheries staff want to figure out if any of those 19 percent of stocked Class Bs should be left to their own to provide fishing, perhaps as soon as 2011, Young said.
"There may be some that we'll want to take off," he said.
That might be controversial, he admitted. Any time the commission tries to remove any water from the trout stocking schedule, the resulting "hue and cry" from anglers can be intense enough to stop the change, he said.
Commission executive director John Arway has proposed one solution, Young said.
"He's indicated that if we take a water off the (stocking) list, he wants us to put another one on," Young said.
The commission has not developed any criteria for doing that, however. And it might be easier said than done anyway. In some places, Young said, all of the streams around a Class B section might already be stocked.
He's not sure anglers will feel they're getting a fair trade if a Class B water close to home or camp is removed and replaced with another further than a half hour or so away.
That's why Young said he wants to put together a working group of agency staff, commissioner and others to determine how to answer those kind of questions.
Commissioner Bob Bachman of Lancaster County said that's a good idea. The commission needs to come to some kind of consensus before correctly getting the public involved.
"We've got to make sure we have some kind of game plan in place in house," Bachman said.
Commissioner Bill Sabatose of Elk County agreed. A set policy that guides whether a Class B list gets stocked or not is "long overdue," he said. The commission needs to develop one, then prepare for any concern from anglers by being ready to explain it.
"I think where we're failing is education. I think we could head off a lot of problems if we could educate people," Sabatose said.
That's always the trick, said Arway. Determining whether a water is Class A, B, C or D is a simple matter of numbers. The biomass of trout per section of water determines where it falls.
"These are factually-driven designations. These decisions are all science-based," he said.
But whether commissioners allow social considerations — i.e. angler opinions — to impact implementation of those designations is and has always been the issue, he said.
At the same time, the commission will be looking at what qualifies a stream as a wild trout water at all, and whether those standards need to change.
Bill Worobec of Lyoming County — the new president of the commission board — suggested at the board's latest meeting that perhaps limestone and freestone streams should have different standards given their differences in habitat, for example. He directed staff to investigate the standards for wild trout classification and come back with ideas on what changes, if any, might be appropriate to make
By Bob Frye, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, August 8, 2010
About the writer
Bob Frye is the Tribune-Review outdoors editor. He can be reached at 724-838-5148 or via e-mail.
What makes a wild trout stream? And when, if ever, should such waters be stocked?
Those are questions the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission will explore in the coming months.
According to Leroy Young, director of the bureau of fisheries, the commission staff this year will be monitoring streams that are known to hold high Class B populations of wild trout, with the goal of determining whether some of those should be taken off the stocking list.
Class B streams are the second-best wild trout streams in the state, based on the quantity of fish on a given section of water. Only Class A streams are better. Class A waters are never stocked, while Class B waters can be, and some — about 19 percent of the total — are.
Fisheries staff want to figure out if any of those 19 percent of stocked Class Bs should be left to their own to provide fishing, perhaps as soon as 2011, Young said.
"There may be some that we'll want to take off," he said.
That might be controversial, he admitted. Any time the commission tries to remove any water from the trout stocking schedule, the resulting "hue and cry" from anglers can be intense enough to stop the change, he said.
Commission executive director John Arway has proposed one solution, Young said.
"He's indicated that if we take a water off the (stocking) list, he wants us to put another one on," Young said.
The commission has not developed any criteria for doing that, however. And it might be easier said than done anyway. In some places, Young said, all of the streams around a Class B section might already be stocked.
He's not sure anglers will feel they're getting a fair trade if a Class B water close to home or camp is removed and replaced with another further than a half hour or so away.
That's why Young said he wants to put together a working group of agency staff, commissioner and others to determine how to answer those kind of questions.
Commissioner Bob Bachman of Lancaster County said that's a good idea. The commission needs to come to some kind of consensus before correctly getting the public involved.
"We've got to make sure we have some kind of game plan in place in house," Bachman said.
Commissioner Bill Sabatose of Elk County agreed. A set policy that guides whether a Class B list gets stocked or not is "long overdue," he said. The commission needs to develop one, then prepare for any concern from anglers by being ready to explain it.
"I think where we're failing is education. I think we could head off a lot of problems if we could educate people," Sabatose said.
That's always the trick, said Arway. Determining whether a water is Class A, B, C or D is a simple matter of numbers. The biomass of trout per section of water determines where it falls.
"These are factually-driven designations. These decisions are all science-based," he said.
But whether commissioners allow social considerations — i.e. angler opinions — to impact implementation of those designations is and has always been the issue, he said.
At the same time, the commission will be looking at what qualifies a stream as a wild trout water at all, and whether those standards need to change.
Bill Worobec of Lyoming County — the new president of the commission board — suggested at the board's latest meeting that perhaps limestone and freestone streams should have different standards given their differences in habitat, for example. He directed staff to investigate the standards for wild trout classification and come back with ideas on what changes, if any, might be appropriate to make
