Playing god in steelhead alley

[Acristickid]

Playing god in steelhead alley

 

[bikerfish]

from reading the article, no easy answer.

 

[Acristickid]

Not sure what the answer is- mostly already wrecked.

I suspect that steelhead would win out as it is a money maker for the area. I fished the reservation before and we did well considering the conditions while we were there. Sorta like steelhead fishing in the Yough. Pretty area, not a lot of build up along the river in the areas I was in.

 

[moon1284]

I live close to the catt and fish it often, both above and below the dam. Above the dam, it is stocked with browns except for the headwaters. The headwaters have tons of wild rainbows that are more or less brook trout sized. I've caught thousands of wild rainbows in that watershed and the largest was 14 inches. I've never caught an st in the catt but some small tribe do have some. I think wild rainbows outcompete the st in the watershed. There is a decent population of wild browns in the creek, but I catch 70 percent plus rainbows.

I don't know how steelhead would affect the fishery. I'm hoping the creek will lose its resident rainbow population i.e. they all run to the lake. What would be left would be larger brown trout and some st.

To be honest, even if there were no steelhead, I'd like to see the dam removed. It would be the only undammed ny Erie trib that holds populations of wild trout. I think you have the possibility of having wild lake run brook trout, brown trout, and rainbow trout.

The only native trout (I know they are char) to lake Erie are brook trout and lake trout. Given the small st population in the watershed, I think you can argue the dam removal actually gives the opportunity to restore a native
St population in Lake Erie.

 

[moon1284]

To sum up my above post, I have fished the catt a ton above and below the dam. It is a no brainer to get rid of the dam from both an "inland trout - what WNYers call non-lake run trout" and steelhead perspective.

 

[RLeep2]

Sounds like another Chamber of Commerce-driven nightmare to me, the main result of which would probably be an exponential increase in abundance of the most pernicious invasive species of all: the Bipedal Disposable Income Flush Muphere (sp).

I've seen what these sorts of shenanigans have done to a lot of Michigan's streams and hope this proposal dies on the vine.

 

[moon1284]

So you're arguing to keep a dam?

The catt isn't a secret and although it gets pressure, its nowhere near Ontario trib levels, or PA Erie trib levels.

This is a no brainer. Removing the dam will increase the wild steelhead population maybe to the point where stocking will no longer become necessary. The Catt has a larger population of wild steelhead than all other US erie tribs combined, in fact, I'd bet is has a larger population of wild steelhead than all US erie and Ontario tribs combined. Brook trout make up probably 1% of the trout biomass in that system. The argument that wild steelhead are pushing out a native species makes no sense. The large population of stunted rainbows is already doing that. The upper catt is a good trout fishery, but the lower catt is a much better steelhead fishery.

This has less to do with $$ and more to do with common sense.

I can guarantee I fish both the upper and lower catt more than Wexelmann. There is 0 resistance from fisherman locally to removing the dam and there has been a movement to remove the dam for a long time. I have no idea why Wexelmann would even write this article. The private ditch he catches and photographs the same steelhead over and over again must have been frozen over.

 

[CRB]

I am intrigued with the idea. Yes it would help that area of Western NY witch in my opinion is economically challenged.