Pressure on Central PA Trout

[Fish Sticks]

So exactly which studies show that 99% die within a month? The linked article presents no data or, more importantly, context for such claims.

Do stocked trout die in droves? Yeah, sure they do. Are they that pathetic? The answer is "It depends."

Consider this; if the mortality was that bad, pre-season stocking would be a futile effort by the PAFBC and an outrageous waste of resources. Yes, there are some streams that do not hold stocked fish very well, but in the context of spring stockings when conditions are optimal for survival, the fish usually survive "long enough." That makes for a period longer than a month in which stocked fish present a threat to wild ones.

Yes I am sure shannon white posted that number without data behind it on a science communication website. And if you read it says “up to 99%” And i provided the context and said there are many urban streams where that is likely the case affecting the average and said stocked fish may hold over longer in a snaller subset of streams. I never said it was the case on anyone particular stream.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Agree. Most of the fish I see attempting to survive are Browns, and many are nice fish, likely Slate Run fish. Some may even be wild Browns. But I bet roughly 25% of them are Bows, presumably of PFBC origins.

Tiny trickle tribs, draining just a couple square miles, and sometimes completely dry and sunk at their mouths, will have hundreds of fish sitting in their seeps. Multiply that by the large number of tribs to Pine, some of which are much larger and can support a larger number of refuge fish, and you start to get an idea about how many stocked fish live longer than a month after being stocked.

I don’t doubt that many do survive longer than a month, but for every pine creek theres a lot of warm cess pools that get fish that pull the average in the other direction.i will try to find the study so you guys can see it and post on here. I think you guys are kinda thinking stocked trout in wild trout streams and that probably is a different cohort of fish than your average stocked trout stream. And in pa with ground water that might even be different as i mentioned above. For example vs. if you do that study in north carolina

 

[sixfootfenwick]

Worth noting pine creek receives stocked brown trout that are likely above average fitness for stocked trout thanks to slate run tackle shop.

Yes. And one should go up Cedar and Slate in low water and kick around under rocks in those deep pools.

You will see these apex fish in them.

 

[troutbert]

I've seen a similar question presented in regards to fish eventually dying of thermal stress. The answer is the same. They don't all die suddenly at once. Even if the die-off was condensed into the span of a month, predators and scavengers would be able to clean up the dead fish quickly enough to hide mass mortality. We're not talking about a poisoning event due to pollution, or sudden dewatering of a stream where the fish are all dead the same day or even over just a few days.

So even if stocked trout typically died at the rate suggested, I don't think it is enough to notice droves of dead fish, although one would expect to find single dead trout more often.

Two times I have seen multiple stockies floating up when the water got very warm. The first time was on Kettle Creek, downstream from the village of Cross Fork. There were several floating up, not large numbers, but this is general regs water, so people can take 5 per day, and most of the fish are removed by anglers before it gets warm.

The second time there were large numbers floating up, in the special regs section of Lycoming Creek. That is heavily stocked and the special regs keeps them in there.

In both cases the water temp was 83F. I think the lower 80s is when the trout start to die in significant numbers. I've seen wild trout holding in a pool where the water temp was 79F. They were maintaining equilibrium.

I agree that in most cases the die-off is a gradual thing, so not very noticeable. And probably predators take a lot of weakened fish that are exposed when seeking thermal refuge.

 

[Fish Sticks]

But for the wild fish that can survive year round in the streams for the most part I would say I know I see see a lot of people euro nymphing the big 4 central PA limestoners. As I said before i don’t know if it does effect them that tight line tactics are very popular but if I had to hazard a guess I would guess that they do because they seem to be more effective and and if you catch more fish overall you probably have more incidental mortality. But thats just my guess I have nothing concrete to back it up.

 

[GeneBeam]

Has anyone ever seen massive amounts of dead stocked fish? If stocked fish die shortly after stocking, this would be the case, they would all die at the same time.

As an aside, I am not a fan of competition fishing, regardless of species.

I with you on your last statement.

 

[BradFromPotter]

Some researchers have even observed hatchery fish die in a wild stream after filling their stomachs with rocks that look like food pellets. The weight of all the rocks anchored the fish to the stream bottom, making it impossible for them to swim.”

That explains why the stock trout I catch seem so heavy when I hook them! When I land them they are so small but weigh so much!

 

[Fish Sticks]

I with you on your last statement.

I have to say personally i have zero interest in competing either. Not why I am out there. Sometimes If you see a fish i think it can be overall more valuable to your fishing to watch it and see what its doing rather than speed fishing through a run or riffle. I think some interesting techniques and solutions have come out of it especially in the long range far and fine and still water dept. but i just don’t have an interest in counting numbers against another angler. I do enjoy using the long mono leaders though for different situations. I think Dave Rothrocks mono leader is one of my favorites. But the way that leader is fished you need shot it wouldn’t be comp legal which I obviously don’t care about. I fish mono rig for streamers alot too.

 

[Mike]

Agree. Most of the fish I see attempting to survive are Browns, and many are nice fish, likely Slate Run fish. Some may even be wild Browns. But I bet roughly 25% of them are Bows, presumably of PFBC origins.

Tiny trickle tribs, draining just a couple square miles, and sometimes completely dry and sunk at their mouths, will have hundreds of fish sitting in their seeps. Multiply that by the large number of tribs to Pine, some of which are much larger and can support a larger number of refuge fish, and you start to get an idea about how many stocked fish live longer than a month after being stocked.

Precisely the situation that would have caused me to “adjust” the stocking program on that stream and others showing those types of late season concentrations at tribs.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Precisely the situation that would have caused me to “adjust” the stocking program on that stream and others showing those types of late season concentrations at tribs.

Precisely the situation that would have caused me to “adjust” the stocking program on that stream and others showing those types of late season concentrations at tribs.

Mike are there common issues in fisheries you have seen anglers falsely attribute to pressure where something measurable or quantifiable said otherwise? In some places it seems easy to measure angler effort in others it seems harder. This is not the kind of publications i read(fishing techniques/angling mortality)

 

[JeffP]

I will never forget may first and only attempt to stock. I was a first year teacher and another teacher asked me to help the Cocalico Sportsman's club stock the Little Cocalico. It was near the end of school and it was 90 degrees. We left a carpet of dead trout across the Little Cocalico. We were in the stream for hours trying to get them upright. Of course their hatchery was on the headwaters of the Cocalico that still had brookies in it. No idea if it still does.

 

[JeffP]

I do have a friend who has caught some trout late season at its confluence with the Cocalico.

 

[Mike]

Mike are there common issues in fisheries you have seen anglers falsely attribute to pressure where something measurable or quantifiable said otherwise? In some places it seems easy to measure angler effort in others it seems harder. This is not the kind of publications i read(fishing techniques/angling mortality)

If within the realm of “pressure” you include harvest, then yes, trout anglers have often attributed their poor angling success either on a given day or overall to too overharvest. This has typically been in stocked trout streams, and even in those with substantial wild brown trout populations. In fact, as examples, it used to happen on Penns Ck and Logan Branch in sections that had very good wild trout populations as well as stocking during the period leading up to implementation of Operation Future. I cite those two streams because they were places where the staff got chewed out by anglers for the lack of fish!! In Penns, that happened while we were processing a full tub of wild brown trout!!

I have also heard wild brook trout anglers frequently attribute a lack of legal size fish to harvest while I have seen as a clear example a case in a patrolled water company stream in which one season we found very large numbers of legal ST and the following year we found very few. This wasn’t harvest; it was a situation where the older, larger fish from an apparently good year class had reached the logical ends of their natural lives and a year class or two that followed were likely pretty weak. To those who would say it must have been occasional poaching I would say not to that extent; it was a rhododendron tunnel and quite a good population of legal fish.

Finally, when bluegill populations are dominated by small fish anglers often falsely attribute this to stunting and completely miss the point they could actually be looking at a big, young year class of fast growing fish and the anglers think that there is a need for more harvest in order to allow the rest of the fish to grow. In contrast, bluegill anglers often don’t realize how easily the adults can be overharvested which then does produce a stunted population of small fish because the small, young fish then mature at a young age. Production of gametes takes the energy away from somatic (body) cell growth.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I was talking more within the catch and release accidental mortality because the original poster seemed to be wondering about sections in predominantly wild brown trout streams with C and R protections in many cases but it does not surprise me one bit a hoard of anglers harassed you in a class A stretch full of brown trout that we not as easy to catch as hatchery fish. It would be like hunters complaining woods full of deer don’t walk up and suck a salt lick off the barrel of the gun and that we need to get some from a petting zoo because there is no opportunity.

I doubt anyone has. Looked at tight line tactics specifically but I guess the OP might be able to make some inferences if angler effort was measured on those streams in past few years but that would be subject to confounders as just observational data and may be more angler effort based than technique based despite alot of tightlining

 

[Fish Sticks]

I will never forget may first and only attempt to stock. I was a first year teacher and another teacher asked me to help the Cocalico Sportsman's club stock the Little Cocalico. It was near the end of school and it was 90 degrees. We left a carpet of dead trout across the Little Cocalico. We were in the stream for hours trying to get them upright. Of course their hatchery was on the headwaters of the Cocalico that still had brookies in it. No idea if it still does.

Yea I walked into TCO a few years ago and they said a sportsman association Transferred a huge amount of fish from a cold raceway to the breeches when it was warmer and they all died pretty quickly due to the temp change

 

[Mike]

Delayed mortality studies of angled trout have largely focused on comparisons among various terminal tackle types and fishing/presentation styles. Actual angler use measurements have not usually been added as a variable to estimate delayed mortality in particular fishery. In the Spring Ck angler use and harvest study, however, it was estimated that each fish was captured five times in one season as I recall and that this frequency of capture using accepted delayed mortality rates for the various gear types in proportion to their usage by anglers during the study indicated that the abundance of larger fish COULD be impacted in the long run. I do not think that tight line or Euro style fishing with nymphs was a separate angling technique variable. In fact, I have never seen a delayed mortality study of tight line vs conventional presentation except where it pertained to C&R in a RT stream using bait in Idaho. If I am reporting anything inaccurately here, I urge Troutbert to correct my recollections concerning the Spring Ck study.

Pertaining to some other comments here and elsewhere in this forum in the past, stocking adult RT over a wild RT population in Idaho had NO IMPACT on any of the multiple wild trout population standard metrics examined. Most of the stockies disappeared in a relatively short period of time. If I recall correctly, it was in the neighborhood of a month to six weeks.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Interesting, yea I was just wondering because this thread wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone say the average size of fish in spring has decreased, i don’t even know if surveys reflect that or not.

if true it makes you wonder if it truly is increased capture/delayed mortality or something else. I don’t look at alot of surveys or observational data from allopatric wild brown trout streams but have crayfish and sculpin populations been steady or has any prey base declined?

 

[troutbert]

Delayed mortality studies of angled trout have largely focused on comparisons among various terminal tackle types and fishing/presentation styles. Actual angler use measurements have not usually been added as a variable to estimate delayed mortality in particular fishery. In the Spring Ck angler use and harvest study, however, it was estimated that each fish was captured five times in one season as I recall and that this frequency of capture using accepted delayed mortality rates for the various gear types in proportion to their usage by anglers during the study indicated that the abundance of larger fish COULD be impacted in the long run. I do not think that tight line or Euro style fishing with nymphs was a separate angling technique variable. In fact, I have never seen a delayed mortality study of tight line vs conventional presentation except where it pertained to C&R in a RT stream using bait in Idaho. If I am reporting anything inaccurately here, I urge Troutbert to correct my recollections concerning the Spring Ck study.

Pertaining to some other comments here and elsewhere in this forum in the past, stocking adult RT over a wild RT population in Idaho had NO IMPACT on any of the multiple wild trout population standard metrics examined. Most of the stockies disappeared in a relatively short period of time. If I recall correctly, it was in the neighborhood of a month to six weeks.

As I recall the Spring Creek studies found that trout were caught on average 6 times per year.

So in 4 years a trout gets caught and released 24 times.

Most of Spring Creek is open to flyfishing, lures, and bait fishing, with the exception of 1 mile of flyfishing only.

Does that amount of catching and releasing reduce their life span? Or not?

Which hypothesis seems more probable?

 

[Mike]

Many stretches of Spring Ck do not have good big fish habitat and the isolated areas that do are not broadcast by many anglers. The forage base has always been good, so I doubt that’s a factor unless the abundance of smaller fish is just overwhelming the forage base.

The other factor that I have wondered about has been the temps reported by Troutbert on occasion. Stress for BT starts at about 68 deg F and multiple excursions above that temp throughout the summer can be detrimental to a population, starting with the bigger adults. The number of 15 min periods per month during which water temps exceed 68 deg will limit a RT population and given the similar requirements, the same will most likely limit a BT population as well. In the long run though, my experiences suggest that BT are more tolerant of warm temps, maybe not thermal maxima, but warm temps/excursions.

Temps for Pa trout species don’t need to reach the thermal maxima for thermal problems to have negative impacts at the population level, and I have little doubt that this would include ST as well. It’s likely that ST stress begins at a lower temp than does temp stress for RT and BT and it would not surprise me if fewer 15 min excursions per month above the temp stress threshold are tolerated by ST than RT or BT.

 

[caddisflyer]

Has habitat changed a lot on Spring in past 30 yrs?
I just remember catching a good many fish in the 12-14 inch range and the occasional 17-18 incher in the early years when I fished it. Now that average size has dropped to I would say less than 8 inches with an occasional bigger one. Agreed that there are still some sections where a bigger fish is more likely but just talking overall. It appears to me that fishing pressure, especially over fall and winter months has increased. Does anyone have any opinion?