Schuylkill Co. DHALO

[Troutmeister]

Fished Bear Ck. DHALO section last week. While gearing up at the truck a local landowner stopped to talk. He mentioned that a landowner recently posted on the N. side of the creek and therefore this section ( lower part of DHALO ) would no longer be stocked. Does anybody know about this? Will they take this section out of the DHALO program?













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[Mike]

If that’s true, it may be too early to tell. A lot typically depends on the length of riparian land within the DH Area that is affected and the impact on stocking access and parking for anglers. It’s likely that a WCO and/or AFM will be looking into this if they haven’t already.

 

[pcray1231]

There has been an old posted sign there forever, right beside the DHALO sign. However, the local understanding was that the landowner allows fishing but doesn't want hunting or fishermen going back into the woods away from the stream.

I've always stayed away from the lower end of it for that reason, I'm just uncomfortable with that. But if there's new signs, yeah, that needs to be looked into.

 

[Mike]

That hunting concern is pretty common in some rural portions of SE Pa. The typical scenario in that circumstance is that landowners will sometimes allow fishing in spring but not in fall since the stream corridor is important wildlife habitat and the landowners don’t want anglers pushing the deer out of these areas. Sometimes the landowners didn’t allow stream surveys to be conducted at that time either for the same reason. I never had any professional misgivings about that approach; I was glad that they allowed fishing during the rest of the year. Likewise when it came to signage that said “no Sunday fishing.”

 

[pcray1231]

Well, it may be fully posted now. But if not, the signage was poor there before. There was an old, but existing posted sign right beside the newer DHALO sign. It said no trespassing. It didn't say fishing allowed, or no trespassing at certain times. It just said posted, no trespassing.

I'd ask people and they'd say yeah, you can fish, he just wants people to stick to the stream. Which is fine. But the signs didn't actually say that, you know?

So rather than knock and ask or something, I always just avoided that bottom end of the DHALO and fished the upper end of the DHALO.

 

[Troutmeister]

The landowner on the S. side of creek that I talked to said it was more about hunting than fishing. He said the other guy cut down one of his treestands and it fell in Bear Ck. It seems there were always trespassing signs at places along the creek, some on the N. and S. side. I didn't fish up far enough to see if there were new signs. My concern is whether this section will be removed from the DHALO program.

 

[Mike]

If that’s true, it may be too early to tell. A lot typically depends on the length of riparian land within the DH Area that is affected and the impact on stocking access and parking for anglers. It’s likely that a WCO and/or AFM will be looking into this if they haven’t already.

As I suspected when this topic appeared earlier this week, the WCO and AFM were aware of this. In fact, it was addressed last spring. Two stocking points were lost and there was a slight reduction in the allocation.

The good news is that the 1) DH Area still exists and 2) there has apparently been a substantial improvement in the abundance of wild trout over time. In 1988 there were few, if any, wild trout. If this was not a “flash in the pan” occurrence and remains consistent over time, then this will be another example of stocked trout NOT preventing expansion of a wild Brown Trout population even when 1) stocked in the high densities received by DH Areas and when 2) high densities of stocked trout are generally maintained for an extended period throughout the spring due to required C&R fishing (as opposed to the density reduction through harvest that occurs in most regular stocked trout waters).

 

[Mike]

Not to confuse conditions in Codorus Ck with those in Bear Ck, it is still worth mentioning, as I have in the past, that when part of Codorus was moved from the regular stocked trout program to the DH ALO program in the 1980’s all DH Areas were stocked at much higher rates, 300 trout per acre, than present DH Areas. Despite this, Codorus’ wild Brown Trout population grew from a Class D or low Class C to a Class A, then to a high Class A, in just a few years. I think it was less than 5 years.

 

[wgmiller]

I noticed signs on the north side when I was up there last spring. I just stayed in the creek and kept moving upstream. I usually park at the red "X" (Woodland Dr.) and fish upstream. It fished really well in April, but when I went back in May I found mostly rainbow stockies and warmwater species. Thanks for bring up the topic of posting - I suspect more signs went up in addition of the ones I saw last spring (yellow Xs), which is sad.

A nice Bear Creek wild brown from last April:

 

[Troutmeister]

As per Mike's post about stocking points lost, I happened to notice not many stocked fish in the lower section last year, but a lot in the upper section. Don't really care about the stockers, I can catch those closer to home. Glad they are leaving that section in the DHALO program though. By the way, anyone else notice the bait containers along this stream? Seems like a lot of poachers fishing this water.