Segloch

[JeffP]

I fished the lower Segloch with a friend. This is the Landis Farm stretch that I worked on years ago with TU. I caught a bunch last year and was impressed how the creek looked in the stretch below Yummerdall Road. We didn't have a hit or see a fish in that stretch yesterday. The stretch above the bridge was absolutely choked with silt. It was a flat paved highway of silt. We went up around the bend and more or the same. The great hole at the start of the woods section was filled in with silt. I was just wondering if anyone else has fished that stretch. Where last year I was excited, this year I am depressed. I know we have talked about the Segloch in the past, but I was just wondering if anyone had fished or walked it lately.

 

[HopBack]

I fished the lower Segloch with a friend. This is the Landis Farm stretch that I worked on years ago with TU. I caught a bunch last year and was impressed how the creek looked in the stretch below Yummerdall Road. We didn't have a hit or see a fish in that stretch yesterday. The stretch above the bridge was absolutely choked with silt. It was a flat paved highway of silt. We went up around the bend and more or the same. The great hole at the start of the woods section was filled in with silt. I was just wondering if anyone else has fished that stretch. Where last year I was excited, this year I am depressed. I know we have talked about the Segloch in the past, but I was just wondering if anyone had fished or walked it lately.

Do you mean hopeland farms? Did t know you could fish the lower portion except in the small patch of gamelands between hopeland rd and the turnpike. Anyway, that stream has been going down hill for years. Last time I was there I caught a few tiny brown trout.

 

[JeffP]

I was on the lowest stretch right before it runs into Middle Creek. Yummerdall Road connects Hopeland Road to 322. There was a big TU project there about 20 years ago.

 

[troutbert]

What is causing the stream's quality to degrade?

 

[JeffP]

There are a lot of issues in the headwaters. I believe a little trib is dammed and a bunch of overgrazing in small areas right on the stream. I can't believe the Christmas Tree farm helps and now that they have their prized hogs for the foodies rooting in the wetlands.The road next to the stream can't help. Some blame the type of soil but it's the same soil as it was 40 years ago when I first fished it. It's odd but they used to stock it and there were lots of brookies back in the days. I think drought years have taken a toll too. I hardly ever fish the woods any more as it's just tough to see. I do think someone last year sent a pm with a pretty positive fall report including the seeing a lot of reds. I really think its should be surveyed again.

 

[Swattie87]

I fished the upper SGL stretch once this Winter. The fish are fine. By the fish, I mean the Brown Trout. My catch ratio of Browns to Brookies has increased significantly in the 10 years or so that I have fished it. It used to be mostly Brookies with the occasional Brown in the primo spots. I’m certain it’s more Browns than Brookies now. Browns are harder to catch most of the time, so I generally catch less numbers. That’s the only significant, non cyclical, difference in my mind.

I will say that the stream’s geology (red sandstone) does contribute to it filling up with sediment (sand). But it also contributes to its relatively fertile water (for a small freestoner) so it’s a double-edged sword. After the big floods of 2011, the stream’s habitat temporarily improved from a scouring of the sediment. From 2012 to 2015 or so, the stream fished very well, and I think temporarily carried a higher biomass of fish than it normally did because of the temporarily better habitat. This is of course cyclical and it’s been filling back up with sand ever since. This condition isn’t unique to Segloch, its neighbors in the Furnace Hills along the Lebanon/Lancaster County border are all experiencing the same, and experienced the same temporary increase in biomass following the 2011 floods. It will happen again I’m sure too.

Just look at the banks, and all of the sediment in the holes, it’s all the same red sandstone. The “rocks” disintegrate under your feet…sandstone. “Is what it is”, as they say.

 

[Mike]

Swattie has hit the nail on the head. I may have even written something similar about the stream thirty yrs or so ago. The stream channel fills with sand to the point that the tops of boulders the size of one or two basketballs emerge from the sand by three to six inches. Then a major storm comes along and the boulders are nearly fully exposed again. This occurs repetitively over a course of a few years.

As for the browns, the last time I surveyed the stream going back to perhaps the middle 1990’s, there may have only been one or so captured in the approx 300 yd sampling site. Browns have been reported by anglers in the past decade to the extent that it is believable that something has changed. I checked a topo map tonight on the PGC web site and noticed what appear to be three ponds in the headwaters. I don’t have any older topo maps, but I don’t recall ponds from the past. Do any locals know if that is a change?

 

[JeffP]

Swattie i am glad to hear the fish are fine! Any brookies at all? I have caught browns there for years. I would say 50/50 since the mid 90s. About a decade or so ago, I had a morning of 20 brookies and no browns. Very few brookies since that day. I have to admit I fish it once a year now.

 

[JeffP]

Mike, I swear it looks different than it did when I was a kid. It just doesn't scream brookies any more. I caught my 1st native there as a kid on a worm under a jack dam. It was amazing to see the little jewel. Same with my 1st one on Elders Run

 

[Swattie87]

Any brookies at all?

Not this last time, or the last couple times I’ve fished it.

It was more Brookies than Browns when I first started fishing it. Then, after the 2011 floods, it was probably 50/50 or so for that stretch from 2012 to 2015 when the holes and runs were deeper for a while. The last few years my outings have been mostly, or all Browns.

Mike’s basketball rock explanation is a good one in terms of what happens. The stream seemed so much deeper for a while. I’d say the primo spots are roughly half the depth now, as they were after the floods. Filled in with sand. Next time you’re there, pick up a handful from the bottom of a good pool and touch and feel it. It’s almost like beach sand, but red. And it’s probably 18 inches or so deep. There’s still fish occupying the good habitat. There’s just less good habitat because of the sand. The old primo spots are now just mediocre. And the old mediocre spots are now incapable of holding a fish. In the whole upper SGL stretch, I’d say there’s now only 4 or 5 really good holes. After the 2011 floods, it was all good, for a while.

 

[JeffP]

Lack of brookies is worrisome.

 

[Swattie87]

Lack of brookies is worrisome.

Right now, I doubt it’s Class A anything. It probably was from 2012 to 2015, if resurveyed then - But doubtful it would have still been Class A Brookies even then. Either mix, or Class A Browns, as the rating is based on biomass, not numbers, and the Browns run larger on average.

It’s also possible, I think, that increasing biomass of Browns further downstream in the watershed (you know where I mean) may be having an upstream effect into Segloch and Furnace. There are also more Browns in Furnace than there were when I first started fishing it. When I first fished Furnace for several years I did not catch a Brown. I still catch more Brookies there, but Browns are a regular catch too now. FWIW.

Mike - Do you know when Segloch was last surveyed?

 

[JeffP]

I seem to remember a number of surveys around the time they were talking about putting the sewage treatment plant on Furnace. That had to be 10 plus years ago. Maybe more.

 

[Mike]

I’m not sure about the time period of the last survey because there were some samples of genetic material collected from some ST populations for a researcher in the 2000’s and I can’t be certain from memory that Segloch was or was not one of the sampled streams. I was not on those field crews. While that would not have been a standard survey, it would have possibly given the crew some gross sense of a change in relative BT/ST abundance if the previous survey had showed that ST were by far the predominant species…as in nearly 100% ST…and if the crew was aware of the previous species composition.

 

[silverfox]

I fished the upper SGL stretch once this Winter. The fish are fine. By the fish, I mean the Brown Trout. My catch ratio of Browns to Brookies has increased significantly in the 10 years or so that I have fished it. It used to be mostly Brookies with the occasional Brown in the primo spots. I’m certain it’s more Browns than Brookies now. Browns are harder to catch most of the time, so I generally catch less numbers. That’s the only significant, non cyclical, difference in my mind.

I will say that the stream’s geology (red sandstone) does contribute to it filling up with sediment (sand). But it also contributes to its relatively fertile water (for a small freestoner) so it’s a double-edged sword. After the big floods of 2011, the stream’s habitat temporarily improved from a scouring of the sediment. From 2012 to 2015 or so, the stream fished very well, and I think temporarily carried a higher biomass of fish than it normally did because of the temporarily better habitat. This is of course cyclical and it’s been filling back up with sand ever since. This condition isn’t unique to Segloch, its neighbors in the Furnace Hills along the Lebanon/Lancaster County border are all experiencing the same, and experienced the same temporary increase in biomass following the 2011 floods. It will happen again I’m sure too.

Just look at the banks, and all of the sediment in the holes, it’s all the same red sandstone. The “rocks” disintegrate under your feet…sandstone. “Is what it is”, as they say.

I have two friends that live nearby and have said the same thing. Almost all BT now. As Mike mentioned, there were fin clips taken from some ST recently so there are clearly some left, or at least there were a few years ago. That might have been a different collection as I know it was done more recently 2020/2021? As a side note, there's some talk of gene banking those fish and/or transplanting using them as a source so at least their genes aren't lost forever.

 

[Swattie87]

I have two friends that live nearby and have said the same thing. Almost all BT now. As Mike mentioned, there were fin clips taken from some ST recently so there are clearly some left, or at least there were a few years ago. That might have been a different collection as I know it was done more recently 2020/2021? As a side note, there's some talk of gene banking those fish and/or transplanting using them as a source so at least their genes aren't lost forever.

Transplanting to where?

 

[silverfox]

Transplanting to where?

Undetermined from what I know. I think there are a few theoretical locations in the area. It was mentioned in passing as a potential source based on the apparent displacement situation.

 

[Mike]

Jeff P: Furnace had a low or very low density wild trout population and it occurred perhaps within and certainly below the woodland gap on Rt 501 just north of Brickerville. That may have changed in either direction, worse or better, by now.

 

[Swattie87]

The Furnace Hills streams are remarkably similar to one another. They all have the same red sandstone geology and they all flow through a boulder field at relatively the same elevation in their drainage.

They were all cleaned out after the 2011 floods and fished well for a few years, and they’re all filling in with sand again and not fishing as well now. They’re also all trending to more Browns, and less Brookies for whatever reason. One is already all Browns, or at least I’ve never caught a Brookie in it. There’s two remaining that I’ve never caught a Brown in, but I suspect at least one of them likely has Browns in it. The rest are somewhere in the middle, but all of them are tending toward more Browns from my angling anecdotes.

 

[riverwhy]

The bigger branch is actually the one that comes from the north along Fawn Hollow, not the "west branch". That west branch is an absolute mess. If you look on a satellite image it runs through a mud pit with no vegetation. There is also a TINY feeder that crosses Laurel Road flowing north to meet the Fawn Hollow branch.