Stocking Class A's

[Prospector]

salvelinus wrote:
I fished CF, YW, Slate and Cedar in the mid-late 70's. They were all stocked.

You could be right. Like I said, I was young and probably lacked some awareness of Cross Fork Creek being stocked when I was a kid. I do recall my dad and his buddy fishing the tall metal bridge where the current snowmobile bridge sits today. I know that bridge was stocked at times around 1970 before I was old enough to go along. However when I was old enough to go along I don’t remember any stocked trout unless they were all brook trout.

I am aware that introduction of browns in the Kettle Creek watershed originated in Cross Fork creek and probably occurred in the 1920s. The browns quickly spread to all tribs in the system. Starting in 1937, George Harvey did a tour of 4 summers on Kettle Creek as part of a research assignment he received from Dean Watts (PSU Dean of Agriculture 1912-1939) who owned a camp on Kettle. By 1940 the PFC had sort of a covert mission to eradicate the Browns from Hammersley Fork. It’s all detailed in George Harvey’s book “Memories, Patterns and Tactics” pages 24-28. Very fascinating story for those familiar with the area or even as a glimpse into Genesys of understanding seasonal trout movement.

 

[troutbert]

Prospector wrote:

salvelinus wrote:
I fished CF, YW, Slate and Cedar in the mid-late 70's. They were all stocked.

You could be right. Like I said, I was young and probably lacked some awareness of Cross Fork Creek being stocked when I was a kid. I do recall my dad and his buddy fishing the tall metal bridge where the current snowmobile bridge sits today. I know that bridge was stocked at times around 1970 before I was old enough to go along. However when I was old enough to go along I don’t remember any stocked trout unless they were all brook trout.

I fished Cross Fork Creek in the early 1970s and it was heavily stocked from the Hungry Hollow Road bridge down to the mouth.

At some point after Operation Future went into effect, that section was listed as Class A, and stocking ended.

Then, much like the scenario on YWC, there was pressure to start stocking it again, and they succeeded.

 

[Prospector]

Troutbert,

Thanks for clarifying and filling in the gaps in my memory about NCPA.


Responding to the full thread,

Having spent a lot of time in Potter/Clinton Co as a youth I grew to love the Class A experience (long before I ever heard that term). There is one Class A where I grew up and none in the county I now call home, so I don’t fish them much. I fished 6 Class A streams last year and one more that should be. The experience on these streams is very special in many ways. I hope the PFBC develops a plan to address the stocking over Class A. Whether it’s a 10% reduction per year for 10 years until all Class A’s are left to natural reproduction or if they just reallocate 100% of trout being stocked in Class A’s into other water in 2021 or 2022.

I do feel that these waters should be re-evaluated after 5 years to see if they have the proper biomass to remain Class A. I mentioned earlier how the bottom fell out of fishing on Cross Fork creek when it changed designation. That part bothers me. Maybe it’s perfectly normal and if the fish are there but just super spooky, then keep Class A in place.

But if for some strange reason, stocking over Class A actually increases wild populations then that has to be examined further. For instance if herons and mink feast on the less wary stocked trout and that reduces predation on wild trout then maybe there is a place for the combined program. I doubt if that is the case but I think data should support the direction. No stocking should be the first step.

 

[RLeep2]

>> I mentioned earlier how the bottom fell out of fishing on Cross Fork creek when it changed designation. That part bothers me. Maybe it’s perfectly normal and if the fish are there but just super spooky, then keep Class A in place.>>

I'd suggest this might have been more perceptional than actual. When the stocking cessation effects from the initial Operation Future surveys took hold, there was a fair amount of grousing from, of all places, older TU guys that the Commission had "ruined" Cross Fork and YWC. But in point of fact, nothing had been ruined. It simply became different and more in concert with the nature and limitations of the stream.

 

[Swattie87]

Late to the discussion here, but I’ll add my thoughts and anecdotal evidence. I struggle to think that YWC and CF are warm water streams, even in their lower reaches. I suppose I’d need to see the survey data to believe it. Take YWC for example in the Summer of 2020, a hot and very low flow Summer. YWC’s temperature gauge topped out at roughly 73 degrees for a few brief periods. Hardly warm water species friendly temperatures, and while warmer than desired for Trout, those temperature are easily survivable by wild Trout for the brief windows temps hit those levels. Yeah, the gauge is up a little bit from the lower reaches, but not far enough to make a huge difference. I don’t have the data from CF, but I’d expect conditions were similar there this Summer.

I’ve fished CF twice in the last two years. Both times it was the stretch around Hungry Hollow Rd. Once was this Fall, after the drought this Summer. I caught mostly wild Brookies. A few wild Browns, including one large one. I observed one, presumably stocked, Rainbow, but did not catch it. No SMB or Fallfish, which are the two most common WW species I catch in the WW streams in that area of the state. (I catch a lot in lower Kettle and Pine for example.)

Last time I fished the mainstem of YWC was a few years ago, but it was in the midst of a low flow/hot Summer year. 2016 maybe? I think that was the last year similar to 2020’s Summer. I was a mile or two above the confluence with the LB, roughly near the gauge. I caught wild Browns, and one presumably stocked, Rainbow. I’ve fished the LB more frequently...Mostly wild Browns, some wild Brookies, and an occasional stocked Rainbow. No SMB or Fallfish caught anywhere in the system.

Conclusion: YWC and CF are cold water, mostly wild Trout, fisheries, that in warm/dry years have marginal, but largely survivable, conditions in their bottom halves. I agree that neither should be stocked.

 

[troutbert]

Prospector wrote:
Troutbert,

Thanks for clarifying and filling in the gaps in my memory about NCPA.


Responding to the full thread,

Having spent a lot of time in Potter/Clinton Co as a youth I grew to love the Class A experience (long before I ever heard that term). There is one Class A where I grew up and none in the county I now call home, so I don’t fish them much. I fished 6 Class A streams last year and one more that should be. The experience on these streams is very special in many ways. I hope the PFBC develops a plan to address the stocking over Class A. Whether it’s a 10% reduction per year for 10 years until all Class A’s are left to natural reproduction or if they just reallocate 100% of trout being stocked in Class A’s into other water in 2021 or 2022.

I do feel that these waters should be re-evaluated after 5 years to see if they have the proper biomass to remain Class A. I mentioned earlier how the bottom fell out of fishing on Cross Fork creek when it changed designation. That part bothers me. Maybe it’s perfectly normal and if the fish are there but just super spooky, then keep Class A in place.

But if for some strange reason, stocking over Class A actually increases wild populations then that has to be examined further. For instance if herons and mink feast on the less wary stocked trout and that reduces predation on wild trout then maybe there is a place for the combined program. I doubt if that is the case but I think data should support the direction. No stocking should be the first step.

The reason the "bottom fell out of the fishing" was that hatchery trout are MUCH easier to catch than wild brown trout. From about Windfall Run down to the mouth, the population has been mostly brown trout, since at least the early 1970s with only a few brookies.

Wild browns in freestone streams are tough, much of the time, except when the conditions are really good.

 

[Prospector]

troutbert wrote:

The reason the "bottom fell out of the fishing" was that hatchery trout are MUCH easier to catch than wild brown trout. From about Windfall Run down to the mouth, the population has been mostly brown trout, since at least the early 1970s with only a few brookies.

Wild browns in freestone streams are tough, much of the time, except when the conditions are really good.

That’s not exactly my experience on Cross Fork. We go the same few weeks every year so my data comes from a consistent timeframe.

l’ll break this into 2 parts since when my son was younger I took him exclusively to the snowmobile bridge so he could easily cast to rising fish and improve his slow water presentations. So at the snowmobile bridge from 2012 - 2015 I caught 82 rainbow and 8 brook, no browns. This ratio is no surprise due to the stocking of rainbows there and the fact they tend to hold pretty well.

From 2016 -2020 I fished exclusively upstream catching 74 brook (69%), 17 rainbow (16%) and 16 brown (15%).

2020 23 Brook, 3 Brown, 2 Rainbow
2019 7 Brook, 3 Brown, 3 Rainbow
2018 17 Brook, 8 Brown, 11 Rainbow
2017 13 Brook, 2 Brown, 1 Rainbow
2016 14 Brook, 0 Brown, 0 Rainbow

I’ll concede that there is a chance my technique or choice of fly is somehow inflating my brook trout numbers on Cross Fork. However that same technique and choice of fly is showing a brown trout percentage on YWC of 71%.

 

[Swattie87]

My experience too is there’s a higher proportion of Brookies in CF, and a higher proportion of Browns in the YWC watershed, relatively speaking, in terms of the wild fish populations.

Though, I haven’t fished CF much below Hungry Hollow Rd. I’d expect an increasing percentage of Browns as you get closer to Kettle.

In YWC, I’ve had to go pretty far up into the headwaters of both branches before I start catching mostly Brookies. And even then, there’s still a fair amount of Browns. I found a 14” Brown in a tiny culvert pool way up on a trib of Lebo on time.

 

[troutbert]

Prospector wrote:

troutbert wrote:

The reason the "bottom fell out of the fishing" was that hatchery trout are MUCH easier to catch than wild brown trout. From about Windfall Run down to the mouth, the population has been mostly brown trout, since at least the early 1970s with only a few brookies.

Wild browns in freestone streams are tough, much of the time, except when the conditions are really good.

That’s not exactly my experience on Cross Fork. We go the same few weeks every year so my data comes from a consistent timeframe.

l’ll break this into 2 parts since when my son was younger I took him exclusively to the snowmobile bridge so he could easily cast to rising fish and improve his slow water presentations. So at the snowmobile bridge from 2012 - 2015 I caught 82 rainbow and 8 brook, no browns. This ratio is no surprise due to the stocking of rainbows there and the fact they tend to hold pretty well.

From 2016 -2020 I fished exclusively upstream catching 74 brook (69%), 17 rainbow (16%) and 16 brown (15%).

2020 23 Brook, 3 Brown, 2 Rainbow
2019 7 Brook, 3 Brown, 3 Rainbow
2018 17 Brook, 8 Brown, 11 Rainbow
2017 13 Brook, 2 Brown, 1 Rainbow
2016 14 Brook, 0 Brown, 0 Rainbow

I’ll concede that there is a chance my technique or choice of fly is somehow inflating my brook trout numbers on Cross Fork. However that same technique and choice of fly is showing a brown trout percentage on YWC of 71%.

What was the breakdown between hatchery fish and wild fish?

The rainbows were obviously stockies. But how about the browns and brookies?

 

[lycoflyfisher]

While catch observations do hold some value, especially when compared over a number of years using similar tactics such as Prospector presented, my summers in college showed that as a hole angling can be a very poor representation of the trout population in a stream. It is well noted that browns in Freestone streams can be very difficult to catch unless in optimal conditions. It has also been discussed on this forum how in clear water conditions one may catch almost all brook trout and returning to that same location after a rain event may lead to catching many more brown trout. Again, I think our notes can hold value to compare trends over time, but it is very difficult for anglers to make population estimates or determine species composition on a consistent basis.

There is a lot of historical temperature data available on kettle, cross fork, Hammersley etc from Penn state. It has been several years since I have looked at it, but warming temps in the mainstream and those tribs has been documented for a long time. That said it is still valuable habitat for wild trout,

 

[Prospector]

troutbert wrote:

What was the breakdown between hatchery fish and wild fish?

The rainbows were obviously stockies. But how about the browns and brookies?

Correct, none of the Rainbows. On the Brown/brook I really haven’t been trained to assess nor do I keep notes to that detail. Browns are easier due to the eye spot, but that’s why I made the suggestion earlier to do a “Class A assessment” 5 years after they abolish stocking on that stream to confirm the stream really can meet the criteria.

I think that’s appropriate. Of course that would require us to continue buying the wild trout enhancement stamp to fund the labor for those tasks.

 

[jifigz]

I think this. Stop stocking everywhere. Why are trout more important than other fish in a stream? Other native fish that aren't gamefish.

Stop stocking. Let our wild trout thrive. We have what it takes, PA. We have amazing trout water.

 

[bigjohn58]

As long as the mentality of the PA sportsmen doesn't change I agree with stocking over wild fish in certain situations. lower Fishing Creek and Bald Eagle Creek from Spring Creek down to the dam are prime examples. As long as you have the overharvesting of fish (the stockies seem to satisfy the meat hunters) and people aren't obeying the rules I have no issue with these 2 slightly larger streams being stocked with rainbows. The brown trout seem to have no issue surviving with the stocked trout. They seem to thrive just as well. Now if everyone did minimal harvesting and obeyed the laws then I'd think differently.

 

[Tigereye]

I have been following this and other threads RE: stocking vs wild. Personally its not an argument I wish enter as I fish both types of streams and for me to opine strongly one way or another would be hypocritical. I fish where I can.

That said I think there are misconceptions on both sides. A few of my friends feel if it weren't for stocking there would be no fish, or equate wild fish as 6 to 8 inch dinks which are not worth the effort. In some watersheds they are correct thus they feel stocking is necessary for the sport.

On the no stocking argument, I also agree that the introduction of factory fish is not best for the resource for the myriad of reasons mentioned in this and other treads.

I think it best to listen to each others argument and try to understand WHY each person holds the opinion they do. A persons past fishing experiences play a huge role in one's outlook.

Food for thought. The private Wigwam Club on Colorado's S Platte R in Cheeseman Canyon stocks over wild fish. Wild fish populations are 5-8000 fish per mile and the average fish is about 15-16 inches. The fishing on the river is phenomenal, why someone would pay to put more fish in there is headscratching. I am not sure you have a significantly better experience in the stocked vs unspoken sections.

 

[Tigereye]

Un stocked sections. My bad

 

[keirns4]

Getting the Kish to stop being stocked or a section of it turned into C&R FFO has about as much of a chance as people NOT talking about the Class A Streams they fish, where to park, how many fish they catch, when to go, what to use, showing videos on YouTube, etc, etc, etc. In other words No Chance.