Study just completed: stream restoration likely only beneficial to native brook trout when non-native trout are not present.

[Mike]

The Bucks Co involved a spring that is much larger than most feeding ponds in Pa. The spring and the surrounding property was owned by the PFC and then the PFBC for decades and was originally acquired with the idea of possibly creating an eastern trout hatchery. Volumes of spring water required for a sizable hatchery are a lot greater than the flow from most spring ponds in Pa. Plus, that spring is a limestoner. Given the volume of cold water, success of trout reintroduction was not a big surprise. Given the limited habitat/shallow nature of the stream where substrate is suitable for ST, the stream is unlikely to produce more than a low density number of ST of legal size although in time the density of smaller fish could be high. I wouldn’t look at this case and say with any kind of authority that this is what could be accomplished elsewhere in Pa if only the spring ponds could be drained.

The typical degradation that I have seen all over SE Pa of water temps in wild trout streams by ponds comes from the cumulative effects of multiple ponds discharging to a stream, but even then it is typical that a stream is unshaded in those areas where the ponds begin and downstream.

Low head dams warming wild trout stream water temps are another separate but related problem and some of these are being gradually addressed by the PFBC in concert with other agencies, such as DEP and the ACOE, American Rivers, and sometimes a TU Chapter and/or a nature conservancy. I would emphasize that some of these dam removal projects are specifically wild trout related, although clearly other species benefit….sometimes American eels, sometimes sea lampreys (Cooks Ck, Bucks Co for example, a Class A BT stream), and often white suckers, etc. There is more of this going on behind the scenes than you will probably ever know and at times the opposition is fierce, yet the work often still gets done. Beginning to end can take years.

 

[Fish Sticks]

The Bucks Co involved a spring that is much larger than most feeding ponds in Pa. The spring and the surrounding property was owned by the PFC and then the PFBC for decades and was originally acquired with the idea of possibly creating an eastern trout hatchery. Volumes of spring water required for a sizable hatchery are a lot greater than the flow from most spring ponds in Pa. Plus, that spring is a limestoner. Given the volume of cold water, success of trout reintroduction was not a big surprise. Given the limited habitat/shallow nature of the stream where substrate is suitable for ST, the stream is unlikely to produce more than a low density number of ST of legal size although in time the density of smaller fish could be high. I wouldn’t look at this case and say with any kind of authority that this is what could be accomplished elsewhere in Pa if only the spring ponds could be drained.

The typical degradation that I have seen all over SE Pa of water temps in wild trout streams by ponds comes from the cumulative effects of multiple ponds discharging to a stream, but even then it is typical that a stream is unshaded in those areas where the ponds begin and downstream.

Low head dams warming wild trout stream water temps are another separate but related problem and some of these are being gradually addressed by the PFBC in concert with other agencies, such as DEP and the ACOE, American Rivers, and sometimes a TU Chapter and/or a nature conservancy. I would emphasize that some of these dam removal projects are specifically wild trout related, although clearly other species benefit….sometimes American eels, sometimes sea lampreys (Cooks Ck, Bucks Co for example, a Class A BT stream), and often white suckers, etc. There is more of this going on behind the scenes than you will probably ever know and at times the opposition is fierce, yet the work often still gets done. Beginning to end can take years.

I understand that you need a certain volume of spring water. When I say could be replicated I am just saying there are other certain spring ponds with large enough volume of flow to do this kind of thing. And like you said yourself cumulative impact is big so even if there are multiple that could not themselves sustain a population there is potential there. I realize In that scenario it’s much harder because try getting 3 or 4 farmers to give up their shallow nutrient rich spring ponds. But there are some farmers who have spring lakes cold enough to raise fish in, that’s not all that that uncommon from what I’ve seen. Some big natural springs get partially damed up by road ways running though wetlands creating a spring lake, I passed a huge one yesterday that probably has a failing undersized culvert backing it up a bit. And then there are the huge springs, our best candidates. Unfortunately we have done the stupidest things with those(boiling springs, limestone springs at head of the tulpehocken, rainbow paradise on headwaters of mill creek in potter🤮, and the list goes on.

 

[troutbert]

Boiling Springs Lake might be a potential brook trout restoration site. Wouldn't that be amazing?

From a physical and biological perspective, I don't think it would be difficult.

From a social perspective it probably would be difficult.

But it might become quite a tourist attraction. People could bring their kids there to feed pellets to giant native brook trout.

 

[Mike]

I understand that you need a certain volume of spring water. When I say could be replicated I am just saying there are other certain spring ponds with large enough volume of flow to do this kind of thing. And like you said yourself cumulative impact is big so even if there are multiple that could not themselves sustain a population there is potential there. I realize In that scenario it’s much harder because try getting 3 or 4 farmers to give up their shallow nutrient rich spring ponds. But there are some farmers who have spring lakes cold enough to raise fish in, that’s not all that that uncommon from what I’ve seen. Some big natural springs get partially damed up by road ways running though wetlands creating a spring lake, I passed a huge one yesterday that probably has a failing undersized culvert backing it up a bit. And then there are the huge springs, our best candidates. Unfortunately we have done the stupidest things with those(boiling springs, limestone springs at head of the tulpehocken, rainbow paradise on headwaters of mill creek in potter🤮, and the list goes on.

The Tulpehocken will now be colder and flow good if the sink holes remain sealed. A better wild trout population is apparently developing downstream as a result.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Boiling Springs Lake might be a potential brook trout restoration site. Wouldn't that be amazing?

From a physical and biological perspective, I don't think it would be difficult.

From a social perspective it probably would be difficult.

But it might become quite a tourist attraction. People could bring their kids there to feed pellets to giant native brook trout.

Yea I agree social factors m as always is the biggest challenge in most cases. Big spring is not much more than boiling springs not ruined by a lake. Brown trout are class A at the bottom and brook trout thermally buffered at the top. Despite brown trout getting above the barrier on hit spring they don’t seem to take in any numbers. Occasional 26” straggler or a couple you found up there. Don’t know if temps the reason or not. Any way yea I hat a waste of a spring. Not to mention would be amazing habitat for endangered eastern mud salamander that inhabits breeches and uses upwellings, too bad eastern mud salamanders don’t sell licenses.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

The Tulpehocken will now be colder and flow good if the sink holes remain sealed. A better wild trout population is apparently developing downstream as a result.

There are some ms4 related projects being planned in the myerstown area on small spring fed tribs to the Tulpehocken. Will be interesting to see how improved water quality and consistent flows will impact the fishery if the sink hole repair areas remain stable.

 

[Fish Sticks]

The Tulpehocken will now be colder and flow good if the sink holes remain sealed. A better wild trout population is apparently developing downstream as a result.

Yea it’s all browns though, and I’m sure there are some hatchery descendent rainbows similar to big spring, people report “clean small rainbows”. I lol at like stone springs and think many what a cool place that could be for native brook trout and herps of high conservation need. It’s a wild trout fishery as you mentioned especially if your friends with the right land owners from what I hear, apparently big hexegenia.

 

[Mike]

Browns are fine with me. When streams or long sections thereof have been “lost causes” for fishable populations of wild trout for decades and corrective measures have failed as well, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Browns are fine with me. When streams or long sections thereof have been “lost causes” for fishable populations of wild trout for decades and corrective measures have failed as well, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Well that’s just the difference between fishing and conservation. Many people thankful for populations of brown trout from their fishing experience perspective. That’s how we are where we are today. It’s what made them come over here on a ship in the late 1800’s. It’s why the British empire had acclimatization societies trying to establish them anywhere on the planet they could. There was a 2011 paper I read that estimated brown trout now occupy not far short of 100% of the suitable range of habitat on planet earth that could support them. In PA it’s more of a challenge to find a stream without them than with them. The stream may not have what we call a “fishery” but in most cases even smallmouth streams have a few large brown trout.

But from a conservation standpoint this is how the scientific community thinks about brown trout.

https://www.usu.edu/fel/publications/pdf/Budy&Gaeta2017BrownToutinNAChapter20.pdf

Unfortunately there is not such thing as “conservation” of invasive species because the very thing you would be trying to conserve destabilizes the rest of the food web as mentioned in that above paper.

There will continue to be a huge selection of places for fishermen to catch big wild brown trout in that state of Pennsylvania. But based on the recommendations of USGS, EBTJV, NPS, NGO’s and academics, we shouldn’t shy away from removing brown trout in a few places in this state to preserve the native foodweb/fauna. The gift horse is a Trojan horse if your a conservationist.

 

[Mike]

It’s a matter of pragmatism. The stream is already a low density wild brown trout stream for miles below Rt 422 (see the wild trout streams list) with a high(er) density in a specific segment or two. Good luck reversing that biological momentum.

Additionally, the stream has some Class A potential in places if the sink holes’ work around has some permanency. Evidence for that not being a pipe dream is the fact that there is a Class A equivalent population in one short stretch. If that would occur more longitudinally, then there would be additional water quality protections realized through Chapter 93, which would be a win for water quality protection in a developing region both within a Class A stretch and in downstream areas.

In most cases even smallmouth streams have a few large brown trout???

Not in my experience.

 

[Fish Sticks]

It’s a matter of pragmatism. The stream is already a low density wild brown trout stream for miles below Rt 422 (see the wild trout streams list) with a high(er) density in a specific segment or two.

Additionally, the stream has some Class A potential in places if the sink holes’ work around has some permanency. Evidence for that not being a pipe dream is the fact that there is a Class A equivalent population in one short stretch. If that would occur more longitudinally, then there would be additional water quality protections realized through Chapter 93, which would be a win for water quality protection in a developing region both within a Class A stretch and in downstream areas.

The Tully will have browns in it for sure, other class A populations are in connection with it via the lake below. I don’t know if there are any barriers or not between limestone springs and downtown meyerstown or Meyerstown and the lake. Either way it’s not a pipe dream ecologically to have native brook trout living downstream of an enormous focal discharge of spring water with brown trout down stream. That’s big spring essentially and other smaller spring creeks I won’t name. Like I said there are places you can do this bucks county Tu proved this. Now for the tulpehocken specifically the problem is economic/social as the springs have been perverted into a pay lake for raising inbred borderline invasive rainbows. I am not saying I know with certainty in each situation if a reintroduction will work, I’m just saying bucks county Did it successfully and it’s very likely possible to replicate if the will is there. This goes back to the hatchery discussion in the conservation forum. Most of the places you can do this are being used to raise invasive inbred trout in a most wasteful manner from an ecological perspective. You said your self PAFB wanted to use the site of the bucks county reintroduction for a hatchery instead originally, case and point. If you want to talk some of our best candidate sites to actually protect/reintroduce native brook trout, based on volume of cold water, by un damming impoundments or returning them to a liveable ecosystem these are probably good candidates. Truth is a lot of our PAFB or coop hatcheries are standing in the way of what happened in Bucks county being duplicated, but we are picking invasive hatchery fish over them currently while scientists talk about brook trout being at risk for extirpation in this state. How much money are going to spend doing native brook trout restoration until we come to terms with the fact that we have robbed them of their best habitats to spend an ungodly amount of money raising invasive fish that will be largely responsible single for their demise.

 

[sarce]

I understand that you need a certain volume of spring water. When I say could be replicated I am just saying there are other certain spring ponds with large enough volume of flow to do this kind of thing. And like you said yourself cumulative impact is big so even if there are multiple that could not themselves sustain a population there is potential there. I realize In that scenario it’s much harder because try getting 3 or 4 farmers to give up their shallow nutrient rich spring ponds. But there are some farmers who have spring lakes cold enough to raise fish in, that’s not all that that uncommon from what I’ve seen. Some big natural springs get partially damed up by road ways running though wetlands creating a spring lake, I passed a huge one yesterday that probably has a failing undersized culvert backing it up a bit. And then there are the huge springs, our best candidates. Unfortunately we have done the stupidest things with those(boiling springs, limestone springs at head of the tulpehocken, rainbow paradise on headwaters of mill creek in potter🤮, and the list goes on.

One thing to consider with ponds is that although they do warm the water downstream, in some cases they also provide storage volume to contain stormwater runoff...and in some cases if you were to remove the dams the resulting increase in flow would destabilize the downstream channel resulting in erosion and habitat loss. Many ponds are small enough it wouldn't make a difference but it's not one size fits all. In the West they are talking about how beaver ponds are beneficial to trout populations because they act as sediment traps. Apparently to an extent that the benefit outweighs the warmer water. I was surprised to learn about that, as I had always thought ponds = warm = bad for trout.

 

[silverfox]

It’s a matter of pragmatism. The stream is already a low density wild brown trout stream for miles below Rt 422 (see the wild trout streams list) with a high(er) density in a specific segment or two. Good luck reversing that biological momentum.

Additionally, the stream has some Class A potential in places if the sink holes’ work around has some permanency. Evidence for that not being a pipe dream is the fact that there is a Class A equivalent population in one short stretch. If that would occur more longitudinally, then there would be additional water quality protections realized through Chapter 93, which would be a win for water quality protection in a developing region both within a Class A stretch and in downstream areas.

In most cases even smallmouth streams have a few large brown trout???
Not in my experience. In 40+ yrs of fieldwork that at one time included warmwater streams across the state I never found a single one and only Manatawny and possibly Bald Eagle Ck (Centre Co) produced any wild browns during warmwater fish population surveys.

I don't understand the concept of why we can't just have low biomass populations.

I know myself (and others) have said repeatedly that some low biomass waters fish better than Class A's. At least when it comes to ST. There's so much variability in ST populations that I personally don't give historic sampling/biomass records much value. From extreme annual population fluctuations to seasonal use of different habitats and micro-habitats, to changes in stream health since last sampling effort, those class ratings don't provide an accurate representation of the population sizes.

The account I gave the other day in another thread is a perfect example. That tiny 3,000 foot long stream was somehow sampled as Class A at some point. It's clearly not. At least not year-round. It might be important thermal refugia, spawning habitat, and a YOY nursery, but it doesn't have class a biomass for the majority of the year. The stream it empties into does (or did when I was there), but it's not classified as class a.

There needs to be more fine-scale sampling and watershed level assessment to get a better handle on ST populations. We're assuming we have these robust ST populations, but I have a strong suspicion we've over-estimated our stocks on a large scale. I'm not going to elaborate on that, but I have it on very good authority that my assumptions are correct.

 

[Fish Sticks]

*border line synthetic

* aware bucks county tu did not have downstream browns but obviously big spring and others do.

 

[Fish Sticks]

One thing to consider with ponds is that although they do warm the water downstream, in some cases they also provide storage volume to contain stormwater runoff...and in some cases if you were to remove the dams the resulting increase in flow would destabilize the downstream channel resulting in erosion and habitat loss. Many ponds are small enough it wouldn't make a difference but it's not one size fits all. In the West they are talking about how beaver ponds are beneficial to trout populations because they act as sediment traps. Apparently to an extent that the benefit outweighs the warmer water. I was surprised to learn about that, as I had always thought ponds = warm = bad for trout.

Good point I agree a beaver pond is different story, it functions differently hydrologically than a farm pond in my understanding

 

[sarce]

Good point I agree a beaver pond is different story, it functions differently hydrologically than a farm pond in my understanding

That's probably true in most cases. And both are different from examples like you just showed of large springs being dammed.

I've just seen more habitat loss due to erosion and uncontrolled flows (part of that is happening due to more frequent intense rainfall which no pond is going to fix) than I have due to warm water from a couple farm ponds scattered around the far upper reaches of small spring seep tribs. If the groundwater is half decent and there is shade the temps will recover once the stream gets farther down the valley.

 

[Fish Sticks]

More examples of huge volume springs with alot of potential

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Have you ever seen the spring at Tylersville in person? Much of it flows directly into Fishing Creek.

You may benefit from researching that watershed to examine significant threats to the water quality of that spring....

 

[Fish Sticks]

Have you ever seen the spring at Tylersville in person? Much of it flows directly into Fishing Creek.

You may benefit from researching that watershed to examine significant threats to the water quality of that spring....

I know there are brookies in that watershed already, fish can obviously survive in the hatchery, and the white scum and high nutrients are not all from the overpopulated hatchery tanks full of stocked fish releasing their waste?

 

[Fish Sticks]

Have you ever seen the spring at Tylersville in person? Much of it flows directly into Fishing Creek.

You may benefit from researching that watershed to examine significant threats to the water quality of that spring....

Also the hammer creeks water quality is god awful, enough to be such a high priority for DEP to fund. This has not stopped brook trout there, it’s cold. I am not saying it will work in every situation. I know water quality is important for brook trout but I have a hard time believing the crowded conditions at Tyler’s like do not contribute to the water quality issues. Brook trout live in the same waterway as the hatchery already, I don’t see how reclaiming that hatchery/those springs would not be beneficial. However I am aware any serious effort like this needs feasibility studies, ground water level measurements with piezometers, modeling, impact studies, and many more investigations and any of these could show in one individual place it’s not going to work.

the point I am making is we stole the best and largest upwelling’s from brook trout to raise the invasive completion that will play a big part in sealing their fate in Pa according to EBTJV prioritized threat list.

We need to actually try reintroductions for them to work in some places where there is a good enough probability they will. right now the only successful one was done by volunteers I’m sure if PAFB had the will to do this it could be replicated somewhere, problem is we can’t sacrifice a single stocked rainbow in this state.

I heard a commissioner earlier this year who sadly has the most wild brook trout water under his watch in Pa get audibly uncomfortable and concerned that because freeman run was making its own wild brown trout and they would have to “relocate those stocked fish”. Do we really though???? What does it say about the commission’s priorities and views on its own conservation responsibilities if not stocking is “a problem”. Ultimately staff used logic to prevail and my concern was more the brook trout in that class A brown trout stream but the fact that it was an argument was sad.

I don’t understand this mentality but it’s so ingrained at this point that people get upset when wild reproduction improves and the stocking stops.