Tan Caddis Decline on Spring Creek

[troutbert]

Has anyone else noticed that the tan caddis numbers have declined on Spring Creek?

There still are some, but they used to hatch in heavy numbers, around the last week in April and into the first week in May, and I haven't seen that in recent years.

I think this is a result of improving water quality in Spring Creek. Tan caddis are usually found in large numbers where there are a lot of nutrients in the stream.

The tan caddis are down. But the grannom numbers are up, and they are an indicator of good water quality. There used to be only a few upstream of Bellefonte, but now more are appearing in the Canyon.

The Canyon also now has March Browns/Gray Foxes, and Cahills, and Perlid stoneflies, all of which were rare in the late 80s and early 90s.

I think the improvements probably mostly came from greatly improved water treatment at the hatcheries at Benner Spring and Fishermans Paradise. And riparian buffers on Spring Creek and its headwater tributaries probably helped also.

 

[Dave_W]

Interesting!

I too loved the late April tan caddis hatch on Spring Creek back in the 80s; used to buy multiple swatches of "coastal deer hair" from the crew at FFP every winter to tie up a bunch. The hatch was often accompanied by craneflies and really got the fish looking up. I don't fish Spring as much these days, but don't seem to see as many caddis now.

Good news on the other species and your theory about water quality is plausible.

 

[troutbert]

I discussed this with another local flyfisher and he pointed out that sowbug numbers are also way down in Spring Creek. And probably for the same reason. Large numbers of sowbugs is an indicator of organic pollution. There used to be enormous numbers of them in Spring Creek. Now there are still some, but a fraction of what there used to be. Probably mostly due to the improved water treatment at the hatcheries.