Thoughts on class a lists

[Floggingtrout]

Just a quick ramble. However wanted to see some of your thoughts on is posting Class a trout waters beneficial. Seems to me these fragile habitats get a lot more pressure once posted. Does that classification really provide that much protection? Wouldit be better to classify and not post information? Or finally am I just jealous other people are now fishing my stream x without having to discover on their own?

 

[bigjohn58]

Great question...I've often wondered this as well! I guess when these streams are labeled "Class A" they are supposed to be receiving extra protection with land development and whatnot. From what I have seen though is little protection at least on the larger class A stream I fish most often. Land owners pretty much do whatever they want. One new owner cleared out a lot of brush along the stream along his property along the creek. Also a very large section of this class A had a whole bunch of willow trees cut down that provided the stream with extra shade. I thought it was very odd that these trees were allowed to be cut down. I hear that when they get labeled "Class A" they get extra protection from land development but I'm not sure thats the case. Personally I feel they need to educate land owners along these class A streams more and reinforce the responsibility they have to protect these streams.

 

[troutbert]

Regulations such as Delayed Harvest, Catch-and-Release, Trophy Trout etc. create great increases in angler usage.

Putting a stream on a Class A list, without adding such regulations doesn't generate much increase in angler usage, from what I've seen.

Have you seen examples of that?

 

[Acristickid]

^ That was gonna be my question.

I’d say it’s a 50/50. There are considerably less anglers in PA then there used to be- however; I believe today’s anglers have so much more information and can hear about waters that 10 , 20 ,30 years ago they would have never known about.

That said your gonna half to be hard-core or a dedicated angler to want to travel more than an hour to fish at 10 foot wide stream.

Most guys are not going to drive that far , hike more than a few hundred yards and fish a tiny water where you get hung up in a lot of vegetation.

In this in this electronic age, this website as far as spotburning has been superseded by Facebook pages. Although I find the content on the Facebook pages mainly reduced to grip and grin’s and is pretty nauseating. I mean I take pictures as much as the next guy but I certainly don’t post hardly any of the fish I’ve caught and the trips that I take on PAFF and never on Facebook.

Also on the class a list - so many of the surveys could be 10 , 20 and 30 years old and that the stream may be much different today. For example; the laurel highlands where I live have taken it pretty hard with severe flooding the last 2 years. Here is a secret stream near me mostly flowing through private property- Powdermill Run. It’s a class a rainbow stream-always wanted to fish it for years and years , last year I had the opportunity to fish it with another boardmember Andrew and we discovered the stream was decimated due to flooding , not only did we not catch a fish we only saw one in about a half a mile to a mile of water. Also I believe a rainbow class a stream has considerably less fish in it then say a wild brown stream.

I do believe that the Internet has put more people on the big four in Central PA without many people thinking about going somewhere else. So as it relates to those I do believe there’s a lot more people from the Internet magazine articles etc.

I have no problem with the PAFB publishing a list. I have struggled with more people for example on the little J- there’s no question in my mind that there is considerably more people fishing it now then 10 years ago and certainly more than 20 years ago. The reason I struggle is as Bill Anderson would say a stream with no friends or that is relatively unknown is a stream that could be in peril. More eyeballs on the stream means more protection. So not sure what the correct answer is to that.

Personally I have always enjoyed researching on the Internet, reading books guide books, looking at maps , that sort of thing.I like to find things out on my own.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

@Acristic...You hit the nail on the head with regard to how outdated some surveys are. I have a fished a few Class A's that turned out to be real clunkers. Upon further investigation, I find out from people in the know that it was "X" years since the stream had the required biomass to maintain Class A status, or "X" years since the stream held trout at all.

As for the publishing of the list, it does take the guesswork out for many people. I certainly use it as a starting point, but not as an end-all be-all proposition. Many times, I find that tributaries of tributaries or different stream sections not designated Class A actually fish better. I also agree that the average Joe does not want to put in the effort that it takes to be successful on many of the Class A's which require long hikes or scaling boulders the size of a Subaru for mainly smaller trout with a smattering of larger ones in the mix under the right conditions. I'm on the fence with this one, though if they didn't publish the list, I could still rely on other research methods which others could easily learn for uncovering wild trout streams and still be pretty successful.

 

[kbobb]

is it taken off the stocking list i.e. do they stop stocking this stream??

 

[jifigz]

kbobb wrote:
is it taken off the stocking list i.e. do they stop stocking this stream??

Generally, yes, but not always. There are exceptions. My favorite trout stream has about 7 miles of stream that is regulated as Class A brown trout water and also stocked with rainbows. There are other streams I know of with a similar trend. The signage on the stream also states that it is both class a and stocked.

 

[fritz]

“The signage on the stream also states that it is both class a and stocked.”

That is interesting. I do not recall of ever seeing a sign posted as class A water. Is that a PF&BC sign? Maybe I don’t read signs close enough.

It would be interesting to know what a survey a few years after the class A designation would look like. I ran into one fisherman on a class A this year with spinners and a creel. Said he only keeps the ones he “hurts” and the “big ones”. Said he’s been fishing that stream for 20 years. If that’s true he certainly hasn’t affected the population.

 

[Wild_Trouter]

Go to Penns Creek in Spring Mills if you want to see the signs Jifigz is referring to. You should also see them on Fishing Creek (Clinton County) too.

 

[fritz]

Thanks. I lead a pretty sheltered life in York Co.

 

[pcray1231]

There are like 1000 streams on the class A list and like 4 or 5 thousand on the natural repro list.

IMO its good. PA is full of wild trout, and while some streams are over crowded, many are underutilized. And on mrssage boards like this one we've always had the unspoken rule that its ok to talk about already famous streams but not ok to discuss less famous ones. IMO the angling hours are more or less constant, but we concentrate pressure on those few. Then, out of necessity, we put special regs on them, and highlight those few even more.

I'd rather MORE fishermen looked at the class A and natural repro lists, and spread out the pressure some. Like in this thread. If a landowner along Spring Creek cut down some streamside trees, we'd all talk about it and someone would talk with the landowner. On a lesser known water? All you get is, maybe, an occasional non specific comment that noone knows where or when. If it is illegal, what do you think the chances are that somebody with authority to do something about it even knows? If they do, how motivated are they to act to satisfy the 1 guy who fishes it?

Streams need friends.

A followup to this is theres a lot of fishermen with less knowledge who think wild trout streams are rare and most fish come from trucks. I tell avid outdoorsmen about fishing for wild trout in Berks county, and they think theres 1 or 2 streams but mostly wild trout is a central PA thing. When i say this county, your county, has 50+ wild trout streams they think Im smoking something, lol. This is our own doing. Because we dont talk about the others.

Fwiw i am guilty as well. Because maybe a friend told me about somewhere, and i dont want to betray his trust. Yeah, i'm ranting about the damage our secretive culture causes, while taking part in that culture. It is what it is. But i tell ppl its out there and encourage them to look, i just dont spoon feed details.

 

[RLeep2]

I'm not absolutely positive, but I believe the Commission is required to make this information (Class A and natural reproduction)public. It wasn't always this way, but I think they ended up in court at one time over it and this is the way it ended up.

 

[wildtrout2]

RLeep2 wrote:
I'm not absolutely positive, but I believe the Commission is required to make this information (Class A and natural reproduction)public. It wasn't always this way, but I think they ended up in court at one time over it and this is the way it ended up.

They should be required to make public, information gathered at the public's expense.

 

[dryflyguy]

My best small stream fishing has usually been on non-class A water
And I'm guessing it's because they don't draw the attention - and fishing pressure - that class A streams get

 

[pcray1231]

I've often found there to be very little difference between Class A and class B, sometimes class C streams. i.e. some of them fish well, some don't.

I chalk that up to fishing. All of these streams have "healthy" populations of wild trout, given the habitat. There are fish everywhere there's supposed to be. A class A may have more fishy looking water and less walk-by water. But, you walk by the walk-by water anyway, so every cast is to fish holding water either way. Sometimes you hit conditions right, sometimes you don't.

When you get into truly rich streams, there's also the effect of available food. A well fed fish is harder to catch because it's less opportunistic and becomes selective.

 

[bigjohn58]

Wild_Trouter wrote:
Go to Penns Creek in Spring Mills if you want to see the signs Jifigz is referring to. You should also see them on Fishing Creek (Clinton County) too.

Fishing Creek in the Mill Hall area has a different regulation then most anywhere else in the state. They have signs up about it being Class A waters with stocking (only rainbows) and no harvest after Labor Day.

 

[jifigz]

bigjohn58 wrote:

Wild_Trouter wrote:
Go to Penns Creek in Spring Mills if you want to see the signs Jifigz is referring to. You should also see them on Fishing Creek (Clinton County) too.

Fishing Creek in the Mill Hall area has a different regulation then most anywhere else in the state. They have signs up about it being Class A waters with stocking (only rainbows) and no harvest after Labor Day.

Kish might also be posted with this signage. I'll read it closer next time. I know roughly what it says and that I'm not violating any rules so I don't pay too much attention.

 

[bigslackwater]

It's my belief that stocking does more harm for wild trout than class A does. I know of a couple examples of creeks that have a distinct line where stocking ends and the wild trout begin especially where there is posted property. The few times I've been granted permission to fish a private stream the wild trout appeared on that property, literally beginning at the posted sign. I think we have a real problem in this state with fisherman who catch and keep completely wiping out all trout from stocked streams. If there happen to be wild trout, they get wiped out too.

 

[troutbert]

bigjohn58 wrote:

Wild_Trouter wrote:
Go to Penns Creek in Spring Mills if you want to see the signs Jifigz is referring to. You should also see them on Fishing Creek (Clinton County) too.

Fishing Creek in the Mill Hall area has a different regulation then most anywhere else in the state. They have signs up about it being Class A waters with stocking (only rainbows) and no harvest after Labor Day.

These other streams have Class A sections with the same management:

Bald Eagle Cr

Kishacoquillas Cr

Little Lehigh Cr

Martins Cr

Monocacy Cr

Penns Cr

Pohopoco Cr

Yellow Cr

 

[troutbert]

troutbert wrote:

Putting a stream on a Class A list, without adding such regulations doesn't generate much increase in angler usage, from what I've seen.

Have you seen examples of that?

Anyone? Has anyone actually noticed that when a stream was added to the Class A list that fishing pressure went up?