Trout stocking ruined native populations in western pa

[mporter012]

I am not highly educated on PA trout streams outside of NW PA, but I lived in Illinois for several years and had a great time fishing Wisconsin's Driftless Region, and observing their very productive conservation efforts. They have strict regulations (season is only open for 6 months I believe?), but it has panned out, and they have a pretty sweet fishery up there, whereas 30 years ago it wasn't so hot.
In NW PA, where I'm originally from and have spent the last couple weeks fishing, it's really a shame to see how little goes into preserving the wild fish, and any sort of streams conservation whatsoever. My guess is that the Fish Commission is so entirely reliant upon the licence sales leading up to the opening day of the season, which is reliant upon the worm fishers being able to catch a stringer full on the first day, that they've not only increased the likelihood that the wild fish will get caught and taken home to be eaten because people are out on the water (where otherwise they probably wouldn't be), they've just abandoned creating any sort of sustainable small stream wild fisheries.

I know where to go to catch 10-15'' wild browns out here, but it's not easy, and the streams could produce more with much stricter regulations. What are your thoughts?

 

[FarmerDave]

porter, I mostly agree with that. It is about licenses sales. But comparing NWPA to the driftless region is like comparing NWPA to Central PA. Apples to oranges.

I never fished the driftless area, but I understand the streams are much more fertile.

NWPA has geologic issues that result in the vast majority of "trout streams" have low PH and very infertile and I am not just talking about AMD. Rain itself is acidic, and the geology of that area does not provide much buffering and in some cases, virtually none. In fact, many places the rock itself contains minerals that additionally lower the ph.

Adding to the frustration, the PF&BC policy is a statewide policy where they USUALLY don't stock Class A. There are very few Class A streams (or B for that matter) in NWPA, so consequently nearly everything close to a road that isn't virtually dead gets stocked.

Things have improved in NWPA and there have been a few additions to the Class A list over the past 20 years, but they are all very tiny and typically difficult access so they weren't stocked anyway.

I say if the best in a region are B or C, some of those should go unstocked as well. I can think of a few off the top of my head. But as I said, PF&BC policies when it comes to trout are for the most part statewide policies, and of course economic policy also has to be considered.

 

[Acristickid]

I'd say development is the biggest culprit and the acid rain from a hundred years of steel and coal production and extraction.

Many of the streams are too warm to hold trout and many are polluted from various causes. Trout stocking doesn't help but I would put that down the list.

 

[FarmerDave]

I agree, but rain would still be acidic even without all that coal burning. Just not nearly as acidic. So even without that, and the mining/drilling, NWPA streams still wouldn't compare well to Central PA limesone springs, or the Wisc drifless area.

Reduction in coal use likely explains some improvements and additions to the Class A list in NWPA.

But yea, too many people on this rock (elsewhere) would be at the top of my culprit list, too. ;-)

 

[pcray1231]

I only fish up there occasionally now, but fished it quite often in my younger days. Especially ANF region and just to the west. While there are examples of where stocking and regulation are damaging, I don't think it's the main problem, as a general rule.

1. There are plenty of wild trout streams. There are certainly exceptions, but generally brookie dominated east of the river, and brown dominated west.

2. East of the river into the ANF and more mountainous areas, the water table is shallow/runoff, depending on your definitions. There are a very high number of very small springs. Streams grow slowly. As a result, by the time a stream reaches a certain size, much of its flow is far from it's sources, and it warms up too much in summer. Despite the forested landscape, any stream of decent size runs into thermal issues. So most of the streams with trout are small. Further, there is very little buffering capability in the bedrock, and the rainfall is among the most acidic in the country thanks to the coal power plants upwind in the Ohio Valley. This limits biomass, and also means most of the wild trout are the more acid tolerant brookies. Still, almost every small stream has some brookies, and the variation in quality between them is mostly explained by geology.

3. Along the river and westward is flatter, more developed, with richer soils. More groundwater, so streams get a bit bigger before running into thermal problems, but there are fewer streams overall. There's better buffering so the streams are richer with better pH, and it's more browns. But being more agricultural, there are more development issues with situation, pollution, etc. type issues. And the further west you go and the flatter the landscape, current speed decreases, elevation lowers, so these issues get worse and temperature issues come back with the still water.

 

[RLeep2]

Dave is right when he says that you are attempting an apples to oranges comparison between NWPA wild trout streams and WI Driftless streams. Part of this is about the limestone/freestone fertility thing, but there is other stuff going on as well. Despite their limestone origins, Driftless fish are generally easier than wild PA freestone browns. Holding lies are, again generally, more easily approached and worked on the somewhat “engineered” Driftless streams as opposed to the beneath the undercut and behind the log jam situations that wild browns in the typical PA freestone tend to favor. While the Driftless streams have pretty rich forage bases, in many cases these bases are somewhat narrow in terms of species present. This is often especially true of baitfish and to a lesser degree, of crustaceans. Not many of the Driftless streams I spent a lot of time on had very strong crayfish populations, for example. Whereas in NWPA, if you kill 10 wild browns from a standard issue PA freestone, it is a pretty safe bet that 7 or more of them will have been eating crayfish. When you combine all these things with the very high trout densities in most of the Driftless streams streams, you end up with fish that are not really difficult to catch for the most part. They always seemed to me a good deal more opportunistic feeders than PA limestone browns.

While it is probably true that there are some NWPA PA wild brown trout pops that*could* benefit from more restrictive regs, I’m very skeptical that this is the main problem. Habitat, stream fertility, variable flows and some of the other stuff some of the fellows mentioned above all trump anything that regs or a cessation in stocking could ever achieve. If these physical factors are favorable to trout spawning and survival, the wild fish will be there anyway even under open PA regs. There might be a few less than if the stream were more tightly regulated, but that too is subjective for the most part and may not even be discernible based on sampling with a fly rod.

If you’ve been fishing Driftless streams, you’ve basically been operating in a sort of shoot em in a barrel situation. Open casting situations, clearly accessible lies, high density trout populations and streams at or very near carrying capacity. There is good wild brown trout fishing in many NWPA streams. I don’t really completely agree with Pat’s characterization of much of the available water being somewhat marginal for maintaining good wild brown trout populations. It is true though that none of them are Wisconsin and reliably being able to do well requires a good deal more work.

While you were out there, did you fish the Central Sands streams at all? West of Oshkosh and somewhat northeast of Madison? The Mecan, White and Tomorrow/Waupaca systems, etc.? Trout populations in these streams while somewhat lower, are pretty comparable to the Driftless streams, but the fish are a good deal more difficult. More like fishing Pennysylvania...

 

[troutbert]

I think there is a lot of potential to improve brook trout populations in NW PA, simply by ending stocking in streams with brook trout populations.

The same is true in other parts of PA.

 

[steveo27]

^ Agreed to a point. It would benefit streams that already had isolated populations of brook trout, but I doubt it would bring brook trout back to streams that are currently devoid of them. If it did, it would take years of work

I think most of the damage is done to the point where it would very long to undo.

 

[RLeep2]

In any stream section where there is current, demonstrable harm to brook trout populations from the effects of stocking as well as any stream section where Commission biologists believe that a cessation in stocking would benefit brook trout populations and improve or enhance the fishery, I'd agree in a heartbeat.

I'm not really interested in a one size fits all approach however. There are no shortage of stocked streams in the NW where for any of a variety of reason that have virtually nothing to do with harvest or stocking, brook trout are present in incidental numbers that almost certainly will not improve short of an Act of God regardless of what we do from a fisheries management standpoint.

I would not be in favor of the elimination of angling opportunities that would probably take place with an end of stocking in these places.

 

[troutbert]

steveo27 wrote:
^ Agreed to a point. It would benefit streams that already had isolated populations of brook trout, but I doubt it would bring brook trout back to streams that are currently devoid of them. If it did, it would take years of work

What I posted: "I think there is a lot of potential to improve brook trout populations in NW PA, simply by ending stocking in streams with brook trout populations."

There is a very large mileage of streams in NW PA, and other regions of PA, where hatchery trout are stocked over native brook trout populations. Both by the PFBC and by by coop hatcheries.

This practice creates a very significant suppression of the brook trout populations in those streams.

By ending stocking in those brook trout streams, the brook trout population can be substantially improved. Both overall, and in the number of brook trout 7 inches and over.

And this increase can occur pretty quickly.

Streams that have no brook trout currently is a different topic, unrelated to my previous post.

The two situations are really very different:

1) Streams with native brook trout, that are being stocked over. The water quality and temperatures are obviously suitable to support brook trout. But the populations are being suppressed well below their potential, because of the stocking. End the stocking and the populations go up, and quickly.

2) Streams that hold no native brook trout, because the conditions are currently unsuitable. In most cases the cause will be low pH and/or aluminum; the two often go together. And the root cause is either mine drainage or weak buffering from the geology + acid rain. Or the water temps are too warm.

 

[mporter012]

Yes, comparing NW PA to The Driftless is not a fair comparison, but some of the points about the PFBC still seems to disregard any restoration or conservation efforts. Even stocking fingerlings to some of the class B streams would be nice. Where did you get the geologic info on the streams in the area?

 

[allan_s]

First you say trout stocking ruined wild trout and now you are suggesting stocking as a solution?

 

[Hook_Jaw]

yinzers

 

[FarmerDave]

mporter012 wrote:
Yes, comparing NW PA to The Driftless is not a fair comparison, but some of the points about the PFBC still seems to disregard any restoration or conservation efforts. Even stocking fingerlings to some of the class B streams would be nice. Where did you get the geologic info on the streams in the area?

If it is class B and in NWPA, then it doesn't need to be stocked with anything. I haven't done the actual math, but Class A and B probably make up the top 1 or 2% in that part of the state. Maybe less.

Geological maps can be found at this site.

;-)

 

[k-bob]

+ 1 on pat's comments that nwpa suffers from highly acidic rain, and that in some parts of nwpa there's a negative double whammy with this rain and low-buffering bedrock. this may result in many streams that are too acidic for brown trout, and some streams that are even too acidic for brook trout - good example in the description of raven ran below:

http://www.patrout.org/docs/newsletters/patrout_winter2014.pdf?sfvrsn=2

no trout in raven run due to rain and rocks. article notes that even deep in the ANF, there are some streams with a summer baseflow pH of 5. when that kind of pH declines in storm or snowmelt, the acidity will result in fishless streams. other streams just have stunted populations.

PA bedrock maps can be found with link below; raven run is in southern forest county in a long band of pottsville bedrock (pottsville is coal-bearing and low buffering) that runs from st mary's to oil city to sharon.

http://www.gis.dcnr.state.pa.us/maps/index.html

the dcnr map linked above can show county boundaries (under "other layers" tab) and an earth image view (aerial tab)... forest county is highly forested (!) but its pottsville geology helps explain why it only has a few class A streams... compare forest county to mckean and potter, which have more catskill and huntley bedrocks and more class As...

 

[FarmerDave]

k-bob wrote:
+ 1 on pat's comments that nwpa suffers from highly acidic rain, and that in some parts of nwpa there's a negative double whammy with this rain and low-buffering bedrock. this may result in many streams that are too acidic for brown trout, and some streams that are even too acidic for brook trout - good example in the description of raven ran below:

http://www.patrout.org/docs/newsletters/patrout_winter2014.pdf?sfvrsn=2

no trout in raven run due to rain and rocks. article notes that even deep in the ANF, there are some streams with a summer baseflow pH of 5. when that kind of pH declines in storm or snowmelt, the acidity will result in fishless streams. other streams just have stunted populations.

PA bedrock maps can be found with link below; raven run is in southern forest county in a long band of pottsville bedrock (pottsville is coal-bearing and low buffering) that runs from st mary's to oil city to sharon.

http://www.gis.dcnr.state.pa.us/maps/index.html

the dcnr map linked above can show county boundaries (under "other layers" tab) and an earth image view (aerial tab)... forest county is highly forested (!) but its pottsville geology helps explain why it only has a few class A streams... compare forest county to mckean and potter, which have more catskill and huntley bedrocks and more class As...

Exactly.

I think I used the Raven Run example in another thread, but different link.

I read somewhere that Forest county is 90% forested. Yet, up until Logan Run was added, it had no Class A. Not only that, there were only three class B.

Apparently an unnamed trib of Tionesta creek was added, so now there are two. But good luck finding which unnamed trib. ;-)

P.S. thanks for looking up the maps. I was going to that day, but ran out of time.