Waters with the Biggest Potential

[jifigz]

Exactly. Or, more fundamentally, species favoritism.

And this is spot on. Species favoritism is a huge part of being human. We are the only species capable of such behavior. It has existed as long as humans have. It's why we have domesticated certain animals, plants, fish, etc, because somehow we saw them as fitting and beneficial. Right, wrong, or whatever it is a part of being human that needs to be acknowledged and plays a huge part in how we got to where we are with browns, rainbows, and other fish thriving where they historically didn't exist.

 

[jifigz]

I think the single biggest threat to native Brookies is actually invasive plants and insects. Woolly Adelgid, asian longhorn beetles, knotweed, ash borer, etc. And human development.

 

[dryflyguy]

Well, certainly it is all a matter of individual preference, although if the current management of the river below the dam is still considered to have a negative effect of SMB recruitment downstream, that is another reason I would oppose it. I don't know the answer to this one way or the other. Mostly though, I like the river the way it is and in particular, I am not swayed or impressed by Chamber of Commerce-based arguments.. To me, more people equals a degraded overall angling experience. So, if people are that keen on changing the river in this way, I'd be happiest if they'd wait another 15 years until I am in the applesauce brigade and won't have a dog in the hunt any longer...🙂

Your point about drawing more crowds is well taken.
I wouldn't want to see it become like the Delaware River either. Although that has the misfortune of being only a 2 hour drive from NYC.
I doubt that Kinzua would ever become like that.

As for the negative effect of SMB downstream - how far down do you think it would hamper things?
I don't fish for bass, and really don't know.
I'm kinda assuming that you could just move downstream to perhaps Tidioutte, or Tionesta? And have good bass fishing again.

Or is there some specific reason you would need to fish in that short, potential CW section?

 

[Fish Sticks]

I'm aware. It was in reference to the "conservation wash" statement. There is always a way to fund nearly anything you just have to give it the proper outward appearance. He was basically saying funding won't be there in the future specifically to bolster brown trout fisheries..... but the funding will be there for other reasons and the brown trout will obviously benefit.


In a realistic approach the single biggest thing PA should do is stop stocking over wild Brookies and protect habitat.

I write grants And am familiar with how money can be sought. What I mean’t is grants where your listing native brook trout or another native fish as the beneficiary will likely not want to fund habitat in addition to reductions in sediment and nutrients if its known that the habitat will in fact help the invasive species displace the native species.

Your speaking correctly to how it is now, im speaking to the way things will likely trend following recent discoveries such as this that have turned stream restoration on its ear so to speak from a habitat standpoint. If your not reading the fisheries science literature its easy to miss stuff like this that will likely at least partially shape how habitat restoration will be done in the future.


Alot of you have probably fished the river in these two studies.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/rec.12925

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rec.13678

So for example I was just collaborating on a NFWF grant for a local brook trout stream. They asked “is the area a stronghold patch based on eastern brook trout joint venture?” They can target the money how they want.

EBTJV will infact not pay for brown trout habitat work where brook and brown trout overlap due to the above research. So what you are saying is right currently about you can find money for Chesapeake bay stuff and build in brown trout hotels. But what i am saying will likely trend to is also already happening with some grants and I think it will continue.

So there is “conservation washing” its when people do habitat work in a watershed that has brook and brown trout with no will or plan to mitigate things like stocking as you mentioned or wild invasive trout species.

 

[pcray1231]

One I always think of. Easy but low reward, is Tionesta Creek. Take out chapman. It's a top release/overflow dam on the upper end and significantly warms it. To be clear, Tionesta would NOT be a wild trout fishery, it'd still be too warm. But it would benefit hatches I think, and make the stocked trout fishery last past mid-May, and keep it from bathwater warm in mid summer. On big water with good structure/flow in a wildernessy setting. It could be a better smallmouth fishery and push it closer to say, Oil Creek, for the trout end of things.

Obviously the Lehigh if we managed it as a trout tailwater instead of a rafting river, could truly be world class. Already is in some ways. Torn on the Allegheny, yeah it could be turned to trout, but it's pretty dang spectacular mixed fishery as it is. The Kiski is making a fantastic comeback with some of the acid remediations in the headwaters, Conemaugh, etc. That whole Punxy to Indiana to Latrobe stretch has so much damage that could be improved. Yellow, Two Lick, smh. That whole system is improving, the lower Kiski, I can recall when nothing lived there but carp, and now it is decent smallmouth, walleye, white bass, etc. Big and great structure. But man, how good could it be? Large portions of the lower Clarion is a similar story. I could see the Mon really turning into something, with what WV is doing on the Cheat, if they could do the same on some of the other forks. But that's on WV to help, really. What about the Sinnemahoning branches? Driftwood, Bennett. Mosquito Creek was mentioned, but Trout, Lick, Moose, Anderson are like carbon copies geographically speaking, Clearfield County as a whole is a monster freestone trout area if not for acid, and the W Br. is capable of world class smallmouth. Moshannon, yep. And then you got all the limestoners down here in farm country, where siltation is the primary issue, which seems to be Fishstick's passion. Even the Tully, private land and sediment issues above the dam, but man does it have the making of something, and freaking dredge blue marsh already. When it was fingerlings that was a really cool fishery, now it's just a fairly poor stocked fishery. Maiden Creek? OMG, that entire watershed is a DREAM from a water chemistry perspective! Somebody from Allentown please scream Jordan Creek, lol. Here in Lebanon, the Quittie. It's a good sized, very long pure limestoner that stays plenty cold for miles and miles and miles. Has all the makings of a front pager in fly fishing rags. Just siltation siltation siltation and the culvert through the city of Lebanon that just makes you cry.

We all gravitate to big waters on this question, because there are literally 1000 smaller waters that could be helped, and all of them help bigger waters, which help even bigger waters. Look at Babb Creek. It's better but it still kinda sucks, lol. But work there did improve it, made some fantastic small tribs and connected them up, and really helped Pine Creek below Blackwell. It's a system approach. Virtually every system should have a number of good trout headwaters, a good trout mainstem, transitioning to good stocked stream, to good bass stream, to an improved river, to an improved Delaware/Chesapeake Bay or Ohio/Mississippi. Each stage overlapping a bit. The question, at it's core, is really asking which systems are most impaired, and easiest to fix, because they are ALL capable of being good.

I think we're doing a decent job of fixing a whole lotta damage, to be honest. It doesn't happen overnight, I mean things were really f'd! But the improvement I've seen in my lifetime is obvious. Just keep plugging away.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I think the single biggest threat to native Brookies is actually invasive plants and insects. Woolly Adelgid, asian longhorn beetles, knotweed, ash borer, etc. And human development.

Agree those are huge threats for sure. Loss of hemlocks has big temperature and habitat considerations.

Cooler streams always help

But the myth that cold water protects brook trout from brown trout as a rule has been dispelled.

This case study shows how habitat projects caused brown trout pop to increase 3150% in a native brook trout stream that was at the lower temperature range actually desired by brook trout. No there is actually a good chance no brookies in there. They had declined 70% just 8 years aftwr project and total loss was predicted. Brook trout was the listed “target species” of the restoration and the project resulted in likely demise of the entire population. Really have to be careful not to do habitat work where brown and brook trout exist if we are not planning on invasive mitigation some how.

I was always told if it were colder the browns wouldn’t be there and brookies would be. We know thats not true now and that Nathaniel Hitt et al actually showed brookies can survive thermal stress periods better without brown trout.

 

[jifigz]

Agree those are huge threats for sure. Loss of hemlocks has big temperature and habitat considerations.

Cooler streams always help

But the myth that cold water protects brook trout from brown trout as a rule has been dispelled.

This case study shows how habitat projects caused brown trout pop to increase 3150% in a native brook trout stream that was at the lower temperature range actually desired by brook trout. No there is actually a good chance no brookies in there. They had declined 70% just 8 years aftwr project and total loss was predicted. Brook trout was the listed “target species” of the restoration and the project resulted in likely demise of the entire population. Really have to be careful not to do habitat work where brown and brook trout exist if we are not planning on invasive mitigation some how.

I was always told if it were colder the browns wouldn’t be there and brookies would be. We know thats not true now and that Nathaniel Hitt et al actually showed brookies can survive thermal stress periods better without brown trout.

I didn't reference those threats with cold water concerns near the top of the list but rather closer to the bottom. What I was mostly referencing would be the loss of forests and sedimentation problems. Yes, temps are also a huge concern with less tree cover, though. The Asian Longhorned Beetle has potential to devastate a lot of our forests. Chestnuts are gone, ash are basically gone, the Asian Longhorned has potential to reallly, really damage and kill oak, hickory, maple, and other common hardwoods, lanternflies show preference for our maples and hackberries, then lets throw in the gypsy moths and the hemlock destroying woolly adelgid. The knotweed leads to horrible stream bank erosion and does an excellent job of outcompeting native vegetation on stream banks. So, I am looking down the road to 100 years or more, but our trout streams will have lots of issues to deal with. And I am talking about all trout, not just brookies.

I think these invasive insects pose a much bigger threat than other salmonoids at this point. And, to be a pessimist, I don't see us stopping any of them. But, the bright side is brookies have lived with browns now for over a century and have survived almost all of PA being logged at one time...even if they are mostly trapped in infertile headwaters.

 

[jifigz]

I think we're doing a decent job of fixing a whole lotta damage, to be honest. It doesn't happen overnight, I mean things were really f'd! But the improvement I've seen in my lifetime is obvious. Just keep plugging away.

Yes sir! I think that we are off to a great start.

 

[silverfox]

I didn't reference those threats with cold water concerns near the top of the list but rather closer to the bottom. What I was mostly referencing would be the loss of forests and sedimentation problems. Yes, temps are also a huge concern with less tree cover, though. The Asian Longhorned Beetle has potential to devastate a lot of our forests. Chestnuts are gone, ash are basically gone, the Asian Longhorned has potential to reallly, really damage and kill oak, hickory, maple, and other common hardwoods, lanternflies show preference for our maples and hackberries, then lets throw in the gypsy moths and the hemlock destroying woolly adelgid. The knotweed leads to horrible stream bank erosion and does an excellent job of outcompeting native vegetation on stream banks. So, I am looking down the road to 100 years or more, but our trout streams will have lots of issues to deal with. And I am talking about all trout, not just brookies.

I think these invasive insects pose a much bigger threat than other salmonoids at this point. And, to be a pessimist, I don't see us stopping any of them. But, the bright side is brookies have lived with browns now for over a century and have survived almost all of PA being logged at one time...even if they are mostly trapped in infertile headwaters.

I have to disagree and side with the people who published that document. I think they know better than any of us.

This is a thread about streams with the biggest potential, and, unsurprisingly, the discussion is really about impaired waters, and how we could fix those impairments to turn them into "trout fisheries".

We have a lot of streams that have enormous potential for brook trout, but we need to get over our love affair with nonnative fish to make that happen. What's sad is that we could likely do that with little to no money. It could be part of the process of addressing the other issues. We just need a shift in perspective and a little help from the state.

Show me examples where brook trout and brown trout have "coexisted" (I hate that word because it's completely untrue) and I'll show you just as many where brown trout have displaced brook trout entirely. Every sympatric population represents a loss of brook trout. You can't have a stream that supports 100 trout, remove 50 brook trout and replace them with brown trout and call it "coexisting". One species lost half its population to support the other species' presence.

 

[jifigz]

Show me examples where brook trout and brown trout have "coexisted" (I hate that word because it's completely untrue) and I'll show you just as many where brown trout have displaced brook trout entirely. Every sympatric population represents a loss of brook trout. You can't have a stream that supports 100 trout, remove 50 brook trout and replace them with brown trout and call it "coexisting". One species lost half its population to support the other species' presence.

Places where Brookies have been displaced is not coexisting. That has nothing to do with what I said. We all know brown trout have outcompeted brook trout in many waterways across the state for various reasons.

If they can't coexist, as you state, then there would be zero brook trout left. We would only have browns. There are plenty of streams where Brookies and browns live together and Brookies still far outnumber browns. Given the amount of time both have been in the system together (100 years at least?) If browns haven't totally displaced them then Brookies still have an edge in that particular environment and they are coexisting. Do you feel that something just changed where the browns are all of the sudden going to take over the entire stream if they haven't in the last 75 years or whatever of sharing it with brook trout? Yes, brown trout are a major detriment to brook trout, but there are a lot of streams where both species are found and browns have not taken over or displaced Brookies and, in fact, the browns are still the uncommon catch. That is coexisting by the very definition from the dictionary.

I'm all for your actions of restoration of brook Trout.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I didn't reference those threats with cold water concerns near the top of the list but rather closer to the bottom. What I was mostly referencing would be the loss of forests and sedimentation problems. Yes, temps are also a huge concern with less tree cover, though. The Asian Longhorned Beetle has potential to devastate a lot of our forests. Chestnuts are gone, ash are basically gone, the Asian Longhorned has potential to reallly, really damage and kill oak, hickory, maple, and other common hardwoods, lanternflies show preference for our maples and hackberries, then lets throw in the gypsy moths and the hemlock destroying woolly adelgid. The knotweed leads to horrible stream bank erosion and does an excellent job of outcompeting native vegetation on stream banks. So, I am looking down the road to 100 years or more, but our trout streams will have lots of issues to deal with. And I am talking about all trout, not just brookies.

I think these invasive insects pose a much bigger threat than other salmonoids at this point. And, to be a pessimist, I don't see us stopping any of them. But, the bright side is brookies have lived with browns now for over a century and have survived almost all of PA being logged at one time...even if they are mostly trapped in infertile headwaters.

I agree there are trophic cascades and nutrient transfer and water chemistry issues we probably cannot even begin to imagine from those loses. Different leaves are different ph’s and macros probably ised to feeding on certain plant matter ect. Totally agree.

The only problem with the brown trout and brook trout being here together for over a century is these processes happen over long periods of time so while from an angling experience it could seem like a coexistent relationship, the effects are reducing the amount of brook trout. The long time line just gives it a static appearance. One thing not alot of people know about is the conservation genetics ramifications of being cornered in the headwaters like you mentioned. This is a topic I want to do more science communication on because its a top priority for fisheries scientists working with brook trout and the angling public isn’t really aware it even exists.

When those brook trout get cornered in the headwaters by habitat degradation or invasive trout species ect. They aren’t able to take advantage of larger food sources so they get tiny, but more importantly they don’t have as easy access to dispersal corridors like main-stem of the river. This results in populations becoming more genetically isolated. In extreme cases it can cause something called inbreeding depression where the brook trout are less fit to survive, stunt in size, and are less fertile.

Heres why this is the most pressing issue in brook trout management when it comes to protecting them. Every fish that dies leaves surviving brook trout. That surviving brook trout can pass in its “natural selection winner” genes to other populations if it can move there and spawn. The more rapidly selection events prune away the less desirable genes and those genes left that are favorable to the stressors of that watershed can be shared amongst different streams in the watershed, the more rapid adaptation to clkmate change and other stressors becomes. There is even auch thing as rapid adaptation! But its all dependent on gene flow aka movement. At the chesapeake bay brook trout conssrvation conference I attended(whichnis where the above slide came from), the experts really focused on geneflow and conservation genetics and now its time for us to pressure Pa fish and boat to do that. Maintenance of genetic diversity and maximizing gene flow for Adaptation to stressors is mission critical. Brook trout can’t live forever in those headwaters with sub optimal gene flow sabatoging their adaptive potential.


Brown and rainbow trout function like culverts. We know this from casey thomas weathers dissertation at pennstate where there was a covariate for non native trout when quantifying gene flow(sharing of genes through movement). Non native trout reduced gene flow.

Bet most people never thought of brown and rainbow trout as a barrier to movement that functions like a bad culvert.

Kettle creek gets 60 thousand stocked trout not including private fish. How can we expect them to maximize gene flow to maximize their adapt to stressors like climate change and many more? We are stocking things that behave like bad culverts.

High density wild pops of invasive trout do the same thing too.

 

[silverfox]

Places where Brookies have been displaced is not coexisting. That has nothing to do with what I said. We all know brown trout have outcompeted brook trout in many waterways across the state for various reasons.

If they can't coexist, as you state, then there would be zero brook trout left. We would only have browns. There are plenty of streams where Brookies and browns live together and Brookies still far outnumber browns. Given the amount of time both have been in the system together (100 years at least?) If browns haven't totally displaced them then Brookies still have an edge in that particular environment and they are coexisting. Do you feel that something just changed where the browns are all of the sudden going to take over the entire stream if they haven't in the last 75 years or whatever of sharing it with brook trout? Yes, brown trout are a major detriment to brook trout, but there are a lot of streams where both species are found and browns have not taken over or displaced Brookies and, in fact, the browns are still the uncommon catch. That is coexisting by the very definition from the dictionary.

I'm all for your actions of restoration of brook Trout.

I understand, just pointing out that it's not necessarily harmonious, nor without harm. As I said, any sympatric population means that some portion of the brook trout population was displaced in order for that to occur.

Climate change may change how successfully brook trout maintain an advantage. The "balance" could also be tipped in the BT's favor through other environmental events. Even habitat improvement projects could cause a swing in species presence.

At the end of the day, it's a terrible idea regardless of how successful some random population has been at holding off displacement. Once they're gone, they're gone.

 

[silverfox]

Here's the thing, someone might read this some day and think,

"see jifigz said on paflyfish that brown trout and brook trout coexist, so it's ok if I got get some brown trout from this other stream and put them in this stream that doesn't have any brown trout, and there's places where they've coexisted for a century and everything is fine".

It may very well be fine. It could also be a complete disaster. Why tempt fate? We know there's the potential for BT to completely displace ST, so why even suggest that they "coexist"? It just further erodes any kind of sentiment that might exist that we shouldn't be mixing species.

 

[pcray1231]

Using the same argument, one could say "this stream improvement may benefit browns, it may benefit brookies, or maybe both (bigger pie, more trout period)". Why tempt fate?

Just playing devils advocate. I agree on taking steps to favor brookies where possible, and doing so in conjunction with stream/water/habitat improvements. But I can't say I'd ever oppose fixing a problem (be it sedimentation, water chemistry, temperature issues, or whatever) just because it's not fully known which species it's going to favor.

 

[silverfox]

Using the same argument, one could say "this stream improvement may benefit browns, it may benefit brookies, or maybe both (bigger pie, more trout period)". Why tempt fate?

Just playing devils advocate. I agree on favoring brookies where possible, and doing so in conjunction with stream/water/habitat improvements. But I can't say I'd ever oppose fixing a problem (be it sedimentation, water chemistry, temperature issues, or whatever) just because it's not fully known which species it's going to help the most.

Right, and we could also figure out what kind of restoration might benefit one or the other. It might even be cheaper to do what's best for brook trout while still achieving the same environmental goals.

That "bigger pie" mentality is exactly what got us here.

 

[silverfox]

But I can't say I'd ever oppose fixing a problem (be it sedimentation, water chemistry, temperature issues, or whatever) just because it's not fully known which species it's going to favor.

See post #48 https://www.paflyfish.com/threads/waters-with-the-biggest-potential.81315/post-914021

 

[Fish Sticks]

Places where Brookies have been displaced is not coexisting. That has nothing to do with what I said. We all know brown trout have outcompeted brook trout in many waterways across the state for various reasons.

If they can't coexist, as you state, then there would be zero brook trout left. We would only have browns. There are plenty of streams where Brookies and browns live together and Brookies still far outnumber browns. Given the amount of time both have been in the system together (100 years at least?) If browns haven't totally displaced them then Brookies still have an edge in that particular environment and they are coexisting. Do you feel that something just changed where the browns are all of the sudden going to take over the entire stream if they haven't in the last 75 years or whatever of sharing it with brook trout? Yes, brown trout are a major detriment to brook trout, but there are a lot of streams where both species are found and browns have not taken over or displaced Brookies and, in fact, the browns are still the uncommon catch. That is coexisting by the very definition from the dictionary.

I'm all for your actions of restoration of brook Trout.

One thing I would like to highlight flathead lake. Lake trout were non native and not technically invasive there for i think over a decade then the addition of mysiss shrimp gave them all they needed to take over. So i think we know brown trout are going to continue to reduce brook trout populations through displacement and there is real risk of losing brook trout in this state eventually if we don’t change out management of both species. Scientists actually expect brook trout to lose more ground to browns faster than they already have with climate change so it’s actually plausible and expected that despite the rate of loss in the past 75 years it could drastically increase. It doesn’t have to be temperature either, trophic cascades are complex and numerous things could cause brown trout to become more harmful. But their already in the top 4 and 6 threats(twice) list silver fox posted from EBTJV so they don’t have too far to move up. I know you support native brook trout conservation and its these kinds of discussions i’m glad we can all have because I wish this stuff was shared more effectively from scientific community to us, but right now PA fish and boat is doing angler education on a lot of invasive species (zew zealand mud snails ect) all important but they left out the two species of trout they stock or protect with regs.

 

[silverfox]

One thing I would like to highlight flathead lake. Lake trout were non native and not technically invasive there for i think over a decade then the addition of mysiss shrimp gave them all they needed to take over. So i think we know brown trout are going to continue to reduce brook trout populations through displacement and there is real risk of losing brook trout in this state eventually if we don’t change out management of both species. Scientists actually expect brook trout to lose more ground to browns faster than they already have with climate change so it’s actually plausible and expected that despite the rate of loss in the past 75 years it could drastically increase. It doesn’t have to be temperature either, trophic cascades are complex and numerous things could cause brown trout to become more harmful. But their already in the top 4 and 6 threats(twice) list silver fox posted from EBTJV so they don’t have too far to move up. I know you support native brook trout conservation and its these kinds of discussions i’m glad we can all have because I wish this stuff was shared more effectively from scientific community to us, but right now PA fish and boat is doing angler education on a lot of invasive species (zew zealand mud snails ect) all important but they left out the two species of trout they stock or protect with regs.

I just read this the other day. Seems applicable here.

Climate change (increased ambient temperatures and altered precipitation) is projected to result in a loss of occurrence in at least 3000 additional segments (19% of current value) and at least 3000 km of functional fishery value (9% of current value) by 2062

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.2585

 

[Fish Sticks]

Yea when I hear “coexist” in regards to brown and brook trout it’s frustrating because the scientific community has dispelled that a long long time ago. Like silver fox said each brown trout is one less brook trout and the brook trout still there are in most cases just next inline to be displaced with no action(or lack of action when it comes to stocking and protection regs). This plays out longer than our period of observation as anglers in many instances. And the habitat can’t really help both species as the article by brock huntsman et al on shavers fork et al I posted has proven because brown trout displace brook trout from prime habitat as a rule(we know this thank you Kurt Fausch et al 1981).

We can do stream projects to control erosion and nutrients without putting in habitat structures. Thats what alot of the legacy sediment removal projects are and it winds up being better for the stream anyway because there is habitat there its just habitat for smaller trout/ juveniles/YOY. We are guilty of over installing habitat structures and leaving no riffles and complex shalow habitat for young of the year macros and other small fish/crayfish. The lunker bunkers and rock veins/j-hooks do less for the bay than a nice wide flood plain. They just give brown trout the ability to displace brook trout.

 

[troutbert]

One I always think of. Easy but low reward, is Tionesta Creek. Take out chapman. It's a top release/overflow dam on the upper end and significantly warms it. To be clear, Tionesta would NOT be a wild trout fishery, it'd still be too warm. But it would benefit hatches I think, and make the stocked trout fishery last past mid-May, and keep it from bathwater warm in mid summer. On big water with good structure/flow in a wildernessy setting.

Taking out Chapman Dam would be beneficial. I agree that it wouldn't make Tionesta Creek a wild trout stream, but it might make West Branch Tionesta a wild trout stream. Above the dam it's on the wild trout list, below the dam it isn't. It seems like a simple case of cause and effect.