I would love to have Big Spring as a all wild brook trout fishery. That would be amazing. I would support the attempted removal of rainbows from Big Spring through a variety of means.
But the rest of your post...isn't that we what we are already doing? Having our native trout fisheries AND our invasive brown trout fisheries? I would say yes, yes we are. The vast majority of our native brook trout streams are un-stocked and dominated by brookies. Your criticisms are because we are not doing enough to protect those streams and/or not working on the streams and populations that you feel are the most important. Is that correct? Sure, there are stocked brook trout streams, but the vast majority are not.
Yea would be nice wouldn’t it. Managed for native brook trout right up to the upstream section of the downtown milldam that serves as a barrier.
I’m glad you asked how managing for brook trout would be any different than what we are doing now because even avid fly fishermen and conservation literate people such as you and I don’t get alot of exposure to the finer fisheries science based management distinctions that can have powerful effects on brook trout populations unless we dive head into that realm. I’d like to see more science communication in this arena to people like us.
So in PA we have areas that we say are “class A” wild trout. We think of them as our brook trout management areas because they are full of brook trout but there is in fact little to no management for brook trout occurring.
The term “wild trout” from a management stand point is different from a fishing standpoint. For example, I like fishing for wild trout because a stocked trout fishing experience is not as enjoyable for me personally. But I do not like managing efforts for “wild trout” from a fisheries perspective where brook trout management zones should be. This is because we know invasive trout dig up brook trout redds, eat them, push them oht of thermal refuge, prime habitat, feeding lies, decrease gene flow/movement, and carry disease among other harms. So management for “wild trout” where top tier brook trout managment zones should be becomes a dog whistle in fisheries management for managing/facilitating displacement by invasive species.
This may leave people wondering ok I understand what your saying but how do you manage for native brook trout and not “wild trout” since pa has zero native brook regulations, just wild trout.
Well depending on the watershed there are many options.
1. Not stocking invasive trout in the same watershed. Shannon white showed us with her Loyalsock that stocking even miles down stream doesn’t make sense the native brookies need to use all of it to thrive. (Keep in mind we are talking 1 or 2 small or sub watersheds statewide as brook trout management zones as you think about feasibility). Stocking downstream of a class A pop is stocking on it effectively putting the buckets in downstream is just to make humans feel warm and fuzzy, they will disperse varying distances based on density competition or thermal refuge if they survive that long.
2. Removal in tiny streams if possible within that watershed. This can be manual removal, chemical, or even now biological removal in some places/trials of new technology in 4 states out west.
3. Angler harvest of wild invasive trout within the watershed. Think lees ferry, snake, NPS in VA, lakers in yellowstone and others.
4. Genetic rescue- this one is very exciting. If there are populations or areas within the watershed that have been isolated and inbreeding has occurred you can get stunted small infertile unfit to survive brook trout and translocating a small amount of brook trout can be very powerful in that situation because the genetics are so so so poor. In NC Fish size, fertility, and fitnesses increased in year one in a genetic rescue trial.
5. Reintroduction after removal- alot of stream conditions have changed and in areas of a watershed where we lost brook trout 50 years ago and are reforested we have seen even manual removal be successful in allowing successful reintroduction with no rotenone like in new jersey.
6. Brook trout C and R. Pa fish and boats study that they use to poo poo this didn’t even have a big enough sample size of stream reaches to reliably determine its primary outcome and there is data from the savage and other places showing C and R helps likely especially if your stocking bear by and angler effort is increased.
7. Stop stocking brook trout ENTIRELY- genetic introgression can happen and cause very harmful changes to genetics that decrease survival and adaptation to climate change and other stressors.
We currently do none if these things (not even reintroduction because big spring doesn’t count as a serious reintroduction THEY STOCK IT WITH HATCHERY BROOK TROUT LOL!!!! WT*!!!! Lol
Our goal in management should be managing so the fishes genetics change as rapidly as possible to deal with human disturbances and natural ones on the landscape like floods, drought, climate, development, and many others( some issues we don’t even know about) managing for rapid adaptation is better than constantly studying brook trout stressors and trying to retroactively fix problems like disease, flow regime’s, temps after the fact when we could have helped them adapt over to these in the first place. We do this by focusing on movement and managing whole watersheds rather than how PA fish and boat manages them(based of density of fish and size of them as it relates to fishery instead of managing how/where they go in the watershed). More movement = more gene flow= more rapid adaptation to many stressors including climate change. We can let the fish restore the genetic damage we have caused from cornering them in headwater streams(that they need so much more than) AND the streams too in those top tier brook trout management zones.