WBTE

[foxtrapper1972]

5000 streams and most of them are about a foot across and the trout get to be 4" long at best

worst threat to the streams in populated areas is the increased angler traffic they have been seeing in last several yrs. Take a look at the sore mouths on those little Brook Trout and take notice of the boot prints and cars parked at your favorite gemmie creek

 

[salvelinus]

I fish a stream that was last stocked with brookies about 30 years ago. The water had a low buffering capacity and was the reason to stop stocking. Fine by me. Over the years a fishable brookie population developed and I always had a good time there. About ten years ago I started catching a brown here and there. On my last trip two weeks ago they were about a quarter of my catch.

I wonder where the browns came from in the first place. The stream flows into a stocked creek, but the creek is warmwater in this area and well below the lower stocking limit. I suppose the browns could have migrated down the creek then up my stream. Over time they seem to be colonizing my stream further and further up too. I am catching browns where I never caught them before. The brookies never were big but I wonder what will eventually happen to their population.

 

[brookieaddict]

There should be a no kill moritorium on any WBTE stream.... forever.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

But in Maine other points north, we still have 3lb-5-6lb brookies. I know nothing about genetics, so Sal I don't know what, if anything, is behind your bottleneck theory. It would just seem that in places like Maine, where brookies can inhabit cold water ponds and lakes, and larger rivers, they get bigger. A lot bigger!

 

[wildtrout2]

KenU wrote:
I fish several unstocked freestone streams with mixed brook/brown trout populations. In these streams, larger brookies tend to be much scarcer than in streams with brook trout only.

I think this is usually the case, but one unstocked freestone I fish with a mixed brook/brown population yields some of my biggest natives on a consistent basis. I saw a native that was no less than 16" (honestly) in this stream. I'll never forget seeing that trout.
FWIW, it was the stream in my avatar.

 

[salvelinus]

brookieaddict wrote:
There should be a no kill moritorium on any WBTE stream.... forever.

If PFBC won't permanently implement C&R, lower the limit to two fish.

 

[Mike]

Sasquatch,
You found the article that I was referencing.

 

[bikerfish]

honestly, make all wild brook trout C&R, really no reason to keep any of them, regardless of the stream they come from.
for the idiots that don't know the difference between a native brookie and a stocked fish, well, like a comedian once said, ya can't fix stupid.
sorry, don't mean to be so harsh, just sick and tired of the ignorant, the stupid, the idiots, and whoever else is pissing me off at the moment!
and yes, I need to go fishing!

 

[The_Sasquatch]

If you're not sure about the difference, you can always use the WIFI in your SUV to look it up, right Biker!?

 

[bikerfish]

haha!!! thanks Sas, I needed the laugh!! int:

 

[Chaz]

foxtrapper1972 wrote:
5000 streams and most of them are about a foot across and the trout get to be 4" long at best

worst threat to the streams in populated areas is the increased angler traffic they have been seeing in last several yrs. Take a look at the sore mouths on those little Brook Trout and take notice of the boot prints and cars parked at your favorite gemmie creek

Not where I live!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chaz]

salmonoid wrote:
I've begun to wonder if we haven't encountered a sort of genetic drift with brookies. I've never caught a wild brook trout greater than 13.5". I have seen at least three fish that were 15"+, but can't unequivocally say that they were wild fish. But that is almost 30 years of fishing and in that same time, I've caught dozens of wild browns (many from the same streams) that are 15"+.

I'm not a geneticist, but my understanding of genetic drift is that if some sort of bottleneck occurs (e.g. all the large brookies are harvested during a few generations), it is possible that a gene that was responsible for producing the larger brookies may have disappeared.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift for some visuals and equations about how this might work.

Squatch - I think I get your drift with the attitudes of browns being invasives (or not). I tend to view browns anymore as naturalized citizens. Technically, they can never be native, but they are firmly established here. Anglers value them and attitudes have shifted to accept them. But you can't really talk about really enhancing brook trout unless you do as you suggest and remove the naturalized citizens, which is difficult, because anglers like them.

And if there is any shard of truth to the genetic drift piece, even removing the invasives won't result in bigger brook trout - it will just result in more smaller brook trout.

That's probably what has happened in a lot of brookies streams. But there are some streams that even today produce what most anglers would call trophy brookies, Fish 15 inches or more. A couple of limestone streams have them, stream that feed reservoirs have them, and some streams that never get fished have them. Nearly always they are stream with either no browns or very few.

 

[Chaz]

salvelinus wrote:
I fish a stream that was last stocked with brookies about 30 years ago. The water had a low buffering capacity and was the reason to stop stocking. Fine by me. Over the years a fishable brookie population developed and I always had a good time there. About ten years ago I started catching a brown here and there. On my last trip two weeks ago they were about a quarter of my catch.

I wonder where the browns came from in the first place. The stream flows into a stocked creek, but the creek is warmwater in this area and well below the lower stocking limit. I suppose the browns could have migrated down the creek then up my stream. Over time they seem to be colonizing my stream further and further up too. I am catching browns where I never caught them before. The brookies never were big but I wonder what will eventually happen to their population.

They are good eaten.

 

[KenU]

A couple of years ago a local caught a 12.5 inch brookies in a small (1acre) pond in the headwaters of a tiny brook trout stream that hasn't been stocked in years. It was deep hooked between the gills and the fly had penetrated the artery. It died when he released it. He brought it home and we had it aged. It was between 3 and 4 years old.

Brook trout in our upland streams can live as long as six years. Figuring that fish was no more then 4 years old it was growing at a rate of at least 3 inches per year. Had it lived another 2 years it could have achieved 18 inches. So it doesn't appear that there are any genetic reasons brook trout in our streams can't still achieve historic size (~20"). They only need food, cover and time.

 

[troutbert]

Ending stocking over brook trout should be the main emphasis, as far as fisheries management, for those who want to improve brook trout populations.

The PFBC has shown willingness to do that, where they have the political support to do it. And the report referenced in this thread shows that the PFBC believes this makes sense biologically.

And some years ago the PFBC tried to take 60-some Class B sections off the stocking list, most of which were freestone stream sections holding brook trout or mixed brook/brown populations. But this was beaten back by certain PA legislators.

But this again showed that the PFBC wants to do it. They just got beat back by the legislators. If they had more political support, they would be willing to do more removal of stocking over brookies.

And ending stocking over brookies does not cost any money or require any labor. It actually saves money and time, as the stocking trucks do not have to travel narrow rough forest roads to those little streams.

And the brookie pops do improve. The PFBC studies show that. And I've seen it on the streams. It works.

Another benefit is that it gives the PFBC more hatchery trout to stock in waters that do not have wild trout. The larger, lower parts of the freestoners, such as Pine, Kettle, First Fork, Driftwood Br, Loyalsock etc. And in impoundments such as the ones on Kettle Cr and the First Fork.

Brown trout removal, either through poisoning, or through electrofishing removal, has a lot of problems. It would generate a lot of political backlash. Much more so than just gradually tapering down, then ending, the stocking on a little brookie stream.

You have to look at the political realities. IMHO, continuing to decrease stocking on small brookie streams is politically feasible. Not easy, but possible, with our support.

IMHO, poisoning brown trout is totally infeasible, out of the question politically, in PA. Electrofishing removal is probably more politically feasible, but still very difficult. It would generate a lot of backlash.

And it requires a great deal of labor, and time is money. You have to pay the crews, for their transportation and lodging.

And it simply isn't very effective. You would never be able to remove all the browns. And most streams in PA do not have effective barriers to migration from downstream. Many of our freestoners have numerous small tribs and there are often a few browns up in those. And "bucket biologists" would quickly throw browns back in there.

So they'd spend a lot of time and money doing an electrofishing sweep to remove a lot of browns, but in several years the brown population would rebound. It's really a waste of time and money.

I've heard people say that you cannot improve brook trout populations without doing brown trout removal. It's not true.

You can improve brook trout populations by ending stocking over them.

And you can improve brook trout populations by habitat restoration. There are many streams that have brook trout populations but the numbers overall are low, and the number of larger brookies is low, because the stream is mostly shallow, lacking in pools and cover, because of man-made disturbances and alterations. There are ways to restore better physical habitat in these places.

 

[salmonoid]

KenU wrote:
A couple of years ago a local caught a 12.5 inch brookies in a small (1acre) pond in the headwaters of a tiny brook trout stream that hasn't been stocked in years. It was deep hooked between the gills and the fly had penetrated the artery. It died when he released it. He brought it home and we had it aged. It was between 3 and 4 years old.

Brook trout in our upland streams can live as long as six years. Figuring that fish was no more then 4 years old it was growing at a rate of at least 3 inches per year. Had it lived another 2 years it could have achieved 18 inches. So it doesn't appear that there are any genetic reasons brook trout in our streams can't still achieve historic size (~20"). They only need food, cover and time.

Fish generally do not grow at the same rate in their latter years. I'm guessing the presence of the pond helped with the size attained. A sample size of one also does not really eliminate any possible reasons for why fish do not achieve their purported historical sizes. I go back to a question I posed over the winter - is there scientific literature that documents fish sizes from the early 20th century and earlier? Angling literature talks about larger fish and their migration, but since most anglers embellish, I'm always a bit skeptical of what the actual numbers were (size and quantity).

I don't think there is any one thing you can point to as the reason. There have been scores of changes to the physical environment (acid rain, climate change, water extraction, logging and development, among them), there have been many changes to fisheries management and angling attitudes (C&R, introduction of brown trout, creeling dozens of trout on an outing, stocking, etc.) and probably many things I'm not even thinking about. There are probably feedback loops on many of those inputs that impact the trout as well.

If there are no genetic reasons why brook trout do not attain their historic sizes (they just need food, cover, and time), why do brown trout succeed at attaining larger sizes at a much higher rate? Even if brookies grow an inch slower a year, in a mixed brook/brown stream, where I'm catching 21" browns, I should also be catching 15" brookies, no?

 

[Tups]

From Wikipedia: "Fisheries biologist Robert Behnke describes three forms of the brook trout. A large lake form evolved in the larger lakes in the northern reaches of its range and are generally piscivorous as adults. A sea-run form that migrates into saltwater for short periods of time to feed evolved along the Atlantic coastline. Finally, Behnke describes a smaller generalist form that evolved in the small lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams throughout most of the original native range. This generalist form rarely attains sizes larger than 12 in (30 cm) or lives for more than three years.[12]"

PS. Footnote#12: Robert J. Behnke. "About Trout: The Best of Robert J. Behnke from Trout Magazine". Retrieved 2013-11-04.[4]

 

[k-bob]

Good discussion. I took the liberty of copying part of page 121 of About Trout, co-published by TU, in which noted trout biologist Behnke says it is "highly improbable" that angling has ever changed stream trout genetics causing smaller fish. (however, imho short lives in a food-poor environment would cause small fish)


salmonoid "If there are no genetic reasons why brook trout do not attain their historic sizes (they just need food, cover, and time), why do brown trout succeed at attaining larger sizes at a much higher rate? Even if brookies grow an inch slower a year, in a mixed brook/brown stream, where I'm catching 21" browns, I should also be catching 15" brookies, no?"

not sure, maybe the browns live longer? see "life history" sections for BT & ST here:

http://fishandboat.com/pafish/fishhtms/chap15trout.htm

 

[Tups]

From page 87 of "About Trout" by R. Behnke, 2007 The Lyons Press, originally published in "Trout" magazine, summer 1987.

 

[Tups]

Apologize for the small size of the above reference to Behnke. In a nutshell, he claims that our hatchery stocks are descended from the "generalist" form of the brook trout, which is a small-sized, benthic-feeding form adapted to a harsh environment. This would explain the small size of PA's wild hatchery descendants and also any wild heritage populations which might exist in the state.