What does it take to support wild brownies

[jifigz]

This thread is not about finding good wild trout water, I know plenty of those places and how to find more. This thread is not about brook trout and what it takes to sustain them, so please don't bring them up. I also don't want to discuss the virtues of brook trout, the loss of them, the evil brown trout that has displaced them, yada, yada, yada. This thread is about brown trout in a valley stream setting that is, basically, a spring creek/limestoner/heavily limestone influenced stream. On Wednesday I did some exploring in places I usually don't go and the results were on par with what I have discovered in the past, and this is why I typically don't go exploring these areas. But eventually I go back during the hottest part of the year when flows are low and waters are warm to look for, identify, and find cold water with wild browns.

So Wednesday I left my house early and was on the stream by like 8:30. I went to a spring that I knew about. Above where the spring (which is a small one) enters the larger creek, the water was 72 degrees and I didn't even really fish. I walked around a bit, looked at stuff, decided it was frog water, and went downstream. Below the stream, and for a good long ways down, the stream was 64 degrees. I explored, I fished, I caught wild browns. I didn't tear them up, I had to work for them, but the experiment was a success. I was ideally just looking for water that held good temperature and has wild trout in it. In this area the stream is a little bit rough and tumbly, and kind of like a mini Penns or a Little J type of deal.

Satisfied, I head up stream several miles on the same stream. Here the water is a lot of flat water, meandering with little to no riffles. It has a characteristic that nearly screams "HEY, I AM A CLASSIC SPRING CREEK!" The water was 67 degrees which is a touch warm, but just barely fishable for my day of exploring. For weather and air temps in the 90's this is plenty cold enough to sustain wild browns as is confirmed in many streams. I turned up no wild trout. None. And I never do. I mean, they have to be there, right? This stream is listed on the PFBC natural reproduction list. It does suffer from sedimentation problems, but still...no trout?

Now, I have explored this area upstream this far before, but in slightly different spots. I just don't get it. I put in hours and hours that day, about 9, and just come up short. The adventure is part of the fun, the lack of success is both defeating but always makes me want to go back and keep looking in different places. Only given so much time to fish in life, though, it is hard to justify heading to places that have sucked in the past when I know of other good streams that I can have a great time on. The other odd thing: I know of quality wild brown trout streams that appear to be much worse trout streams than this one. I know of streams that seem like they shouldn't have wild trout and they are packed full of them.

So, what do you folks think are the number one reason why wild trout are not thriving where you expected they would be? Sediment? Contamination? I am just not sure.

Weird thing, but I did find about 8 LMB swimming in this creek......

 

[hooker-of-men]

I get a bit of this type of joy in NY. Life without any wild trout stream classification info can be a struggle.

Given, I don't often have 9 hour days as an option and I'm sure I'm not as adept at finding water as you, but I frequently spend a couple hours poking around water that looks and feels quite good but gives up nothing or just 1 or 2 tiny br**k tr**t.

I've seen some people on here praise NY for this approach, and I'd like to kick those people in their bobbers.

 

[silverfox]

Looks can be deceiving, and temperature isn't everything. Could be pollution, lack of habitat, some historical event that wiped them out (if they were ever there in the first place), sediment, dissolved gasses, etc. etc. etc.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

In the flat water you could have spooked the fish. Fish are just incredibly wary in stretches of stream like that and sometimes just making a cast puts them down.

 

[jifigz]

In the flat water you could have spooked the fish. Fish are just incredibly wary in stretches of stream like that and sometimes just making a cast puts them down.

I'm aware. I also acknowledge that fish aren't always easy to catch and sometimes they aren't as aggressive or easy to catch as other times.

I feel that my angling skills are good enough to catch fish at least one trip to an area, however, and that hasn't been the case here.

 

[Bamboozle]

I see this sort of thing all the time and while I can't give a definitive answer, sometime the label is part of the problem with the label being a PFBC classification.

Case in point, without naming names I regularly fish several limestone streams that have several sections on the Class A list. In several of those sections in particular the fishing, fish density and the number of fish I catch is dramatically different with "sections" of those listed Sections relatively dead by comparison.

When I inquired with a Area Fisheries Manager (AFM) about the situation, I was reminded (as we all know but sometimes forget), when a survey is done regardless of how small an area is sampled, the listing will be by SECTION which often times encompasses "dead" areas.

On the streams in question, the long, flat, deep, slow, silty sections seem to be those dead sections while areas with less of the above produce better fishing results. When I specifically inquired about those areas, I was advised by the AFM that the areas in question within the listed Section were surveyed and weren't actually Class A, but the ENTIRE section as a whole averages out to be Class A.

When I thought about it, it explains a lot of the gloom & doom reports I occasionally hear about these places...

IMHO and based on nothing but gut instinct and observation, I find abundant brown trout in streams where there is some sort of cover or multiple water depths to offer protection from predation from above, a respite from heavy flows and a spot to ambush food; a decent supply of cool oxygenated water and areas free of total sedimentation.

When I am fishing and find places with these characteristics, I do MUCH better than I do in the places without...

 

[Fly-Swatter]

jifigz: You are a seasoned angler. So, after the poor showing in the area you described as "...the water is a lot of flat water, meandering with little to no riffles. It has a characteristic that nearly screams "HEY, I AM A CLASSIC SPRING CREEK!", you probably looked for macroinvertebrates. Based on your description, you should have seen cress bugs, scuds, or maybe some small mayfly nymphs. The latter could be in short supply this time of year.

What did you find? I ask because a lack of a food base could be the canary in a coalmine pointing to some broader issue for that part of the stream.

 

[jifigz]

jifigz: You are a seasoned angler. So, after the poor showing in the area you described as "...the water is a lot of flat water, meandering with little to no riffles. It has a characteristic that nearly screams "HEY, I AM A CLASSIC SPRING CREEK!", you probably looked for macroinvertebrates. Based on your description, you should have seen cress bugs, scuds, or maybe some small mayfly nymphs. The latter could be in short supply this time of year.

What did you find? I ask because a lack of a food base could be the canary in a coalmine pointing to some broader issue for that part of the stream.

Honestly, I didn't look. I should have looked for life, but didn't. There were crayfish there, I know that. There were plenty of creek chubs willing to eat my parachute ants, etc. 4 inch long creek chubs don't really do it for me, though. I caught one brown trout that looked very healthy but was definitely originally of hatchery origins.

I will continue to investigate the area in the future I am sure.

 

[jeffroey]

Here the water is a lot of flat water, meandering with little to no riffles. It has a characteristic that nearly screams "HEY, I AM A CLASSIC SPRING CREEK!"

I latched onto these lines your description.

No need to repeat Oclot's remark about spooking browns on your approach (he already said it and I know you know that) but at the times I find myself in a similar situation, standing at a seemingly perfect pool that contains no fish (rising or moving as I splash thru it) I fall back to my basic checklist of 4: water temp, oxygen, food source, and COVER (holding/evading)

Water temp is easy: drop a thermometer. Oxygen kind goes a little hand-in-hand with temp: put your hand in the flow, look for the bubble line. Food sources: flies flying, bugs hopping, turn a couple of rocks . . .

It all looks good but sometimes the bottoms of those perfect looking pools are so featureless, there's just no good habitat for the trout to hold at or evade to when spooked. That seems to be the most likely of the four basics that I rationalize is missing in those situations and just move upstream to the next piece of fishy looking water.

If I'm still not moving fish either with my fly or my feet for a reasonable length of stream, then I might think differently about it - pollution, a swarm of beavers, troutnado, who knows but after a mile or so of it, those of us that are willing to invest the time to explore unproven waters just know that you're bound to walk into a bad one now and again. We've probably all hit a couple really good looking streams that just don't produce and our internal clocks tell us when it's time to break down the rod and make the activity a hike instead.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

It all looks good but sometimes the bottoms of those perfect looking pools are so featureless, there's just no good habitat for the trout to hold at or evade to when spooked. That seems to be the most likely of the four basics that I rationalize is missing in those situations and just move upstream to the next piece of fishy looking water.

^This

 

[sixfootfenwick]

Without knowing the watershed, it is impossible to answer.

If it is a spring creek, in a krast aquifer that its water comes from farmland, it could be nitrate pollution in the conduits
killing reproduction and the eggs.

As you move downstream to where you saw fish, it could pick up additional water.


The solution to pollution is dilution

 

[Roofin' Trouter]

This thread is not about finding good wild trout water, I know plenty of those places and how to find more. This thread is not about brook trout and what it takes to sustain them, so please don't bring them up. I also don't want to discuss the virtues of brook trout, the loss of them, the evil brown trout that has displaced them, yada, yada, yada. This thread is about brown trout in a valley stream setting that is, basically, a spring creek/limestoner/heavily limestone influenced stream. On Wednesday I did some exploring in places I usually don't go and the results were on par with what I have discovered in the past, and this is why I typically don't go exploring these areas. But eventually I go back during the hottest part of the year when flows are low and waters are warm to look for, identify, and find cold water with wild browns.

So Wednesday I left my house early and was on the stream by like 8:30. I went to a spring that I knew about. Above where the spring (which is a small one) enters the larger creek, the water was 72 degrees and I didn't even really fish. I walked around a bit, looked at stuff, decided it was frog water, and went downstream. Below the stream, and for a good long ways down, the stream was 64 degrees. I explored, I fished, I caught wild browns. I didn't tear them up, I had to work for them, but the experiment was a success. I was ideally just looking for water that held good temperature and has wild trout in it. In this area the stream is a little bit rough and tumbly, and kind of like a mini Penns or a Little J type of deal.

Satisfied, I head up stream several miles on the same stream. Here the water is a lot of flat water, meandering with little to no riffles. It has a characteristic that nearly screams "HEY, I AM A CLASSIC SPRING CREEK!" The water was 67 degrees which is a touch warm, but just barely fishable for my day of exploring. For weather and air temps in the 90's this is plenty cold enough to sustain wild browns as is confirmed in many streams. I turned up no wild trout. None. And I never do. I mean, they have to be there, right? This stream is listed on the PFBC natural reproduction list. It does suffer from sedimentation problems, but still...no trout?

Now, I have explored this area upstream this far before, but in slightly different spots. I just don't get it. I put in hours and hours that day, about 9, and just come up short. The adventure is part of the fun, the lack of success is both defeating but always makes me want to go back and keep looking in different places. Only given so much time to fish in life, though, it is hard to justify heading to places that have sucked in the past when I know of other good streams that I can have a great time on. The other odd thing: I know of quality wild brown trout streams that appear to be much worse trout streams than this one. I know of streams that seem like they shouldn't have wild trout and they are packed full of them.

So, what do you folks think are the number one reason why wild trout are not thriving where you expected they would be? Sediment? Contamination? I am just not sure.

Weird thing, but I did find about 8 LMB swimming in this creek......

Jifigz,
I usually scout cricks before I fish them. Food is usually the first thing I look for. I look for macroinvertabrates but don't stop there. I look for red worms under rocks in the dry part of stream bed,. I look for crayfish, and get an idea of numbers of small fishin the crick. The second thing that is big on my list is cover. I value cover over depth. I check temps and PH too but food and cover are the big 2 for me. I figure for the brownies to get big they need lots of food and places to hide from the herons.

 

[Swattie87]

Around here lately, some very big huevos, and some thick skin.

 

[jifigz]

Around here lately, some very big huevos, and some thick skin.

Oh Swattie....... That's a good one.

 

[Fish Sticks]

try night fishing it. If its shallow glassy water you might get different results at night. I had a spring creek with large LMB but also very large browns that would only feed aggressively at night for me, day time offerings were ignored and i walked it repeatedly with polarized lenses and the Donkey sized fish i caught at night i never even saw during the day.

There may just be no trout there but if tou really want to find out without a smith and root backpack i would find a tailout, riffle, or flat near the bigges lt deepest overhead cover type habitat and swing some wets through it at night.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

I'm just curious if you have tried to research this watershed online at all.
You may find a watershed action plan for it or the main watershed it is a tributary to, that may go into detail on its needs and impairments.

 

[PennKev]

I'm just curious if you have tried to research this watershed online at all.
You may find a watershed action plan for it or the main watershed it is a tributary to, that may go into detail on its needs and impairments.

And such documents often mention wild trout, if only in passing. But at the same time, I've seen them say things such as, "The number of trout observed in area X was much more than other areas."

 

[troutbert]

It sounds like a small, warm stream above the major limestone springs. 67F in the morning is pretty warm. Spring water where it comes out of the ground in that area is probably 51F. The chubs and bass also indicate warm water.

It would be interesting to take a temperature there around 4 pm during really hot weather. It would probably be 80F or more.

 

[jifigz]

It sounds like a small, warm stream above the major limestone springs. 67F in the morning is pretty warm. Spring water where it comes out of the ground in that area is probably 51F. The chubs and bass also indicate warm water.

It would be interesting to take a temperature there around 4 pm during really hot weather. It would probably be 80F or more.

It was 67 degrees at 2-3 pm while I was out there. I was out exploring for a long time that day. There are springs in the near vicinity of where I was in the afternoon.

I think the sole reason there are not fish there, or many fish, is habitat degradation/siltation. There is some cover, depth, and cold enough water I think..

But I'll go back again and be disappointed in the future, I'm sure.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

It was 67 degrees at 2-3 pm while I was out there. I was out exploring for a long time that day. There are springs in the near vicinity of where I was in the afternoon.

I think the sole reason there are not fish there, or many fish, is habitat degradation/siltation. There is some cover, depth, and cold enough water I think..

But I'll go back again and be disappointed in the future, I'm sure.

That is possible but I would think something else also. I have seen some horribly degraded and silty limestone springs hold a good head of brown trout.