What is WV doing that PA ain’t ?

Yes, it's been mentioned by multiple people throughout the thread as the best candidate. You got the dam at Ole Bull as your barrier, everything upstream of that could be the project.
If it's only from Ole Bull up, that's about 1/4 the size of the Savage. I know it would anger the goldfish chasers, but it really should be from Alvin Bush up and all tributaries. Before the "oh the humanity" comments, keep in mind that Maryland did the exact same thing more than a decade ago.

There are larger towns around the Savage than there are around Kettle (more "locals" with an interest in stocking/harvest). Otherwise, they're very similar in terms of remoteness and lack of development. Somehow it didn't take an act of congress for MD DNR to convert the Savage into a brook trout preserve that TU labeled as one of the top 10 most special places. I know for a fact that local anglers were upset about the Savage back when it was first changed. It's part of the reason there is still some limited rainbow stocking in the mainstem today.
 
Looks like I’ve kicked the wasps nest. Knowing what I know about Kettle, if they stopped stocking Kettle they would probably storm Fish and Boat. I think that it’s a good idea, but not likely to get much consideration. Might as well suggest stopping the stocking in Pine Creek.
 
Looks like I’ve kicked the wasps nest. Knowing what I know about Kettle, if they stopped stocking Kettle they would probably storm Fish and Boat. I think that it’s a good idea, but not likely to get much consideration. Might as well suggest stopping the stocking in Pine Creek.
Therein lies the problem. As long as the biologists are beholden to the loudest or angriest anglers and what they want, none of this will change. Common sense, science, conservation, or being decades behind neighboring states means nothing if the only thing that matters is maintaining the status quo and doing everything possible to avoid upsetting the apple cart.
 
Looks like I’ve kicked the wasps nest. Knowing what I know about Kettle, if they stopped stocking Kettle they would probably storm Fish and Boat. I think that it’s a good idea, but not likely to get much consideration. Might as well suggest stopping the stocking in Pine Creek.
You might be right, but it would be a great start if it could happen.
 
Yes, it's been mentioned by multiple people throughout the thread as the best candidate. You got the dam at Ole Bull as your barrier, everything upstream of that could be the project.
I think ending stocking above the dam at Ole Bull would be a good goal.

This would end stocking on the stretch of Little Kettle that is stocked.

And it would end stocking on Kettle Creek from the dam at Ole Bull to the current upper stocking point, which is a few hundred yards above the Route 44 bridge near Oleona.

Both have mixed brown and brookie populations. That stretch of Little Kettle is probably close to 50/50. That stretch of Kettle has more browns than brookies, but there are brookies there.

Ending stocking of both of these stretches would benefit brookie populations. And there is potential for actually achieving that goal, IMHO.
 
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Beyond the reclamation/reintroduction in Tucker Co, you also have the Middle Fork of Williams River and tributaries in Webster and Pocahontas Counties, Tea Creek upstream of the Tea Creek Campground and its tributaries in Pocahontas County, Red Creek upstream of the County Route 45 Bridge and its tributaries in Tucker County, and Otter Creek and tributaries in Randolph and Tucker Counties as brook trout "preserves." Again, PA doesn't have a single watershed managed specifically for brook trout comparable to those watersheds, and WV has four.

In addition to those that were set aside in the regs, there are several other watersheds that are quite large and nearly 100% brook trout. PA may have more brook trout streams but WV has better quality in more places IMO. I'm not sure it has anything to do with management. I've always thought of it as some of the watersheds are so big and sparsely populated the brookies are thriving in spite of WV's tendency to stock the hell out of more accessible places. WV brookies are lucky the browns have struggled to take hold for some reason.
 
Yes, it's been mentioned by multiple people throughout the thread as the best candidate. You got the dam at Ole Bull as your barrier, everything upstream of that could be the project.
The dam at Ole Bull has a fish ladder, installed by DCNR, PFBC, Allegheny Mountain TU, and the Air National Guard. It is definitely passable by fish as well. Alvin Bush dam would be the real barrier and a great place to run the experiment/project. And run it for a minimum of ten years. Everything above that dam is EV and it's the only large watershed in PA that I know of that is all EV.
 
In addition to those that were set aside in the regs, there are several other watersheds that are quite large and nearly 100% brook trout. PA may have more brook trout streams but WV has better quality in more places IMO. I'm not sure it has anything to do with management. I've always thought of it as some of the watersheds are so big and sparsely populated the brookies are thriving in spite of WV's tendency to stock the hell out of more accessible places. WV brookies are lucky the browns have struggled to take hold for some reason.
Depends, I reckon, on the part of the state. I have the most access to the New River Gorge and its tribs where I live, and the browns have definitely taken hold there. Further west of me, getting closer to Kentucky, the rainbows have taken a strong position. When I get into places like Hardy County, then I start finding a lot more brookies.
 
Oh. And as someone who has fished, and continues to fish, the Kettle watershed, I would fully support the cessation of stocking from Ole Bull up. I'd support from Alvin R Bush upstream too-but that seems less plausible from a public relations point of view.
I wonder, how much would people REALLY freak? From Ole Bull up, it's mostly fly fishermen, I'd guess, and there's a stretch of FF only below Ole Bull...I'd like to THINK most fly fishermen would "get it". I think most of the noise from the cessation of stocking would probably be from Cross Fork downstream to Alvin R Bush.
 
Kettle was as low this past summer as I have ever seen it. The tribs were also super low. Wild trout of any kind do not thrive in most of Kettle from what I have seen . A few in the upper reaches. Too warm and those few small tribs are not much better. A better option would be Cross Fork Creek. It already has Brook Trout and it would be easier to clear out the wild Browns. Perhaps create a barrier on lower end , or not.
 
Depends, I reckon, on the part of the state. I have the most access to the New River Gorge and its tribs where I live, and the browns have definitely taken hold there. Further west of me, getting closer to Kentucky, the rainbows have taken a strong position. When I get into places like Hardy County, then I start finding a lot more brookies.
Most of my WV fishing has been east of the coal mine territory. One drainage has a ton of rainbows, but the brookies are still there in good numbers. Not sure what the max size potential is for the brookies there because it gets heavy pressure and harvest. It's heavily stocked too with rainbows and brooks. But there is still a long stretch above a natural barrier that is only brookies and I have seen a photo of a 14-15" brook trout from that remote section. Oddly, I can only think of one strong wild brown stream in this region of WV. Another has a very few browns but is otherwise dominated by brook trout. There are rumors of 16" brook trout in that watershed, but I can't confirm (I wish!)
 
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Hmmmmm? This has been the exact opposite of my 30+ years of fishing Kettle. I may be fishing quite higher up in the watershed than you.
I agree. Regardless of where you are above Alvin Bush, it depends on the time of year in the mainstem.

Once again, folks have to get over what they see on August 12th and thinking that prevents trout from using the river. I know it gets low and clear in August way downstream, and most of the trout move out. Contrary to some beliefs, trout don't simply die when the water gets warm. They swim. Now, stocked trout may go belly up because they're dumb as a box of rocks, but that doesn't mean wild native brook trout that evolved in that watershed do the same.

Frankly, I'm not convinced the stocked trout simply die, either. According to PA Fish & Boat, stocked trout are capable of swimming long distances. Including one rainbow trout swimming 123 miles.

Just because you don't see fish or catch fish in one section during one time of the year doesn't mean they aren't there during other times of the year. Once again, those waters that "get too warm" are critically important habitats over the winter when the tributaries might get locked up with anchor ice and where winter-time food is more scarce.

This gets at one of the biggest problems in PA in my opinion (I say that a lot). PFBC surveys streams in late summer when trout are concentrated in thermal refugia. So if you base management decisions on the worst case scenario for wild trout presence, you're going to come up with a lot more water to stock because there were no wild trout present in August. Meanwhile, you're stocking right over top wild native brook trout that are in that "Frog water" in April before migrating back up the tributaries to ride out the heat. So you're drawing large numbers of anglers to winter refuge and dumping thousands of stocked trout on top of wild fish. Stocking should be based on electrofishing surveys conducted when the trout are stocked, not when they're all stuffed into cold water tributaries.

Before the comments start, yes, it's approximately 20% of the population on average that moves (it's likely far more and far less in some cases). How important are those fish with the life history/survival strategy to move like that, though? That's exactly why MD made all waters west of 81 C&R for brook trout in stocked waters. They're finding brook trout in frog water in late March when the trout season opens. Those fish that move are likely extremely important to the metapopulation. So it might be rare to catch a 9 inch brook trout in some lower river frog water in April, but how important is that single fish? Why not protect that individual in case their role in the population is far more important than we understand today?

There are now several research papers on movement, but here's one with a good quote that summarizes the above. "Main-stem-resident trout were never observed in water exceeding 19.5°C. Our study provides some of the first data on brook trout movements in a large Appalachian river system and underscores the importance of managing trout fisheries in a riverscape context. Brook trout conservation in this region will depend on restoration and protection of coldwater refugia in larger river main stems as well as removal of barriers to trout movement near tributary and main-stem confluences." https://doi.org/10.1080/00028487.2012.681102

This is what irritates me with the Slot Limit regulation that was recently passed and is now being applied to more waters. They completely ignored brook trout in larger mainstem rivers. Someone said it was because that reg type won't be applied to waters that have brook trout. Well, it's applied to Penns Ck. It's just blatant disregard for brook trout conservation science.

Sorry for the rant.
 
I have found the upper reaches of Kettle (above Oleona) to be very good native fishing. Some very nice size brookies at that.
Exactly. That's where I always fish Kettle (and I really mean it-whenever I fish Kettle, I NEVER fish downstream of Oleona). And then, most times, I'm upstream of Rt 44, though the wild fish population from the 144 bridge up to the 44 bridge is pretty robust. But that whole stretch of what used to be the WBTE project is quite nice, and while I've not caught 15" WV brookies up there, I've caught many in the 12" range.
It's been probably a decade since I seriously fished downstream of the 144 bridge, and more than that since I fished the C&R section. And, only one time have I ever fished for trout below Cross Fork and that was in April after the white trucks came through (fishin' w/ a friend who has a camp down there). When I go down that far, I'm targeting smallmouth. I don't view Kettle as a "trout stream" below Hammersley.
 
Most of my WV fishing has been east of the coal mine territory. One drainage has a ton of rainbows, but the brookies are still there in good numbers. Not sure what the max size potential is for the brookies there because it gets heavy pressure and harvest. It's heavily stocked too with rainbows and brooks. But there is still a long stretch above a natural barrier that is only brookies and I have seen a photo of a 14-15" brook trout from that remote section. Oddly, I can only think of one strong wild brown stream in this region of WV. Another has a very few browns but is otherwise dominated by brook trout. There are rumors of 16" brook trout in that watershed, but I can't confirm (I wish!)
I've noticed this when I got into Hardy County (about 4 hours northeast of me). Great brooktrout population, but the state was going through every 4 days dumping buckets of pellet heads in the stream. That's when I felt like I was right back in PA 😎
 
What’s the lowest anyone’s caught a wild Trout on Kettle?

For me, it’s about the lower boundary of the FFO. And down there, it’s mostly stockers, with an occasional wild Brown. The lowest I’ve caught a wild Brookie is below Oleona, but above Ole Bull. Above Oleona, I catch far more wild Brookies than wild Browns. Though that could just be because the Brookies are easier to catch, not necessarily because the Browns aren’t there.
 
Exactly. That's where I always fish Kettle (and I really mean it-whenever I fish Kettle, I NEVER fish downstream of Oleona). And then, most times, I'm upstream of Rt 44, though the wild fish population from the 144 bridge up to the 44 bridge is pretty robust. But that whole stretch of what used to be the WBTE project is quite nice, and while I've not caught 15" WV brookies up there, I've caught many in the 12" range.
It's been probably a decade since I seriously fished downstream of the 144 bridge, and more than that since I fished the C&R section. And, only one time have I ever fished for trout below Cross Fork and that was in April after the white trucks came through (fishin' w/ a friend who has a camp down there). When I go down that far, I'm targeting smallmouth. I don't view Kettle as a "trout stream" below Hammersley.
I've never fished Kettle below Oleona either. Not once. A lot of Kettle downstream of Hammersley is borderline frog water anyway. Probably contributing a lot to it's warm temps. I will say, I LOVE fishing the "Fork" though. A very beautiful tributary with some gorgeous wild trout.
 
What’s the lowest anyone’s caught a wild Trout on Kettle?

For me, it’s about the lower boundary of the FFO. And down there, it’s mostly stockers, with an occasional wild Brown. The lowest I’ve caught a wild Brookie is below Oleona, but above Ole Bull. Above Oleona, I catch far more wild Brookies than wild Browns. Though that could just be because the Brookies are easier to catch, not necessarily because the Browns aren’t there.
Easier to catch might play a part of it, but I've fished that stretch for miles above 44 in all kinds of conditions, including conditions in which on other streams in that region, I've caught MANY browns, and my experience is the same as yours.
I DID, however, catch a native brookie on Kettle below Cross Fork. But, that was in April, rainy and quite cold. I highly doubt I would have caught it in say, June.
 
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