What killed the trout?

Sometimes it's cute. Sometimes it's super annoying gibberish akin to blatant spamming for attention. Let's just devolve everything into pseudo idioms.
 
silverfox wrote:
I guess we go through phases as fly fishermen. Stockers are fun for a while, and then we seek out wild trout. Brookies are fun, but small, so we start looking for big wild browns. Not to be pompous, but I'm over wild brown trout. I've caught huge wild browns, I know where to go tomorrow and catch 20+ inch wild browns. They're not much of a challenge anymore. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy fishing regardless of the quarry, and I can appreciate a beautiful stream like nobody's business, but I'm personally just a little burned out on brown trout.
Click to expand...

Wow, cant imagine getting to this point in my fly fishing journey. No doubt we go through phases but this just seems so extreme to me. Catching a 20+inch wild trout is about as good as it gets for me.
 
krayfish2 wrote:
Jifigz wrote:
Because they are subscribing to that theory. That's the reason for it. The better question is do those states have better populations of wild trout ornis their trout fishing better than ours? I bet not, at least not given the same available trout resources and water qualities etc.
Click to expand...

Umm, yeah. It's very arguable that those states DO have better wild trout fishing but I guess that has little to do with closing the streams and everything to do with..........
Click to expand...

I would be curious to know how some of the New York streams that close do in trout population compared to PA. The streams I fish in PA definitely do not have numbers issues. I think far more trout hatch than could ever survive in most streams that have sustainable wild brown trout populations. Do you have a particular stream in mind that would benefit from a closure?
 
Siverwantsome, Spin, let's spin! All night long! Attention, Stand straight! What do you care. your off and I am trying to bring you back! Just like the fellow that want to post! Tear that paper up!

I got something that means a lot! "Handshake" isn't that enough!

I will kill trout, I like the orange inside when I give a gift! And maybe smoked! My gift is my skill. Think I would give a second! Nope!

It's all here for me in Pa. if I want it! I do not abuse but if I come, A Nice Smoked Trout on a cracker is nice! With a little cream cheese!

I may be stupid, let's kill em! Stockers, yep! Have fun and let the democrats have their way!

here's one: Where Bambi goes, nothing grows!

Maxima12
 
Look how much we lost! O k , look how much we can gain!

The right person!
 
Oh savoir of PA fishing, show us the way.
 
Silverfox, I respect your opinion and I'm glad that we can have this long back and forth with no one spewing disrespectful names or losing their cool. And I mean that with sincerity.

I agree things can change with every system, genetics, etc, etc. By your logic, which I respect, you would not really enjoy catching brown trout anywhere other than their native range. Not in Patagonia, not the western U.S., not New Zealand, etc. I mean, of course you would enjoy it because it is still a change and wouldn't be stale. And you also wouldn't e not fishing for brookies in the western U.S. where they have displaced native trout out there. I have dreamt of big brookies swimming through my favorite streams and me catching them. But I've also dreamt that I was fishing not surrounded by Cheetos bags and Pepsi bottles and concrete and houses everywhere but all of these things are how it is. I respect your desire to see brook trout restored and I think it would be amazing to see them at least successfully co-mingling and holding there own along the browns.

Just remember that people have taken the liberty of spreading plants and animals all over the world, sometimes we regret it and sometimes we see it as a huge advancement, but always it changes the local environment, flora, and fauna. I don't know, I just see it as a futile effort and am just happy that I'm surrounded by wild trout of some sort and not just temporary hatchery mutants.
 
jifigz wrote:
Silverfox, I respect your opinion and I'm glad that we can have this long back and forth with no one spewing disrespectful names or losing their cool. And I mean that with sincerity.

I agree things can change with every system, genetics, etc, etc. By your logic, which I respect, you would not really enjoy catching brown trout anywhere other than their native range. Not in Patagonia, not the western U.S., not New Zealand, etc. I mean, of course you would enjoy it because it is still a change and wouldn't be stale. And you also wouldn't e not fishing for brookies in the western U.S. where they have displaced native trout out there. I have dreamt of big brookies swimming through my favorite streams and me catching them. But I've also dreamt that I was fishing not surrounded by Cheetos bags and Pepsi bottles and concrete and houses everywhere but all of these things are how it is. I respect your desire to see brook trout restored and I think it would be amazing to see them at least successfully co-mingling and holding there own along the browns.

Just remember that people have taken the liberty of spreading plants and animals all over the world, sometimes we regret it and sometimes we see it as a huge advancement, but always it changes the local environment, flora, and fauna. I don't know, I just see it as a futile effort and am just happy that I'm surrounded by wild trout of some sort and not just temporary hatchery mutants.
Click to expand...

I feel bad that this thread is so derailed, but I guess we naturally ended up down this rabbit hole.

Anyway, you're right. To me (my personal opinion/position only) Native trout>Wild Trout>stocked trout. So yes, browns in their native range would be cool, though, not high on my bucket list. I've never got tired of catching brookies, and never will. To me, there is something special about a species that is unmolested. Occurs naturally where they evolved, with no human intervention. My favorite brookies are from the hardest to reach places where I know for a fact they're the same fish that evolved there.

I just wish there was more priority put on brook trout in this state. Even where it's obvious that they should be given protections (BS) it's an uphill battle. Hell, if people hadn't broken out the pitchforks and torches, the PAFBC would still be pumping out stockers in the headwater of BS to the detriment of the entire stream. When the state actively destroys a world famous brook trout fishery to raise pellet heads, you know their priorities are jacked up. This isn't ancient history either. The BS hatchery went online in 1972, and it was only 2001 when they reluctantly closed it down.

I don't even expect or wish that they made some statewide change in regs. Just set aside a stream or few for brookies only and protect them. At the very least, stop stocking over (just downstream) them in a few places where it might make the biggest difference. For some reason, the state seems satisfied to say that few people fish for them in the headwaters streams, and that's where they're relegated to, and they don't need protections.

I know I've brought it up before, but what Maryland has done with the Savage system should be a model. The mainstem and ALL of it's tributaries are C&R for brook trout. They still stock the lower section of the mainstem with rainbows and goldens, but they do get caught/die and pose no risk to the natives. I think they could do more (stop stocking it entirely), but it's a huge step in the right direction. What's important here is that they did this on a system level. Changes don't have to be statewide to make a huge impact.

Circling back to the OP's post, and hopefully tying this together somehow. Often, it's not one thing that causes damage to the fisheries. It's the culmination of multiple issues. When the primary objective of fisheries management is to stock fish, and fool people into believing that trout only occur in April because the white trucks bring them, the general public has no idea about spawning, or what they should be doing in the fall as fishermen.

So the dead spawner has as much to do with education as it does stream management. Perception can change people. I bet if the club members saw how big wild browns can get on their own they'd consider focusing on letting the wild fish do their thing and stop stocking over them. That takes time and foresight though. Something a lot of instant gratification folks can't handle these days. They want to go out in April and catch a 10lb rainbow, and could care less where it came from. For some reason, the thrill isn't diminished by the fact that someone darn near hooked it on their line for them. I guess that's why people still pay money to fish out of those swimming pools at the sports shows.
 
silverfox wrote:
I just wish there was more priority put on brook trout in this state...

I don't even expect or wish that they made some statewide change in regs. Just set aside a stream or few for brookies only and protect them. At the very least, stop stocking over (just downstream) them in a few places where it might make the biggest difference. For some reason, the state seems satisfied to say that few people fish for them in the headwaters streams, and that's where they're relegated to, and they don't need protections.
Click to expand...
There WAS the Wild Brook Trout Enhancement Program which was put in place on several streams. Under those regulations angling was permitted on a year-round basis with no tackle restrictions, and no brook trout were permitted to be harvested from those waters at any time.

Commonwealth Inland Waters regulations applied to other trout species with a seven-inch minimum length limit and five trout per day creel limit from the opening day of trout season through Labor Day, and no harvest for the remainder of the season.

I fished many if not all of the streams under that regulation and most were small. The program was discontinued when it didn't achieve the desired results.

Here is an an article that discusses it's discontinuation.

Hopefully Mike will chime in and provide some details.

There is also the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of Forestry Brook Trout Conservation Plan.

You can read about it here:


 
Silverfox, I agree with your last post wholeheartedly. I am basically anti stocking all together. Maintain a couple hatcheries that raise WW fish to restock impoundments after dam repairs, etc. Otherwise foster and nurture the species that thrive in each system and enhance the habitat and improve the water quality. This could be for redbreasts, smallies, rock bass, if whatever. So yes, I think we should stop dumping stockies all over them, too. But either way money could be saved and our wild fish would do better.

Back to the OP topic, I still think fall angling is okay and the lack of pressure is virtually harmless to the wild fish. Just my opinion, of course.
 
We all see fishing through our own lens. Big trout,be it Brookies,Browns Rainbows or? Or tons of trout to catch . Pick your poison. Big fish = isolation. There are more people Pa. than total population of New Zealand. I'd say be content with what you have as I don't see it getting better soon. That's my liberal take on things. GG
 
Bamboozle wrote:

There WAS the Wild Brook Trout Enhancement Program which was put in place on several streams. Under those regulations angling was permitted on a year-round basis with no tackle restrictions, and no brook trout were permitted to be harvested from those waters at any time.
Click to expand...

Yep, and in my opinion it was a complete joke.

This is what a real brook trout conservation program looks like: https://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/Documents/USR_Brook_Trout_Summary_2017.pdf

For example;
Ten major tributaries and several smaller tributaries feed into the mainstem upper Savage River, with the vast majority of the land use in the watershed found in public forest land. These native trout still have the opportunity to move throughout the 100+ miles of connected streams, and many do, helping to produce some of the largest brook trout in Maryland!
Click to expand...

Also of interest;
Many of these
larger brook trout spend their winters in
the mainstem of the USR where
conditions are not as severe as in the
smaller streams and where there is
abundant food. As water temperatures
increase in early summer, these fish will
migrate up to 12 miles or more to spend
their summers and early autumn in the
smaller tributary streams where the water
temperatures are less stressful.
Click to expand...

 
The wild brook trout enhancement program was a major joke.
It did achieve their desired results.

They were sick of hearing C&R can help the brookies. Which is true.
Here is how it was a joke.

Stream a - wild brook trout enhancement C&R all brook trout
Stream b - brook trout stream under general regs.

Now they want to compare the two but one important missing piece of data.
Did anyone harvest from stream b? If not the two are no different from eachother.


Lets do my experiment. Ill fish stream a and b for one week and havest 5 legal fish a day from b. Then lets see if C&R helps the larger brook trout.

In the end you are right. You cannot have this program enchance our brook trout because it focused on the wrong things.
 
It couldn't be that the Savage River is a unique situation and it is unfair to compare successes there with failures here?

From the link provided by Silverfox:

"The native brook trout population in the upper Savage River (USR) system is a unique and special resource and is one of only a few brook trout populations south of New England that remains well connected".

Sorry, but I don't buy that the PFBC set up the Wild Brook Trout Program to fail just to shut up people who maintained that C&R can help the brookies.

Did they NOT electroshock the streams in the program and control streams before during and after and compare results?

Fishing is far from a scientific way of determining fish populations and MAYBE if nobody "harvested from Stream B", the whole harvest thing as a detriment to the Brookie population is WAY overstated.
 
Ok.

So they know fish got harvested from B?
 
Otherwise you collected data from 2 streams without harvest.
Cant compare C&R vs harvest without harvest

 
Do YOU know POSITIVELY that NOBODY harvested from Steam B or is it an assumption to further your argument?
 
PFBC angler use and creel survey.
Comes from the horses mouth.
Im just using their own data

Ive had private conversation with PFBC staff members. Why do you suddenly think the did a study on C&R after all these years of saying it makes no difference?
Either way i love the irony that the PFBC can make assumptions in A "study" but i cannot even when using there own data.

The point is they focused on the wrong thing. C&R is a tool for AFTER other conditions are met.
 
Bamboozle wrote:
It couldn't be that the Savage River is a unique situation and it is unfair to compare successes there with failures here?

From the link provided by Silverfox:

"The native brook trout population in the upper Savage River (USR) system is a unique and special resource and is one of only a few brook trout populations south of New England that remains well connected".

Sorry, but I don't buy that the PFBC set up the Wild Brook Trout Program to fail just to shut up people who maintained that C&R can help the brookies.

Did they NOT electroshock the streams in the program and control streams before during and after and compare results?

Fishing is far from a scientific way of determining fish populations and MAYBE if nobody "harvested from Stream B", the whole harvest thing as a detriment to the Brookie population is WAY overstated.
Click to expand...

So you're saying a state that boasts 85,000 miles of trout streams can't find a system like the savage? One thing is for certain, if they don't try, we'll never have anything like the savage system.

As for the half hearted attempt by PA, you can't take a handful of small tribs, promote 24/7 brook trout fishing with no tackle restrictions and expect anything good to come of it. Further, what makes the savage system work is the connectivity. As stated in the publication. The fish grow big because they can use all of the streams as needed.

I can tell you from a ton of experience down there that the big fish move. It isn't easy at all to find them. Sometimes they aren't where you think they would be at a given time of year too. The point is, regs on a trib might have zero impact on the size/population if they're harvested downstream in a section with no regs. Want to get depressed? Download fishbrain and look through the photos of catches. You'll see sizable wild/native brook trout on stringers. Not caught in little headwater tribs, but down in mainstems with stocked fish. Hardware flingers don't know any different.

The problem with PA is they survey a 300 meter section of stream and apply the findings to all streams. I sometimes think they actually believe that those little 300 meter sections they survey never change. Like the fish that are there one day will be there the next, and if they aren't, it's because they're dead. Maryland tagged and radio tracked fish throughout the entire system. That's the only way to understand what the fish are doing. Electro shocking the same stations over and over again as if the fish just live in these little micro ecosystems is ridiculous. Hell, there's a chance the perceived decline in the PA streams wasn't a decline at all. The fish just moved.
 
Spot on silverfox. Your last post really nailed it.

I have been able to find large brook trout in PA looking for connectivity in watersheds with a vast ecosystem and limited competition. We have it in a few places but that limited competition is going to go fast with stocking.
Its a shame.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Montana Angler Fly Fishing
Montana Angler Fly Fishing
Harman's North Fork Cottages


Real Time Data From
the USGS Site

Share this page

Back
Top