Why is PA still stocking trout?

[troutbert]

On streams that have very little harvest because almost no one fishes them, the good habitat spots have trout that are large and in good condition. The streams are not over-populated with runt fish.

This shows that trout populations do not need human harvest to maintain good population balance.

 

[PennKev]

JeffK wrote:
The Missouri in MT is a drift boat river about as large as the Delaware in the Water Gap area. I fish with a older friend who can't walk much anymore. I can park him in one spot on Spring Ck and he will catch fish all day only moving a few steps. Can't do that on the Missouri.

That doesn't make Spring better. Just easier to fish. By that measure, most brookie streams are "better" than Penns, Ljr, etc.

Forget the Missouri for a minute. There are plenty of smaller, wade-only waters in the west that are better fisheries than Spring. Easily wade-able streams filled with 10-12" fish and strong numbers of fish 14-18" are not uncommon. In fact, I fish one particular MT stream every summer that has a local reputation as a $#!t hole. It is a heavily grazed area and a lot of water is removed for irrigation. However, by PA standards it is just plain incredible in terms of size and numbers. 14-18" are common with loads of smaller fish. This particular stream is usually at 70 cfs or so when I fish it. It is said to hold 1000-3000 trout per mile depending on location. Perhaps spring has more "adult" fish per mile, but it is not a "better" stream when it comes to the balance between size and numbers.

 

[SteveG]

Mike, as a whole, data can be obtained and be presented to be in line with what the presenter would like to show. You're well aware that trout, especially large ones, move for a variety of reasons. If you keep shocking nursery water, you're more likely to find smaller fish.

My bringing up sizes in regard to the posted numbers just goes to show that the "data" presented, was slighted. There are plenty of creeks in the West that have overall much smaller sized fish compared to the big rivers. It took me some getting used to, as such a creek of similar conditions here in PA would typically have larger fish. Then you have exceptions, like Rock Creek.

 

[PennKev]

SteveG wrote:
My bringing up sizes in regard to the posted numbers just goes to show that the "data" presented, was slighted. There are plenty of creeks in the West that have overall much smaller sized fish compared to the big rivers. It took me some getting used to, as such a creek of similar conditions here in PA would typically have larger fish. Then you have exceptions, like Rock Creek.

While I have certainly caught plenty of small

 

[troutbert]

Stocking of hatchery trout over native brook trout is still very widespread in PA.

The number of streams and stream miles where this is done is very large.

This stocking is done by both the PFBC and the coop hatcheries.

This is a very large opportunity for improvement.

 

[Eccles]

It's understandable that trout populations increase with C&R of course but Mike says that the fish in the Little J and Codorus (and others have mentioned the same for Spring Creek) are over populated which has an impact on the size the fish reach and perhaps their condition too.

Troutbert mentions that streams with little harvest have trout that are large and in good condition.

So why doesn't natural population regulation re-establish itself on C&R waters to balance the numbers of trout and impose a size distribution that one would find in an unfished water?

Troutbert added that, "[T]his shows that trout populations do not need human harvest to maintain good population balance."

Surely there's a contradiction here given that popular C&R waters seem to have a skewed size distribution. Or am I missing something.

Eccles

 

[NickR]

Just imagine how the streams would improve if we managed for the actual fish and not for angler expectations. Fishing a lot of PA streams is like trying to feed off a carcass that's been devoured by wolves. Stock responsibly where it is needed stock less where it's not needed and put more catch and release regs in place. Close wild trout streams or sections that warm too much during the summer and close some streams down during the spawn. I think it's not only wasteful but irresponsible to stock over wild fish and then turn around and talk about financial woes. If Montana is bringing in the most fishing tourism dollars why on earth aren't we trying to copy them to some extent?

 

[NickR]

How can we even begin to effectively establish where we have class a populations when we allow harvest and stocking? All that does is just confuse everyone and suppress what our wild fish are capable of. For christs sake I just had somebody tell me off when I pointed out to them that their rainbow and golden trout from spring creek were not wild...he says"spring hasn't been stocked for 100 years."

 

[troutbert]

Eccles wrote:
It's understandable that trout populations increase with C&R of course but Mike says that the fish in the Little J and Codorus (and others have mentioned the same for Spring Creek) are over populated which has an impact on the size the fish reach and perhaps their condition too.

Troutbert mentions that streams with little harvest have trout that are large and in good condition.

So why doesn't natural population regulation re-establish itself on C&R waters to balance the numbers of trout and impose a size distribution that one would find in an unfished water?

Troutbert added that, "[T]his shows that trout populations do not need human harvest to maintain good population balance."

Surely there's a contradiction here given that popular C&R waters seem to have a skewed size distribution. Or am I missing something.

Eccles

I don't think you are missing something. It is a perplexing paradox.

So these are very good questions. And the fisheries profession should attempt to answer those questions. Maybe Mike can give his opinions on it.

 

[John96]

A lot of issues and can be traced back to angler expectations. Depending on who you talk to, C&R is great for a fishery or it leads to too many small fish (as Eccles pointed out above).

Anglers have specific expectations they expect to be meant and when those are not meant they begin to search for a 'solution'. While this is easy to do, I think people are insensitive to the fact that every stream is a different ecosystem and will support a different population of fish. If you take that attitude there's a lot less to complain about.

This can be applied to 'why PA still stocks trout' and the management of wild trout streams.

 

[Mike]

Eccles and Troutbert,
The answer probably lies in the types of streams and species (Browns) that I specified in my post...limestoners, tail-races. I specifically avoided typical freestoners since in that much harsher environment mortality of large year classes at young ages (YOY, yearlings) may be much higher and nearly annual substantive reductions in habitat due to low flows may have a greater impact on these fish than would occur in limestoners or tail-races where flows may be more constant.

NickR, it is instructive to remember that there is a long list of streams that had been stocked or that while being stocked were either already Class A or became Class A and were then removed from the stocking program. That list continues to grow, particularly for Brown Trout, because as habitat improves over time as land uses change those streams respond, despite being stocked.

In contrast, there are classic low fertility, freestone, Brook Trout B's in SE Pa that despite their loss or removal from the stocking program did not become A's. These were quality waters and ones that many anglers probably would have predicted would become A's (even I thought it might happen), but their biomasses barely budged. They just continued to cycle as usual.

There is another ST stream, however, that responded quite favorably to stocking cessation, but these were no normal stockings, nor was the fishing pressure. The stocking rates were high and stockings were frequent (PFC stocking at the time, cooperative nursery on site stocking as well, trout rodeos), and there was a substantive harvest. Population depletion is what I would have called it. That was an unusual case to the extreme.

On a statewide basis, I continue to think that perhaps one of the best, generalized ways to improve wild Brook Trout populations in stocked streams would be to stop stocking. That is not talking out of school because, based on data from years prior to that, I was more direct in my presentation at the PFBC's 2002 Trout Summit and did not include the word perhaps. I have now added "perhaps" because with the lower stocking rates used today, the lower harvest rates in many cases, the reduced frequencies of stocking, and the reduced number of anglers, it may be that stocking and the resulting additional harvest of wild Brook Trout may not be limiting population growth anymore. The threshold for population growth to occur may not be zero stocking.

 

[troutbert]

Mike wrote:
Eccles and Troutbert,
The answer probably lies in the types of streams and species (Browns) that I specified in my post...limestoners, tail-races. I specifically avoided typical freestoners since in that much harsher environment mortality of large year classes at young ages (YOY, yearlings) may be much higher and nearly annual substantive reductions in habitat due to low flows may have a greater impact on these fish than would occur in limestoners or tail-races where flows may be more constant.

I have fished limestone streams with wild browns that very, very few people fished, so they had very little harvest.

And trout were not over-populated and the fish were not stunted or skinny. The population was well balanced. In the good habitat spots you caught hard fighting, good-sized trout in great condition. In the thinner water you caught smaller trout, which is normal.

I've seen the same pattern on streams that are rarely fished, regardless of whether the trout present were browns, brook trout, or cutthroat trout.

And there are many places around the world that show the same thing. People go to great lengths to find places that are little fished. Lee Wulff explored northern Canada in a plane way back in the day, looking for such largely unfished waters. And he found them. Were they swarming with skinny, runt fish? Nope. He found big trout.

People in New Zealand pay a lot of money for helicopters to access streams that are almost impossible to access otherwise. Do they expend all that time and money to go catch runt fish? Nope. They are going there for big trout.

People go to great lengths to explore remote areas of Argentina and Chile. To catch runt trout? Nope.

The examples from trout populations that have almost no harvest or angler mortality show very clearly that trout populations do not need human harvest to regulate their trout populations and prevent over-population and stunting.

The very idea that trout evolved in such a way that they needed humans to harvest a lot of them to prevent rampant over-population and stunting seems very far fetched.

And the evidence from rarely fished trout streams shows very clearly that the idea is wrong.

Which brings us back to the interesting and important question that Eccles raised in post #87.

 

[Mike]

Aparently, these systems don't function as those that you have described. What is your explanation? Perhaps those that you described are historically less disturbed/more natural such that population balances are maintained.

Regardless, the important thing is that the general ecological principle stands as measured in Wisconsin's statewide stream data...the higher the densities of wild Brook and Brown Trout, the shorter the average length. As I said in the beginning, however, most anglers at the Wild Trout Summit expected special reg areas to support more trout, not larger trout, which was certainly enlightening. High catch rates may be more important than large fish.

I would reiterate from past discussions that regardless of the regulations, streams that don't have suitable big fish habitat are not going to support resident large trout. One just can't go to a C&R stream section, for example, and assume that there is a better chance of catching a large trout than in the stream's sections that are managed under statewide regulations.

 

[wbranch]

JeffK wrote;

The Missouri in MT is a drift boat river about as large as the Delaware in the Water Gap area.

Excuse me for getting so far off track of the original post. But when I saw JeffK's comment I wanted to make my own comments and kind of got derailed and went off on my own course.

While the lower Missouri, say 25 miles down river from Holter dam, is quite wide and may approach the width of the Delaware around the Water Gap the upper river from the dam to say Craig, about six river miles, is often no wider than the upper main stem Delaware and in quite a few places less wide.

Admittedly a drift boat is a great way to fish the Missouri if you want to stare at a bobber (indicator) for ten miles but there are many very wadeable sections of water from the dam to a few miles below Craig and once you know the river all the way down to Stickney about 16 miles below the dam.

I keep a frameless pontoon boat at the outfitter I stay with and only use the craft to get from point A to point B and get out of the boat and wade fish. I never fish out of the craft and can easily spend eight hours wade fishing many areas from the dam to Craig and below.

You can't really compare SC to the Missouri. There is just so much aquatic life subsurface that the trout can eat all year long. Considering the Missouri is pretty heavily fished from early June to late August one might think that the pressure might have a detrimental effect on the size and numbers of trout 12" and larger. But from what I have seen during peak periods is there are just as many fish, albeit less browns per mile, in the 16" - 19" range than one might find on waters with less angler density.

A few years ago I read an article that described the subsurface aquatic life in the Missouri. About a dozen sampling sites were constructed from around the dam down river to Craig (I forget if Craig was the terminus of the study) The results of the study indicated that within the sampling sites range there were over 100,000 life forms, per square meter, comprised mostly of scuds, shrimp, aquatic worms, mayfly nymphs, caddis larvae, stonefly nymphs, crayfish, and other edible food sources for the trout. I have noticed over the past few years that less and less trout are rising even when PMD's are covering various sections of the river and there were blanket Trico spinner falls. The reason is the trout don't need to surface feed as much as they used to because there is more than enough subsurface food. Besides by preferring to do most of their feeding subsurface they reduce the chances of being prey to bald eagles, ospreys, pelicans, and other birds of prey.

 

[afishinado]

Mike wrote:
Aparently, these systems don't function as those that you have described. What is your explanation? Perhaps those that you described are historically less disturbed/more natural such that population balances are maintained.

Regardless, the important thing is that the general ecological principle stands as measured in Wisconsin's statewide stream data...the higher the densities of wild Brook and Brown Trout, the shorter the average length. As I said in the beginning, however, most anglers at the Wild Trout Summit expected special reg areas to support more trout, not larger trout, which was certainly enlightening. High catch rates may be more important than large fish.

I would reiterate from past discussions that regardless of the regulations, streams that don't have suitable big fish habitat are not going to support resident large trout. One just can't go to a C&R stream section, for example, and assume that there is a better chance of catching a large trout than in the stream's sections that are managed under statewide regulations.

I am familiar with the Wisconsin surveys on trout density and size as it relates to regulations. I dug it up and here are the conclusions from the report:

Brook Trout
Do brook trout densities differ in streams with different special regulations and if so, which special regulations were associated with higher densities?

• Small streams with special regulations had higher densities than the other standard regulation categories.
• Streams with a high MLL and low daily bag limit had higher densities of brook trout >/=9 inches than streams with slot limits or low MLL and high daily bag limits.

Brown Trout
Are brown trout >/=7 inches more abundant in streams with regulation category 2(7 inch MLL and 5 daily bag limit) than in streams with other regulations?

• All – No (5 was higher than 2)
• Small – No
• Medium – No (3 and 5 were higher than 2)
• Large – No

There is a lot of very interesting info in the report. Here is the link: http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/documents/trout/troutregevalu.pdf

 

[Mike]

Afish,
That is a different study than the one I mentioned, but in looking at the abstract it is a paper that I will want to review in more depth. Thanks for posting it.

The study that I was speaking about was an evaluation of all Wisconsin trout streams, not just a select sub-set or ones that are only special reg waters.

 

[troutbert]

"Based on the most current evidence, salmonids diverged from the rest of teleost fish no later than 88 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous."

Humans arrived on the scene much later than that.

So how did the salmonids regulate their populations without our help all those millions of years?

 

[Mike]

Didn't say they aren't regulating themselves, as it is all about fitness in the natural world. There is clearly no problem with long term reproduction in these special reg, more fertile Brown Trout streams.

What I did suggest is that their length distributions in some special reg areas are probably not attractive to those who wish to catch large fish and that the abundance of smaller fish (competition for limited resources) is a strong concern on my part. By smaller I am not speaking of sub-legal fish.

 

[afishinado]

Mike wrote:
Didn't say they aren't regulating themselves, as it is all about fitness in the natural world. There is clearly no problem with long term reproduction in these special reg, more fertile Brown Trout streams.

What I did suggest is that their length distributions in some special reg areas are probably not attractive to those who wish to catch large fish and that the abundance of smaller fish (competition for limited resources) is a strong concern on my part. By smaller I am not speaking of sub-legal fish.

From the WI DNR study I posted above:

Streams with catch and release and slot length limits had higher densities of large brown trout (>/=10 in, >/=12 in, >/=15 in) than streams with low or high minimum length limits

As I posted in my earlier post, bigger fish are the first to be cropped out of the population in harvest streams. The study findings are no surprise > more fish and bigger fish are found in C&R streams.

As Troutbert writes above, mother nature takes care of the population age distribution just fine without any need for angler harvest to regulate the stream.

 

[RLeep2]

After reviewing the list of streams from the WI-DNR study that Afish provided a link to and having fished about a third of them at one time or another during the 15 years I was running around loose fishing Wisconsin, I have a difficult time with the idea that the study is of much value in assessing the efficacy of more or less restrictive regs on wild trout populations in Wisconsin streams. The individual stream circumstances, conditions, size and if they are part of ongoing restorative efforts using feral fingerlings (and quite a few of the brook trout streams are or were in this situation over the period covered by the study) are, IMO, too varied to produce significantly meaningful results in a study where WI-DNR regs category was apparently the main classification criteria.

As a "snapshot in time" of where things stood at the time, it probably has more value. But I see little there, again given the situational broadness of streams sampled, that could be used to argue for the efficacy of regs one way or the other...

Beyond this, I'd have to say that my anecdotal experiences on Wisconsin trout streams support Mike's original point regarding over population and stunting perhaps partially due to restrictive or C&R regs. I caught on average larger fish (and also interestingly enough, probably just as many) in streams that were managed under the modest harvest restrictions of WI-DNR Category 3 regs (3 fish/9" min). But here as well, I have no real way of knowing if these differences were more about the specific stream situation or the effect of the regs.

One thing I wonder about and wish I had a better way to articulate is in reference to Troutbert's point about limestone streams with little or no pressure having good size class distributions and no apparent evidence of overpopulation due to minimal or no harvest. I largely agree with this.

But here is the part that I'm having trouble articulating because I can't figure out what the "missing factor" would be. Spring Creek and the Little Juniata were cited as PA streams where overpopulation (perhaps due to C&R) may be resulting in smaller average size. These streams share a characteristic in common with the Wisconsin streams where C&R-related overpopulation has been observed. All are, if you will, "reconstructed" fisheries that at some point in the past were degraded to a point that the health of the fishery was far, far below its potential and then, through water quality and habitat improvement and probably regs as well, they were restored.

So, here is my question: In the same way that whitetail deer introduced into a safe suburban setting will often overpopulate until they crash, is there something in these reconstructed or restored fisheries that was broken at the time of the original degradation that has not or cannot be repaired? Or that at least may take decades for Nature to sort it out and restore the balance that was automatic prior to the original degradation and remains automatic in the fisheries Troutbert was talking about? If there is and it is just a matter of time, then IMO, this is the point where the social question as to how we want use to regs to manage or tailor the fishery comes into play.

Just some thoughts...