Wild Brook Trout

[jifigz]

KenU wrote

We really do need a long term plan to preserve and protect our natives to the extent possible. The first move would be to stop stocking over them. Other management steps may be needed, but that is by far, the most important step. Picking which streams and where to start is the tough part.

Is that the hard part? Just pick a few streams with a decent population and good habitat and cease stocking. Yes it might anger license buyers and suffer some sales but done on a small scale as an experiment shouldn't hurt sales too bad. After all, we have lots of streams across the state that fit the scenario. Also, why does my favorite brookie fishing occur in unstocked streams? Not class A, just unstocked. I do feel stocking is a huge detriment.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Ken,

Spot on.
The mainstem of a river I fish last year produced many 10-12" fish. Some 13" fish and one 14" fish.
In the tribs the fall spawn run produced a few 12" fish and my 15" male in the unicorn thread.

I know they are migrating and the fish are big. Nothing over 16" yet but I suspect there are a few. I need a few years to figure them out but I will.

Reason they are big?
13 miles of range with good habitat, limited competition from other fish and NO STOCKING or very limited stocking. I do fear however that because the water quality is improving, one day soon the PFBC will put their hands on it and it will be gone.

They can grow big fellas, we just don't let them, either through development, agriculture, pollution, stocking competitive fish or all of the above.

 

[ryansheehan]

tomitrout wrote:

My confusion lies where folks are saying there are different sections that receive stocking from where st populations may be, post 80.

Ry, yes, there are streams where a wild population exists in the upper reaches and the stream is stocked below that point. So the wild fish may not be getting stocked over just because the stream shows up on both the stocking and wild repro/Class A list. It would be quite the chore to suss out the exact 'official' overlaps, but the stocking list provides GPS coordinates for the limits of the sections being stocked and the Wild Repro and Class A lists also provide coordinates for the stream sections that are classified as such. Beyond that you need to rely on local knowledge to know what's really happening on the ground...the state stocking list doesn't account for supplemental coop stockings for example. Nor does it account for local landowners who may buy a few buckets of fish from a local hatchery for their backyard stream each year.

Making more sense, thanks tom.

 

[troutbert]

jifigz wrote:

KenU wrote

We really do need a long term plan to preserve and protect our natives to the extent possible. The first move would be to stop stocking over them. Other management steps may be needed, but that is by far, the most important step. Picking which streams and where to start is the tough part.

Is that the hard part? Just pick a few streams with a decent population and good habitat and cease stocking. Yes it might anger license buyers and suffer some sales but done on a small scale as an experiment shouldn't hurt sales too bad. After all, we have lots of streams across the state that fit the scenario. Also, why does my favorite brookie fishing occur in unstocked streams? Not class A, just unstocked. I do feel stocking is a huge detriment.

You could just start out by ending stocking on the Class B sections.

Many biologists / managers in the PFBC would favor that.

How do I know this? Because they proposed taking 63 Class B wild trout sections off the stocking list (mostly freestoners), back around 2003.

But that got beat back by the legislators.

If they had more support from us, they might have been able to get that through, which would have been a big gain for wild trout in PA.

A lot of people seem to assume that talking about ending stocking over native brook trout is an "attack" on the PFBC.

It's not that at all. It is SUPPORTING the biologists/managers in the PFBC who tried to take those 63 Class B wild trout waters off the stocking list.

Actually, it's not a personal thing at all. It is simply advocating for good fisheries management, to improve the native and wild trout populations.

And free up more hatchery trout for the waters that don't have wild trout.

So, increasing the TOTAL number of trout in PA waters. Thereby increasing the quality of the trout fishing.

More is more!

 

[jifigz]

I never perceived this as an attack on the PFBC. With the smaller number of waters being stocked however I'd rather see the PFBC cut most of the trout out of the stocking all together. Hopefully that would save them money and maybe try to operate in the positive (I know that isn't how most things work in this world.) I would hope that license sales wouldn't drop too much from the smaller number of fish being stocked. Hopefully everyone would begin to appreciate the improvement (that I, at least, think would occur) in our trout angling.

 

[afishinado]

troutbert wrote:

jifigz wrote:

KenU wrote

We really do need a long term plan to preserve and protect our natives to the extent possible. The first move would be to stop stocking over them. Other management steps may be needed, but that is by far, the most important step. Picking which streams and where to start is the tough part.

Is that the hard part? Just pick a few streams with a decent population and good habitat and cease stocking. Yes it might anger license buyers and suffer some sales but done on a small scale as an experiment shouldn't hurt sales too bad. After all, we have lots of streams across the state that fit the scenario. Also, why does my favorite brookie fishing occur in unstocked streams? Not class A, just unstocked. I do feel stocking is a huge detriment.

You could just start out by ending stocking on the Class B sections.

Many biologists / managers in the PFBC would favor that.

How do I know this? Because they proposed taking 63 Class B wild trout sections off the stocking list (mostly freestoners), back around 2003.

But that got beat back by the legislators.

If they had more support from us, they might have been able to get that through, which would have been a big gain for wild trout in PA.

A lot of people seem to assume that talking about ending stocking over native brook trout is an "attack" on the PFBC.

It's not that at all. It is SUPPORTING the biologists/managers in the PFBC who tried to take those 63 Class B wild trout waters off the stocking list.

Actually, it's not a personal thing at all. It is simply advocating for good fisheries management, to improve the native and wild trout populations.

And free up more hatchery trout for the waters that don't have wild trout.

So, increasing the TOTAL number of trout in PA waters. Thereby increasing the quality of the trout fishing.

More is more!

It may very well be easier for the PFBC to change the policy to no stocking over any Class A or B population streams, rather than try to go out there and pick and choose streams to stock and not stock, and have politicians all over the commission trying to get fish stocked in their district.

 

[jifigz]

I agree Afish that the termination of stocking in all class A and B streams would be easier than selectively and slowing ceasing the stocking. I would also favor it if it happened in this way.

There are some tricky scenarios. Take this for example. My favorite brookie stream is totally unstocked except for one stocking done privately in the lower stretch for a fishing derby for kids 12 and under. Where the stocking happens the Brook trout fishing is lackluster but the stream still has some good habitat, tree coverage, etc. I have caught stocked browns from the derby well upstream and into the mtns. I am pretty sure that the PFBC knows that these people put this derby on and just "look the other way." I would love to see all stocking cease there too but then when I think about it is them putting a few hundred trout in really harming the stream that much? Most of these fish get cleaned out and taken home. The small number that don't, however, tend to holdover in certain pools and make their way upstream. Is the damage done by this stocking that terrible even though it may present many young kids an opportunity to learn to love fishing and the outdoors?

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

The one wrench in all of this is landowners who will post of their stream isn't stocked

 

[jifigz]

salvelinusfontinalis wrote:
The one wrench in all of this is landowners who will post of their stream isn't stocked

An extremely valid point and one that can't be overlooked. As much as it stings that that may be the reality it would be horrible to lose a ton of stream access in places.

 

[wildtrout2]

salvelinusfontinalis wrote:
The one wrench in all of this is landowners who will post of their stream isn't stocked

Is the stocking of these private sections a prerequisite to them granting access to a given stream?

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Sometimes yes

 

[Swattie87]

jifigz wrote:

salvelinusfontinalis wrote:
The one wrench in all of this is landowners who will post of their stream isn't stocked

An extremely valid point and one that can't be overlooked. As much as it stings that that may be the reality it would be horrible to lose a ton of stream access in places.

Solution - PFBC, cut stocking on the small forested freestoners on public land. That’s a good bit of the streams we’re talking about.

 

[jifigz]

True enough swattie. That would actually free up a lot of good Brooke water.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Swattie,

Easy, simple and brilliant!

 

[RLeep2]

Like I've said virtually every other time this plan/suggestion has come up, I'd be absolutely in favor of the cessation of stocking of hatchery brook trout over wild brook trout anywhere the AFM or PFBC Fisheries Staff believed doing so would be advantageous to the wild trout population in question.

While I think there are probably quite a few opportunities for this sort of adjustment in the NC and perhaps SC regions, I'm of the view that such opportunities would be significantly fewer in portions (but certainly not all) of the ANF. My bet is that "suppressed" brook trout populations in many of these streams are far more about natural factors (and outside the reach of fisheries mgmt. methods or efforts) than anything to do with stocking over wild fish or harvest, etc.

I believe we need to be realistic about this stuff. I see no point in ending stocking over an incidental wild brook trout population that when augmented with hatchery fish (even brookies..) provides a worthwhile recreational fishery that would be greatly diminished if stocking were ended simply because this is all the stream will ever support. There are no shortage of such streams in the ANF and the old bituminous regions.

I recognize the brook trout is our state fish and our only indigenous trout/charr, but I see nothing in either status that calls for us to make management decisions that are overall harmful to the social component of our web of fisheries.

So, a potential Class A or even a B or fairly robust C? Sure, if the biologists think so too. Below this point, I'm not so sure I can agree...

 

[Mike]

I took three good ST streams off the stocking list for one reason or another, a Class A, a solid Class B, and a variable B-High C. All have remained the same. There streams were being stocked at standard state rates. A fourth, however, was being much more heavily stocked...the old, heavier rates back in the late 70's, plus stockings from a co-op located on the stream, plus the stream had an annual popular fishing rodeo. That stream in the most accessible portion where most of the stockings took place rose from a D to a very good A. The Class A stream remained an A, but sitting here I don't recall if the biomass increased.

I submit that stocking impact, biologically and socially, has a lot more to do with frequency, numbers, timing, and angler use response than with just the fact that a stream is being stocked. Frequency, numbers, angler harvest, and probably angler use have dropped on many streams over the years.

 

[afishinado]

Mike wrote:
I took three good ST streams off the stocking list for one reason or another, a Class A, a solid Class B, and a variable B-High C. All have remained the same. There streams were being stocked at standard state rates. Another, however, was being much more heavily stocked...the old, heavier rates back in the late 70's, plus stockings from a co-op located on the stream, plus the stream had an annual popular fishing rodeo. That stream in the most accessible portion where most of the stockings took place rose from a D to a very good A. I submit that stocking impact, biologically and socially, has a lot more to do with frequency, numbers, timing, and angler use response than with just the fact that a stream is being stocked.

Good info, Mike. One can debate how much of an effect stocking has on a population of wild fish and analyze how, when, where and how much stocking influences that population. But, let's face it, stocking is done for social and not biological reasons.

Given the budget realities, inevitably stocking numbers and/or frequency will have to be cut.

From a more pragmatic viewpoint, a Class A or B stream has the potential to offer an angler a rewarding trout fishing opportunity 365 days a year without stocking.

Why would it be better to decrease stocking in any stream that relies 100% on stocked trout to be a trout fishery at all, when there are streams that need not be stocked to offer a decent fishing opportunity?

Why not make your goal to not cut any stocking numbers or frequency in streams that are totally dependent on stocked trout to remain a decent fishery and popular for anglers for a longer time. Any cuts to stocking can come from the cessation of stocking on any Class A or B population wild trout stream. Therefore, all the trout fishing streams would remain decent fisheries, the stocked as well as the wild trout streams.

The fact remains, any further decrease in stocking in many of the more urban streams that have no wild trout will cause many of the casual anglers to not purchase a trout stamp and/or a fishing license. Therefore there is an imperative to keep stocking levels up in those streams. The only way I can see that being done is to cut stocking in streams that currently have a fishable population of wild trout without stocking.

 

[Mike]

Perhaps it was unclear based on the immediate response that when I said "biologically" above, I was referring to any possible negative, not positive, biological impacts that angler's are concerned about.

 

[Mike]

Perhaps it was unclear based on the immediate response that when I said "biologically" above, I was referring to any possible negative, not positive, biological impacts that angler's are concerned about.

 

[CRB]

I think perhaps the FC could offer more protection to the wild trout of Pa. I think the 5 fish per day is a bit excessive on these waters. If for a fact the FC lowers the stocking numbers on stocked waters I feel there will be a shift away from these streams and they will start to be fish heavily especially if they offer easy access. Either a wild trout stamp or a lower creel limit I feel would be in order. Perhaps the wild trout stamp moneys could go into a fund to acquire easements on private property to appease the land owners.
I do feel ANF and other places in NWPA would not have viable recreational fishing opportunities unless acid ramifications projects would be initialized on these small infertile waters.