Your Thoughts? Advice

[salvelinusfontinalis]

In all my years fishing for trout I have never witnessed what I have witnessed the past week. There is a local stream here in Lancaster that is fairly large for a brookie stream. Its not your typical freestone brook trout water by any means. It's shallow, generally featureless, is buffered well by its limestone head waters, has had dams removed, is stocked and heavily pounded,brown trout are slowly taking over and its mouth flows into a lake that was recently drained.
Know which one yet? Anyways, having fished this stream a good portion of my life, it has seen highs and lows. The brook trout population expanded, as the brown trout have also, water quality and hatches are phemnominal. Threats of sewage, postings and pipelines always loom over it but it was doing just fine.

Then...
They drained the lake, "removed the fish", transplanted them in various waterways, repaired the dam and are filling it back up.
Meanwhile, I have been fishing the entire stretch of available trout water in the upper watershed. In years past, especially now, the brook trout fishing has been superior in many ways to other brook trout water. Right now it's very poor.
Unfortunately, in just the past 4 days I have caught well over 50 largemouth. Range in size from 10-15". There is not a lot of deeper water in this stream but virtually every deep slow hole has about 10 largemouth in it. All the brook trout I've caught, which wasn't many(or many browns) have been in fast shallow riffles. The bass have displaced the trout very much. There is no doubt in my mind these bass are eating brook trout. It's a disaster. I went up to the very head waters where is a spring creek, under the bridge is at least 15 largemouth. They have infested the entire watershed.
I would like to know, where did the pfbc move the bass in hammer, to above or below the lake? If below, how are so many moving up now if they were removed? And why are they moving up?
Can you get them out? I can't harvest them as it's closed season?

Please Mike Speedwell called, it wants its bass back

 

[The_Sasquatch]

RESOURCE FIRST!!!!

 

[The_Sasquatch]

And by "resource first" I mean a man-made lake and stocking over wild and native fish!

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Man made lake you can't swim in

 

[Swattie87]

My original understanding was that they were either going to be moved to downstream stretches generally thought to be more suitable for LMB, or to other area WW watersheds.

I find it somewhat odd that IF they were moved to the upper part of the stream, they are doing that well. Or, that they would choose to swim upstream. Upper Hammer’s temperatures do not get warm enough to the point where I would expect that LMB’s growth and metabolism wouldn’t be negatively affected by the cooler water temps.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I'd agree with all that but they were either moved here or swam upstream. I dunno why either or both.

That said I'll post a few pics later. These bass are plump and healthy

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I wonder if something is going on with the chemistry of the lake.
Ex: low DO

 

[gfig19]

hey buddy do you have coordinates? -- i think i have an idea where you are referring to -- however i dont think its north of 322 ol' dam, water is too cold for stinky ol' bass.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Go look for yourself

 

[McSneek]

I find it very odd that LMB would migrate up that stream and would have thought most were removed when they drained Speedwell Forge Lake which I had always heard wasn't much of a bass fishery in the first place.

Me thinks maybe your motive in posting this tidbit was to "spot burn" the largemouth in the stream? Might work - someone will discover them and clean them out hopefully leaving the trouts behind.

 

[JeffP]

Yep! Noticed the same thing. I posted a week back about a brookie being chased out of the water by stockers. This past week I went there (county part) and saw loads of smaller bass. I thought they didn't stock bass in the lake yet but I heard groups did on their own. Before the dam was drained, I would see a lot of bass by the bridge in the fall. Shocked to see the number a week ago! This definitely didn't come from when the lake was drained.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

My motive is to spot burn the largemouth?
:roll:
My motive is to bring it to people's attention (MikeK), understand why this is happening, can it be avoided in the future and to see if something can be done about it.

Why spotburn the bass? I could just illegally bank them myself. I'm not understanding what you are driving at.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Thank you Jeff. It's amazing how far up these guys have swam. I bet they are in the old mill road tributary also.
So if it isn't from the lake being drained, they why are these bass moving up? It makes little to sense.

I will add I did catch a few large bows. It's amazing what these brookies go through. Hopefully they pull through this one too

 

[RLeep2]

I dunno... I'm not familiar with the lake or the stream. But...

If the portion of the stream where you are now seeing the bass has been historically available to them as the inlet of a lake and was agreeable to them in terms of habitat and water temps, they'd have established themselves there to stay a long time ago.

Otherwise, chances are good this is a one time event and the bass will eventually leave and the brook trout will recover (if indeed any real damage has been done to them as a result of this event).

I've run into quite a few isolated LMB and sunfish populations on brook trout streams, usually in larger beaver dams and the like. Brookies and the bass will wax and wane in dominance in the transitional zones depending upon flows and conditions. But by and large, each species has a preferred niche and normally, both tend to stay within them.

Sometimes, we don't have to intensely manage a trout stream like a city park. We just need to give Nature time to sort things back out after an event like the one you describe.

 

[McSneek]

salvelinusfontinalis wrote:
My motive is to spot burn the largemouth?
:roll:
My motive is to bring it to people's attention (MikeK), understand why this is happening, can it be avoided in the future and to see if something can be done about it.

Why spotburn the bass? I could just illegally bank them myself. I'm not understanding what you are driving at.

That maybe someone will come along and harvest them now that word is getting out that they are in there. That's all. Wasn't suggesting something negative by it. Sorry if it came across that way.

If someone stocked bass in the lake maybe there isn't any forage for them and they are migrating in search of food? Doesn't seem like a LMB would be prone to swimming up a stream especially at this time of year when the water has to be pretty cold for them.

 

[gfig19]

dont make me bring out the size 10 streamers...ok, ok I guess I will dust off the tough 6 wt.

I'll let you know if i land any Bassquatch

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

It is entirely possible they will leave on their own like you say. I would hope anyways. Historically yes they have had access to the stream but never did this before. It's possible they aren't causing damage but I find that unlikely

 

[JeffP]

Great points! From what I heard they didn't stock bass right away to get forage fish established 1st. If the bass were put in by outside groups, that may be exactly what is happening. I know for a fact that people were catching a lot of bass already last fall. Maybe the local Bass masters put them in.

 

[JeffP]

Looks like the assault on native brook trout thread was moved to the conservation area.

 

[pete41]

This was down in Delaware-anyway -on a private place a pond was built which NO ONE had access to--never stocked- meant to be a duck hunters private spot---being son of same I went over and practiced with my new spinning outfit-about the tenth cast,caught a bass- started to fish it seriously--well stocked with bass,sunnies and the small catfish[forgot name]... how, the birds,the birds--
Build a pond,they will stock it for you-eggs on their feet- might not be as fast as trucks,but it will happen..