pcray1231 wrote:
lol.

I'm not real familiar with Millstone, but do agree with you FD on the Salmon Creek drainage. That one would be worth a look too. There is one decent trib (Little Salmon), but just decent, not great. The Branch also has a few wild fish, but is far from good. But most of the tribs should hold brookies and don't, and the main stem itself won't even hold stockies for very long. And while it is overfished after stockings, harvest isn't the main issue. They leave. And you can verify this by fishing around the mouth, it is a non-stocked section of the Tionesta that becomes a hot spot a few days after they stock Salmon.

Ashame, too, because Salmon is a relatively large stream that has good structure and does stay cold.

The Branch, too.

I don't really know that the problem is acid there, but always suspected it.

greenghost wrote:
I used to hang out in that area (Cook Forest) years ago. I would fish for natives in Toms, Cathers, Maple, Coleman Run and many others. One of the first times I ever fished the Sulphur hatch was on Cathers. It seemingly brought every fish in the stream to the surface.

I began to notice a change in the late 70s early 80s. Fewer bugs. Less fish. Sterile streams. Got to be so bad I quit making the trek up that way. Last time I was there was 15 years ago.

FarmerDave wrote:


Didn't you notice the posted sings on Coleman, Shrec?

greenghost wrote:
Quote:

FarmerDave wrote:


Didn't you notice the posted sings on Coleman, Shrec?

Dave, back when I fished it, there were none.

Swattie87 wrote:
A stream that strikes me as being another one that suffers from poor natural buffering (but is not in an AMD area) is Tumbling Run (E. Branch Antietam trib) in the southern part of Michaux SF. While there aren't necessarily a ton of great streams in that area, there are many that have wild Brookies in them. Tumbling Run is a classic looking, steep, and fairly decent sized plunge pool stream...but there's no Brookies in it. Frustrating when you're looking at pretty much perfect Brookie habitat in every bathtub pool. The stream bottom on that stream is a very fine white gravel, bordering on really big sand in places really...which given the absence of Brookies I assume is a poor natural buffer against acidic conditions?

FarmerDave wrote:
Quote:

pcray1231 wrote:
lol.

I'm not real familiar with Millstone, but do agree with you FD on the Salmon Creek drainage. That one would be worth a look too. There is one decent trib (Little Salmon), but just decent, not great. The Branch also has a few wild fish, but is far from good. But most of the tribs should hold brookies and don't, and the main stem itself won't even hold stockies for very long. And while it is overfished after stockings, harvest isn't the main issue. They leave. And you can verify this by fishing around the mouth, it is a non-stocked section of the Tionesta that becomes a hot spot a few days after they stock Salmon.

Ashame, too, because Salmon is a relatively large stream that has good structure and does stay cold.

Agree 100%.

Quote:

The Branch, too.

Agree about 75%. It's a beautiful stream and cold, but the parts of it that I fished were fairly flat and lacking structure. No idea why, but it is the reason I didn't explore it more.

Quote:

I don't really know that the problem is acid there, but always suspected it.

Definitely acid. There was some years where the Fish Commission didn't even stock it because the PH was too low. And notice they only stock brook trout in there. Browns would probably die within a half hour or so. Not always and not everywhere of course.

Little Salmon might be marginally better, but I don't remember every fishing it. I can however tell you that every trib of Salmon creek that is listed as having reproduction is Class D including Salmon, Little Salmon, and The Branch. The information I am looking at is over 12 year old (and proprietary), but I doubt much has changed.

All that said, some of my best native trout fishing has been in small class C and D streams.

As far as the Millstone drainage goes, using the PFBC lists, East Branch has no natural reproduction in it or in any of it's tribs. West Branch has 3 small tribs with reproduction and none of those are on my old list. All within a national forest, too. By now, if there were ANY trout found, it would be on the list.

The drainage has been described well in this thread. Silt problem, and would dissolve Sandfly's mower in under a year. Somebody should crop dust the entire ANF with Tums.

I've only ever fished the Millstone drainage for stocked trout because it was convenient at the time. And stocked trout is all I ever caught. And the last time was probably 6 or 8 years ago.

Beautiful scenery, but... I'm not joking, either. A real shame.

Chaz wrote:
Rain is naturally acidic, but it is only marginally acid. A water sample would tell them right away if it was acid rain causing the issue, they can tell by the chemistry. Many stream in the ANF are naturally acidic according the AFM for that area, I spoke to him on the phone after being up there one time.
But acid rain would exacerbate the problem of natural acidity. As I remember Ltl. Salmon starts on the same ridge as the Spring Creek tribs. If the buffering is depleted by acid rain it would be a very long time before long term improvement of water quality would happen without intervention.

FarmerDave wrote:

It is pretty hard to ignore when the PH of a stream is CONSIDERABLY lower than the average PH of precipitation in the area.

troutbert wrote:
Quote:

FarmerDave wrote:

It is pretty hard to ignore when the PH of a stream is CONSIDERABLY lower than the average PH of precipitation in the area.

I noticed that too. He says the pH of the rainfall in the area is about 5.0 and the ph of those streams is 4.7-4.8.

That is something that requires explanation.

I think he is simply wrong on his data about the pH of the rainfall.

http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputa ... acidrain/report/tab12.pdf

According to the DEP info for 2005, the state mean was pH 4.46, and for Kane, the closest monitoring site to these streams, the pH was 4.4.

So the rainfall is coming down at around pH 4.4. Because the geology is very infertile, it gets just a little buffering, which brings the stream water up to pH 4.7-4.8.

On other acid precipitation affected streams in the state, pH 4.7 - 4.8 is not unusual. And this includes areas with no history of coal mining or natural gas production.