Hmmmmm....

TimRobinsin

TimRobinsin

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Oct 11, 2009
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my apologies if this has already been posted...

http://www.wgal.com/news/29256436/detail.html
 
Is the nearby stream the upper Tully? If so - spot burn!
 
I was walking the banks there the other day there's fish everywhere.. saw fish with lures hanging out of their mouths, hooks with powerbait on.. and saw a guy with a fly rod, using a spinner snagging fish. Called the game commission about that.

I hear they put up C&R signs now lol.
 
my bad, I thought they said it was private land or something...
 
I saw the story on the news tonight and the company asked the PFBC to put up "No fishing" signs. Instead, they put up "All tackle C & R" signs. For all I know, that's what the regs may have been beforehand.

It presents an interesting dilemma. The fish were washed out of the nursery/hatchery into 'open water'. While I feel for them and their plight, it's difficult to ask people not to fish on the escapees.

I wish the video were up because just like typical hatchery trout, they "boiled" at the surface when thrown food.

It'll be interesting to see how it plays out...
 
Tim you didn't spot burn anymore than WGAL.
 
I'm not a big fan of catching hatchery fish, be escaped fish, or holdovers. In Maryland, one of my favorite streams has a hatchery that flooded. Thousands of 4 to 8 inch rainbows got into the stream and it was nearly impossible to catch a decent wild brown for over a month. I only fish that stream for the wild browns and catching an occational stocked / wild rainbow doesn't do it for me. As time went on some of those little rainbows survived and grew, but most of them became trout bait.

Last night I was fishing a Class A stream in Lycoming County. I had non-stop action catching large wild brookies. The first cast into my favorite hole, I hooked into a 10 inch holdover brown from that had traveled MILES up from Lycoming creek. This brown was ugly and certainly out of place. I just hope one of the wild monster browns eats his A$$!!!

I might be different from many anglers on this forum, but I only desire to catch wild, stream born trout. Fingerling stocking is ok, but it's still not the same to me. Even if they grow to feed and behave like a wild fish. I'm very ANTI stocking over wild populations. I don't know if the Tully has a wild population or not. But, I feel that if a stream has a good population of wild fish, then don't stock over them! There's a stream in MD that I LOVE, that is no longer is stocked in a 4 mile section because the DNR and PPTU agreed to leave it alone. However, downstream where the waters are less suitable to reproduction, they stock. That's totally cool with me! The spring crowds stay in that stocked area and I get to fish for the wild fish usually without seeing another person.

Sorry, had to rant....my starbucks kicked in
 
These "prison break" stockings as a result of the recent hurricane and tropical storm in reality are actually a lot like fingerling stockings...the fish are maybe a little bigger than fingerlings, but not much really. I know of a SC stream that has a small hatchery on it that flooded. It's probably a class C-ish or so wild Brown stream, but a couple thousand 5-7 inch Bows and Brooks got out into the stream. I fished it last weekend, and caught a lot of little Bows and Brooks, but no wild Browns. My fishing partners each still caught a couple little wild Browns though.

Not sure what the long term impact on the wild fish will be as a result of these events. Fingerlings are obviously a lot better than adult fish, but then again the sheer amount of biomass dumped into the streams in these situations I'm certain exceeds the amount intentionally stocked into them in the Spring or Fall. More than likely a good bit of the escapees will perish fairly quickly simply because the stream can't naturally support that biomass of fish. Who knows though...I suspect I may see some wild Brooks or Bows in this stream for a couple years...some of those fingerlings are bound to survive and figure it out...The population may not be sustainable and my guess is that long term the Browns will once again prevail, but in the meantime there may be a bit of a shake-up.

Not too familiar with the Tully, and I'm not sure exactly how far upstream this hatchery was, but I suspect the Tully probably has wild fish in its headwaters. Probably a similar scenario, but the company mentioned in the news article may have had bigger trout get out though...some of them looked bigger from the picture...don't know I guess.
 
I fished there after Ivan and there was a golden swimming around that had to be in the mid 30's. The locals all bee line right for the creek every time it rains an inch anymore and it looks like a first day crowd whenever it floods, but it still makes for a pretty good time. Take some limestone specific flies and you'll have fun and **** off the bait chuckers. I rarely see someone with a fly rod, and neither do the fish. :-D

Boyer
 
Good report, as all of Sal's are. Thanks for the digging afish.

As close as I live to it, I never fish it...always had heard access was an issue, other than the well known popular spots.
 
The fish I saw on the news report definitely weren't fingerling size....they were hogs!
 
Ya, I have toured Limestone Spring Preserves and the way it is set up the escapees would have been adult fish. The fingerlings are kept in concrete raceways feed by a diversions of the stream. The stream itself has 3-4 holding ponds with fish of different year classes. I guess some fingerlings could have come out of the raceways and through the output which merges back into the stream a few hundred yards down. Basically at the very end of their property they have a gate that prevents escapees during normal flow. Naturally Lee took the steam well over that gate height.

Note to Limestone Spring : Build a bigger gate.

Second note to Limestone Spring: Use this as a marketing tool. Encourage people to come out and catch the fish and then have a truck on hand to relocate the fish back to the hatchery.
 
This got me thinking...if the fish escaped the hatery waters and entered ATW area, aren't the owners/operators in violation of the PFBC rules by first chumming and then nettting these fish? Are there provisions for such catastrophies in place to allow them to recoop their losses? Are the fish netted identified as to whether or not they are from said hatchery and if so, are wild and previously stocked fish returned to the ATW?

peace-tony c.
 
We had a discussion about chumming awhile back and I believe the consensus was that it is not illegal unless you chum to the point of polluting the stream. I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone produced a rule the forebode chumming.

Netting gamefish on the other hand I think is illegal.
 
So did a similar scenario happen at Clark's Creek? I would imagine that lots of small hatcheries got caught in these storms. Could that have an impact for upcoming stockings?
 
Gorosaurus wrote:
So did a similar scenario happen at Clark's Creek? I would imagine that lots of small hatcheries got caught in these storms. Could that have an impact for upcoming stockings?
Click to expand...

Goro, the Tully blowout is not a mere hatchery, but a pay to fish venture with several "fishing" ponds. I know there were at least a few small co-ops blown out, including the one on Rattling creek a few valleys over from Clark's. It will take a massive rebuild if it will ever operate again. I'd imagine it would affect club stockings more than state stockings.

Boyer
 
Oh, I had no idea that the Tully was commercialized. I've still yet to get out to any streams and check out the damage since the storms.

I did walk along Manada, and, as expected, it's a completely different (and according to sources, poor) fishery. Rock bass all the way up, which is a definite change if true. I'm guessing the same is true for all south-central PA streams at the moment
 
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