LET'S GO NATIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TimMurphy]

Dear Board,

The recent annual Winter re-hash off all native and wild trouty stuff got me thinking?

"I wonder if all these people with all those great ideas advocating for the brook trout truly understand what they are advocating?"

So decided to compile a list of popular gamefish species in Pennsylvania making sure to note their home drainages.

For your amusement, consternation, or whatever. These are in no particular order.

Salmonids

Brook Trout - Native
Brown Trout - Invasive
Lake Trout - Lake Erie and Silver Lake Susquehanna County
Rainbow Trout - Invasive
Steelhead - Invasive
Golden Rainbow Trout - Genetic freak Hillbillies from WVA
Chinook Salmon - Invasive
Coho Salmon - Invasive
Kokankee and Pink Salmon - Invasive


Freshwater Bass

Smallmouth Bass - Ohio River and Great Lakes
Largemouth Bass - Ohio River and Lake Erie
Striped Bass - Delaware and Susquehanna Drainages
Black Crappie - Invasive
White Crappie - Possibly the Ohio Drainage
Bluegill - Delaware, Susquehanna, and Potomac Drainages
Rock Bass - Ohio River and Great Lakes

Pikes and Perches

Muskellonge - Lake Erie and Ohio River Drainage
Northern Pike - Ohio and Alleghany River Drainage
Chain Pickerel - Delaware, Susquehanna, and Potomac Drainage
Walleye - Lake Erie and Ohio River Drainages
Sauger - Ohio River Drainage

Temperate Bass

White Bass - Ohio Drainage
White Perch - Delaware, Susquehanna, and Potomac Drainages
White Bass/Striper Bass Hybrids - Invasive

Miscellaneous fish

Flathead Catfish - Ohio and Alleghany Drainages
Channel Catfish - Great Lakes Drainages
Herring - Delaware, Susquehanna, and Potomac Drainages
Shad - Delaware, Susquehanna, and Potomac Drainages
Paddlefish - Ohio and Allegheny Drainages
Sturgeon - Native
Bowfin - Native
Carp - Invasive

And last but not least

Suckers - Native

I saved suckers for last because it most accurately describes the "Save the brook trout" crowd.

Just think of all the fun we could have while we dried shad and smoked suckers and longed for the warm days when we could gig brook trout?

Some of y'all need to get out more and enjoy the diverse fishing opportunites that we have here in PA instead of lamenting about what once was because in reality as much as you lament you are all part of the problem you seek to rectify.

Just sayin'.

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

ha! so true. i do other fishin but those there trouts are so much funner! :-D

 

[Stone_Fly]

I've done my fishing for all the invasive fish, and franky don't enjoy just sitting there waiting for fish to swim by my bait. The only time I ever had fun fishing for any of them was chucking Rapala's for LMB's. But the places I used t fish for them were former trout lakes. Think about all the glacial and spring fed lakes the could have native brookies in them that no longer do. Guys would complain then about brookies being small.

 

[MattBoyer]

I was under the impression that that colonials called the walleye "the susquehanna salmon", therefore I assumed they were native. I also thought that stripers were in the river before all the dams, but i have proven my ignorance before, and am probably currently doing so. Oh well, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people. Yeah. That's me allright.;-)

Boyer

 

[ryanh]

I still wonder what the heck they were thinking when they brought over carp...
Why couldn't they have brought over Atlantic salmon or something cool?

Could you imagine the PAFBC creel survey of 1743....
"Our research shows that 100% of the carp that we stock stay exactly where they were placed. Furthermore they quickly multiply and drive out other non desirable fish such as brook trout. This is a resounding success for the PA fish commission. Now lets look at the 30 next graphs that mean absolutely nothing...."

 

[FarmerDave]

You are starting to sound like a Republican, Tim.

"Suckers" may describe the save the brook trout "crowd", but it doesn't descrive me. Sure i sometimes fish for the non-native species, but I kill those.

:hammer:

 

[Wulff-Man]

TimMurphy wrote:
Just think of all the fun we could have while we dried shad and smoked suckers and longed for the warm days when we could gig brook trout?

Farmer Dave wrote:
You are starting to sound like a Republican, Tim.

Yeah, he does kinda sound like a raving lunatic. :-D

 

[FarmerDave]

Uh Tim? No to get picky, but the fish that you put under "Freshwater Bass" are actually all members of the sunfish family. I also see you included bowfin and even paddlefish, and yet you left out yellow perch, bullheads, and freshwater drum. Are you too good to fish for those native species.

 

[TimMurphy]

FarmerDave wrote:
Uh Tim? No to get picky, but the fish that you put under "Freshwater Bass" are actually all members of the sunfish family. I also see you included bowfin and even paddlefish, and yet you left out yellow perch, bullheads, and freshwater drum. Are you too good to fish for those native species.

Dear Farmer Dave,

Hey, I couldn't remember ever stinking fish in the State before the message board timed out, so how about cutting me some slack? :lol:

Most of us who fish for species other than trout frequently catch non-native fish and are quite happy to do so. I wonder if some of those people who cry for the brook trout fish for any other fish, and if so how do they justify doing so without advocating for the swift demise of all the non-native fishes?

Not doing that just doesn't seem consistent to me?

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[jayL]

Something about having cake and eating it too....

oh yeah.... I'm also disgusted with the eagles. They are terrible.


See, unjustified or inconsistent complaining is fun!

(this does not necessarily give my opinion on the subject. I just couldn't resist)

 

[Chaz]

Your forgot to mention that brookies were the top predator in over 90 5 of PA waters. I'm not sure if Susquehanna Salmon were Walleyes, since they aren't native to the drainage, it may have been shad that were called Sus. Salmon or it could have been brookies, in season, many locales call trout salmon if they were known to migrate.

 

[JackM]

Chaz wrote:
Your forgot to mention that brookies were the top predator in over 90 [%] of PA waters.....

When, during the last Ice Age?

 

[ryguyfi]

Hey Jay!

Maybe you should move to the other side of the state where a real football team resides!!!


Go Steelers!

 

[troutbert]

I think there's the danger that some people may misinterpret the brookie efforts. It's an effort to improve brookie populations. Or at the very least to keep them from falling further. That's all.

It's like trying to improve bass populations or crappie populations or bluefish populations or cod populations or whatever.

Why would efforts to improve brookie populations be considered "a bad thing?"

 

[Wulff-Man]

I'm not a brookie nut. I'll fish for just about anything I can catch. Heck, I'll target chubbs in a pinch if I'm having a bad day. (Are they native?) But I think brookies are really cool fish and I would love to see them in better shape as far as populations, ranges, and size. If Big Spring would have been made into an exclusively (big) brookie stream that would have been a great novelty and a big draw. Brookie fishing is just another variety of great trout possibilities in the great state of PA. Tim, I'm not sure why the "brookie-hugger" bashing. I don't believe anyone here has been saying we want brookies above all else, except maybe Chaz from time to time.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear Wulff-Man,

I'm not bashing the brookie either, I'm just responding to Chaz's post on another message board recommending that the Fish Commission remove brown trout from our large limestone streams in favor of restoring brook trout.

I say go for it, once we remove all the people and buildings and industry and mines and roads and bridges and cut down all the hardwood trees and replant Hemlocks and White Pines and give everything 300 years to re-establish. It is a no-brainer!

Of course there would be no one left to fish for those fish except for Indians fishing for subsistence but what difference does that make?

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[MattBoyer]

Chaz wrote:
Your forgot to mention that brookies were the top predator in over 90 5 of PA waters. I'm not sure if Susquehanna Salmon were Walleyes, since they aren't native to the drainage, it may have been shad that were called Sus. Salmon or it could have been brookies, in season, many locales call trout salmon if they were known to migrate.

Thanks Chaz! I think I actually got the walleye reference on this board, but I'm not sure from whom. I had originally thought that the salmon of which they spoke were Atlantics, but can find no other reference to this, and their range apparently wasn't this far south. I have an older copy of a history book of the town I live in that says they used to fish in the Swatara creek for eels, shad, and salmon, which kinda rules out shad, but leaves brookies as a possibility. There's also a show that WVIA made a year or so ago about the Susquehanna and it's drainage that made a reference to salmon, then showed a very old black and white picture of either a brownie or an atlantic, but in hindsight I'm sure this was either a stocked brown from back in the day or else just a stock photo with bad research. I've also heaerd reference to "river trout" which were a large strain of brookie that lived in larger waterways, and I'm guessing that to a colonial the difference between a 5 pound brookie and a salmon was nil. I love to catch big browns, don't get me wrong, but monster spawning brookies? I'd say I'd like to have been born 300 years ago, but dang, that cholera's gotta suck! :lol:

Boyer

 

[FarmerDave]

OK, I'll cut you some slack, but of all the fish out there, i still can't believe you forgot bullheads. (Thee may or may not be a hidden message in hat statement) :-D

That freakin Wulff-Man has been reading my mind again. :lol: He pretty much described my views on this.

As you know, I am a big fan fo brook trout and I favor those over all the imported trout, but that doesn't mean i don't like to fish for other things. If i were out west, I am sure I would prefer rainbows or cuts or goldens depending on where I lived.

Hey Wulff-Man, guess what i am thinking now. int:

 

[Wulff-Man]

Something about the Browns and the Superbowl? And the beer's getting low? And, and.... oh, man!

I'm thinking I better stop forgetting my med's, your mind is a scary place!

 

[RLeeP]

I favor any and all management strategies that enhance the well being of wild broook trout populations so long as they do not involve our manipulation of other existing self-sustaining populations of other species of trout. There may be a few exceptions to this. But by and large, I think the notion of Affirmative Action has the same limited utility in fisheries management as it does in socio-political applications. There is a place for it, but IMO, it is a fairly narrow one.

To that end, for example, if a stream suitable for brook trout was reclaimed from a dead, AMD state and a decision had to be made on the future of the fishery, I'd be for trying to reestablish brook trout there. On the other hand, I would oppose the removal or elimination of an existing wild BT or RT pop. in a stream to attempt to reestablish ST.