More brookie streams that no one fishes

[henrydavid]

k-bob & I hiked into a prospective brookie stream but came out empty handed. A very nice stream but very tannic water.

We found a amazing waterfall but no brookies in this stream

We found this large collection of foam at the base of the falls

A woodland newt

On to stream #2 and some brookies

My run on chubs continues :lol:

I think I caught a butterfly in this photo

Any comments on the 1st stream and its water quality?

Thanks k-bob for guiding

 

[DavidFin]

Very cool, great post. I'm thinking about hitting up my local spot, but instead of sticking to mainly dries, I'd like to concentrate on fishing the deeper spots with nymphs and streamers. Came out with a beautiful brown on a different mountain stream recently, fishing a BHPT.

 

[Swattie87]

Nice pics and writeup. We all run into duds once in a while...apparently even k-bob! I had a run of 3 duds in a row during a couple weekends of exploring early this Spring. That's part of the fun though...figuring out a way into a stream and figuring out what's there.

As far as the water quality, tannic can mean acidic conditions but some of the best Brookie streams I know are pretty tannic. Tough to say. Did k-bob get a ph on the stream?

 

[wgmiller]

Looks like a nice plunge pool in that last picture. It's always frustrating when you're fishing "fishy water" and there are no fish there. You just know they *should* be there, but they're not :-(

 

[BeastBrown]

First stream looks exactly like one I know in an sgl. However, the name of the stream indicates that it was that color before the recent "progress" of man. It actually mixes a clear flow and a tannic flow above were it looks like dark root beer. If it was west of the North Branch Susky, might be the same stream.

 

[k-bob]

Thanks for putting up with my craziness hd and taking such good pictures. Stream is a swampy-then-steep lehigh trib. My ph guage has been giving unreliable readings so we just fished it and didnt see any. Btw, we fished with hd's rod after I put my down somewhere to navigate with two gps djsplays.. it is still there but was rough anyhow.

Everything but the fish! Stream had cool water, low conductivity, so probably not amd, steep, even had surprise waterfall. C'est la vie, what the hell, good walk and fun trip overall. Sometimes you find nice fish in prospect streams not on the nat reproduction list, and sometimes you dont.

Btw wgmiller the last picture is from the stream with fish. Swamp image w/ butterfly is upper area of stream where we didnt catch any.

 

[geebee]

i am going to say that based on my experience of high mountain streams that the gradient between the pools is too high - in your first picture - any fish would have no way in or out of the pool.

the step at the tail of the pool looks like what say 2feet ? and at the head 18"

that can mean that if the fish are washed out in a flood or fished out by man or beast or fowl that there's no way for them to quickly repopulate - go back in 3-5 years maybe....

in the scottish highlands they use to 'grow' fish on in such pools - they'd net fingerlings in shallow tarns and then carry them up steep streams by hand in baskets.

it would provide sport and food obviously.

 

[k-bob]

After some pm exchanges with good ideas from paff regulars, I think the issue with the little tumbling stream could be that too much of its length is slow and swampy, leading to summer water temps too high for brookies. There are several poconos streams with exposed swampy headwaters and brookies in tannic water, but this one may have too much of its footprint as exposed swampy areas .... And the covered steep stretch may be too short and steep to keep summer water temps low enough for trout.

 

[Swattie87]

That could be k-bob. If the water has too much time to sit exposed to the sun in the swampy headwaters it could warm beyond the carrying capacity for Brookies easily, and the tannic water may mean it's too acidic for Browns.

I doubt that the stream being too steep is the issue. When streams flood and leave their banks they form temporary side channels and ways around smallish obstacles that are barriers in normal flows. Sure a 20 ft falls is still impassable (going up anyway!) but a 2 foot plunge fall may become temporarily navigable for the trout. I know of a stream on the nat repro list (Brookies I suspect) that even k-bob has called too steep to fish! It makes me think there is no such thing as "too much gradient." Much more continuous gradient than the first stream pictured here.

 

[wgmiller]

If it's swampy and slow in the headwaters, could it also not be a DO problem as well?

 

[geebee]

Well, it was a thought Swattie anyway....

If I was the op I'd make a note to go back in a few years anyway just in case.

 

[k-bob]

I think brookies can live in very step streams with pools that fall almost like steps on a ladder. Have walked some very steep streams with such " ladder rung pools " at spawning, and brookies were in all the pools. I don't know how they do it

thanks for the pictures comments and PM's I think they are instructive

some swampiness may lead to tannic water so Brookies not Browns

Too much swampiness may lead to water that is too warm for brook trout and too tannic for brown trout?

 

[BeastBrown]

k-bob, you're gonna need a plane soon to make the runs to the Adirondacks..runnin outta streams man.

 

[troutbert]

k-bob wrote:
I think brookies can live in very step streams with pools that fall almost like steps on a ladder. Have walked some very steep streams with such " ladder rung pools " at spawning, and brookies were in all the pools. I don't know how they do it

thanks for the pictures comments and PM's I think they are instructive

some swampiness may lead to tannic water so Brookies not Browns

Too much swampiness may lead to water that is too warm for brook trout and too tannic for brown trout?

There are tannic streams with wild brown trout. Two examples are Black Moshannon Creek and Drury Run.

 

[k-bob]

BB: Adirondacks sound great but have never fished there. Still a lot of small pa streams I want to see, hope to see one tomorrow.

 

[k-bob]

Dwight right there are some tannic streams that are mostly brown trout... Tannic water tends to be more acidic, but maybe in those cases the acidity is not too high for browns and they take over the stream. But most of the poconos streams with swampy headwaters I have fished seemed to have more brookies than browns. Kistler, spruce run in monroe, etc

 

[k-bob]

update... we didn't catch brookies in the stream in HD's first five pictures at start of thread. perhaps because so much of the stream's headwaters is swamp, and the water temps get too high. fished the next stream south, with less swamp input, and caught a few brookies. map of both streams below, also pic of lower stream. both streams in state forest.

I'll watch to for "too much swampy business" in headwaters of possible brookie streams in the future.

 

[k-bob]

the two streams, google earth..

 

[pcray1231]

Cool stuff Bob. I don't claim to be an expert on fish anatomy and what makes fish more or less tolerant of it. But I will say that not all acids are created equally. pH is likely only part of the story. Tannic acid and sulfuric acid, for instance, may not have the same effects at the same pH level. I applaud your efforts at putting some data behind your observations, and find it interesting. But one of the tenants of science is that knowledge leads to more questions. Nature is very complicated.

I wish I could be out there with you all the time, but these kids, I'll tell ya, they take a lot of time!!! On the bright side, last weekend, I did get to fish for the first time since the jam. I caught a 4" bluegill on a worm under a bobber with an 18" rod, lol. My son proved not yet up to the task of winding the reel. He did think the bobber was cool, and kept calling it a ball. didn't care much for the fish itself, which is why I only caught 1, as we put the rod away and started chasing geese instead.

 

[k-bob]

right, it may not be water temps. the upper stream, with more swamps in headwaters, could have been too acidic for brookies, or something else. maybe the effect of acidity is worse at higher water temps?

And I only have "caught brookies/didn't catch brookies" info one day.

still you have to choose streams from maps, and while I thought the upper stream (steeper as it descends to Lehigh, more twists) would have nicer pools, we didn't see any fish in them.

make sure the geese don't chase back!