Babb Creek

[Chaz]

I'm wondering if anyone here ever fishes Babb Creek and what they've found when fishing it? I first fished it in '05 and I was surprised by the population of brookies in this stream. I've heard the surveys have been good but over the last 5 years I've caught nothing but a few dinks and a bunch of crappy looking stocked trout. What's up? PM me if you're shy.

 

[Swattie87]

Chaz - My Dad used to fish it sometimes when he was up at his buddy's camp for Spring Turkey. He never had anything good to say about it, and no longer fishes it from what I understand. I don't remember the details but it was his opinion the stream was dead above Morris. He now pretty much sticks to the Kettle drainage. I've never fished Babb personally. Which part(s) were you fishing? I'll ask him next time I talk to him...he's up at camp now, so it may be a week or so.

 

[Chaz]

Up in the State Forest.

 

[klingy]

Chaz,
I fished it last year while staying at Hills Creek State Park. Fished up Babb to Sand Run, and then up Sand to the Falls. Did catch a few natives, but not what I would have expected for the habitat that was there. Also caught a few stockers from the base of sand run falls. It was a cold morning, however (around 30 deg. or so when we started), and we only fished until around 10 or 11, so the temp. could have had something to do with my lack of success (Not saying that would be the ONLY reason I wouldn't catch fish!). Beautiful stream though. Also saw a lot of bright orange and pink driller scat (tape) in the trees along the road as you approach the stream, as well as some active surveyors marking the place up. It seems Shell has their eye on the area for drilling.

 

[Maurice]

Last year about this time I worked on a planting project where we seeded and stabilized an AMD remediation project sponsored by the Babb Creek WA. (I think). It was at the headwaters of Babb Creek, meaning at the top of the mountain north of Antrum. This was on the old Stripmine turned Landfill. The project involved approx 3.5 acres of grading and 1.5 acres of two passive treatment limestone percolation ponds. The source water wasn't significant but I suppose it was enough to make a difference to treat.

The interesting thing about this project was that on the other side of the hill, at the entrance of the landfill was a Fraking site being constructed. And the landfill stopped taking trash and was in construction of a rubber lined pit literally a dozen football fields in size. Large D-9 dozers looked like ants in this thing. In the parking lot near the office were these shortie dumpsters (4'tall rolloffs) with a placard stating risidual waste. There were hundreds of them in the lot. A guy was placing numbers on them and the I can say I say him placing numbers in the low 200's.

Ahyhoo.....I had heard Babb Creek was improving over the last 20 years, and on the trip to the jobsite I had visions of fishing that rocky trouty looking water, I suspect the effort of the AMD remediation will be out shined by the impact of the mega-frack waste storage failures in the future.

Enjoy it while it lasts folks.

 

[AFISHN]

Chaz:I fished Babb in early October in the same exact area as Kingly
Beautiful looking water saw VERY few fish in 3 hours and caught one 5 ".

Not worth the trouble IMO

 

[turkey]

I never fished Babb but I think I had to drive my truck through it. The forest road just went right into the creek and came out the other side...so I drove through. I think it was Babb.

 

[troutbert]

turkey wrote:
I never fished Babb but I think I had to drive my truck through it. The forest road just went right into the creek and came out the other side...so I drove through. I think it was Babb.

I went through that same ford on Babb Creek in a Honda Civic.

I made it, but wouldn't recommend anyone doing that. It's better to drive around the long way.

 

[turkey]

Ha! That's hilarious!

 

[csoult]

troutbert wrote:
I made it, but wouldn't recommend anyone doing that. It's better to drive around the long way.

Takes off quite a bit of time though.

 

[shortrod]

Chaz,

My son and I fished the same section as klingy and AFISHN in early August. We caught about a dozen very small brookies and a couple very small browns. We did spook a few larger fish that may have been stocked fish.

 

[Chaz]

At least I'm not the only person that thinks the fishing isn't what it used to be.
That ford can be tricky, they've done some work on it this year and it's much better than it used to be when TB crossed there. I use it pretty often, but only in my f-150.

 

[Swattie87]

Chaz - FWIW, I talked to my Dad the other night. He said the stream was long considered by the members of his camp to be a "dead stream" due to AMD in the headwaters. He remembers the stream having that "orange" look to the rocks. They didn't fish it, and don't until this day, although their camp is now in Kettle's drainage and they fish there.

Doesn't really explain what you're seeing...the fishery declining fairly recently. Surely the AMD has been affecting it for a while, and theoretically it should be improving at this point. From Maurice's post it seems like the AMD is at least attempting to be remedied now though, and just an orange look to the streambed doesn't mean it's necessarily dead. I've caught Brookies, sometimes in pretty good numbers, out of orange streams before.

 

[Chaz]

I suspect 2 things happened, first Babb has been treated for many years, since about '92, and recovered nicely by about '05 to allow a very good population of wild brook trout up to about 10-11 inches. It has very good habitat all the way from Morris to Sand Run. What I think happened was an acid event, whacked the population sometime in '07 and coupled with the stupid logic of stocking over a wild population, something PFBC has shown to have a deleterious effect on wild brookie populations, whacked the population due to harvest of all the wild trout along with the stockies. '07 is about the time I first started catching stockies. Thanks everyone.

 

[sandfly]

Chaz,
They stock Babb ?
When did this start ?

 

[Chaz]

I'd say around 5 years ago, right about the time the fishing went way downhill.

 

[sandfly]

It's not on the stocking list though..

 

[salvelinus]

Summer of 2011 I had a carpenter from Morris do some work at my camp. We were talking fishing and he told me that some sportsman's club (Arnot?) was stocking it.

 

[Chaz]

Arnot nd Morris Sportsman are both stocking it, PFBC is not, so my question why PFBC let them stock it, they've ruin a Class A fishery.

 

[salvelinus]

As you well know it's not like the PFBC hasn't done it themselves elsewhere. If there was easier access along Landrus Rd. I'm sure they would stock it.