Fryin' up wild browns

[The_Sasquatch]

Man I was just shartting Geo a little!

 

[FarmerDave]

The_Sasquatch wrote:
Man I was just shartting Geo a little!

No he wasn't wsender. I know for a fact that he is a [d]Hol[/d] ... err, ... I mean ... climate change denier. Let him have it!

 

[The_Sasquatch]

I deny or confirm nothing!

 

[wsender]

FarmerDave wrote:

The_Sasquatch wrote:
Man I was just shartting Geo a little!

No he wasn't wsender. I know for a fact that he is a [d]Hol[/d] ... err, ... I mean ... climate change denier. Let him have it!

I'm too busy figuring out that staircase. So far, I have something like this.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Hey thanks for the waders, dude. I put them up to the middle of my chest yesterday and came out bone dry!

 

[tulenkot]

Harvesting trout where legal to do so is fine. I was taught by my fishing mentors to do so. Then, I worked as a fish monger for a few years. I would start my morning by scaling and fileting a few cases of salmon which cured me of any desire to filet any fish of my own therafter...

 

[troutbert]

The_Sasquatch wrote:
An interesting thought. As we pulled up to Lyman Run on Friday, BradfromPotter noted that "they" really encourage the harvesting of the browns on that stream. This is a wild brook trout enhancement stream, and many of us know how brownies can really take over a stream and push the brookies out. So how do you guys feel about the harvesting in this situation?

I realize many of us have no problem harvesting wild or native fish from time to time, others have a serious problem with it. Just a little fun for Wed. morning.

Who is "they" and how do they "really encourage the harvest of browns on that stream."

 

[Hook_Jaw]

Farmer Dave long time no see and tulenkot I agree with your post. troutbert brad has wco insiders down state. lol

 

[The_Sasquatch]

troutbert wrote:

The_Sasquatch wrote:
An interesting thought. As we pulled up to Lyman Run on Friday, BradfromPotter noted that "they" really encourage the harvesting of the browns on that stream. This is a wild brook trout enhancement stream, and many of us know how brownies can really take over a stream and push the brookies out. So how do you guys feel about the harvesting in this situation?

I realize many of us have no problem harvesting wild or native fish from time to time, others have a serious problem with it. Just a little fun for Wed. morning.

Who is "they" and how do they "really encourage the harvest of browns on that stream."

Don't know, which is why I put the "" around "they"

 

[troutbert]

The_Sasquatch wrote:

Someone in the know, did they used to stock brownies in the lake? Is that how the browns got into Lyman Run?

Brown trout have been in northcentral PA streams since the 1920s and 1930s.

 

[geebee]

this is a good question - i think the answer is how much do you want a native fishery as opposed to a wild fishery, and what means will you support to get it ?

that i think is down to individual preference.

personally, i don't like to kill living things and don't kill fish so someone else can catch them and/or help sustain the fishery. Which i would call my normal conscience level.

However, when someone WANTS me to kill fish to sustain the fishery then I will - have done with smallies in the Magalloway river up in Rangeley, Maine where they are invasive and degrading a native brookie fishery where 15-18" brookies are common.

I'd be uncomfortable killing bows or brownies in large numbers, just for the sake of it - if they could net and transport them that would be better, but i'd happily take wild fish for the pot or a stream side fry up - duck fat and bacon & shallots. lovely.

forced harvest is not ideal, but a lot better than dithpro posioning or whatever, which kills the stream and never gets all the eggs anyway.

 

[barbless]

In regard to the projected future rise in air temperatures and brook trout- I just found this recent study:

...Federal agency managers, conservationists, anglers, and people in general have coalesced around the brook trout's plight in relation to the robust nonnative trout, in some cases completely removing all trout from a stream and then starting over with brookies. But in 2006, Forest Service research on the possible effects of rising air temperatures on stream water temperatures sent new ripples of alarm through the community of land managers and trout advocates. The research found that over the next century projected rises in temperature might leave only very high mountain headwaters as refuges for coldwater-dependent native brook trout.

The dismal projection relied on widely accepted assumptions about the relation between air and water temperatures; if the air temperature rises by a degree, the water temperature will follow suit, rising by approximately 0.8 of a degree. Since most climate change models predict a 4 degree rise in air temperature over the next century, this would mean a 3.2 degree increase in stream temperatures. For trout and other coldwater creatures that are already at the southern-most extent of their range, this temperature increase could make their homes too hot for comfort—and maybe for survival.

This seemed like very bad news, but it got Forest Service researcher Andrew Dolloff thinking about factors other than temperature rise—slope aspect, forest canopy, and elevation—that aren't taken into account in the large-scale climate models used in the trout habitat studies. "The models used in the coldwater fish habitat studies assumed a pretty close correspondence between rising air and water temperatures," says Dolloff. "My colleagues and I decided to try to verify this—and to provide some very specific information for future planning—by measuring air and water temperatures in streams that fell within patches identified as brook trout habitat."...

...When studies, including one by researchers in Dolloff's team, suggested drastic reductions in the historical range of native eastern brook trout based on predictions of temperature rise from the major climate change models, scientists from the National Forest System and the Forest Service Southern and Northern Research Stations, launched a pilot study. Fifty study sites were randomly selected from habitats that presently or historically hosted brook trout populations. Mark Hudy, Forest Service Washington Office National Aquatic Biologist at James Madison University, identified the habitats or patches, which are located on both public and private lands. The researchers adorned each of the 50 study sites with two thermographs (digital thermometers) one in the water at the outlet of a brook trout stream and another dangling from a nearby tree.

Day in and day out, the thermographs record air and stream temperatures every 30 minutes. Originally the researchers intended to show how factors like slope and aspect might affect stream temperature, but were in for a surprise when they got readings back from the pilot study in Virginia. "Even in the 50 sites we used for the pilot study it was soon apparent that water temperatures are not always coupled with air temperature, sometimes not at all," says Dolloff. "This suggests that it's really a local matter, and that brook trout might not be as vulnerable to climate change as first projected." During the pilot study, Dolloff began collaborating with Paul Angermeier, a scientist with U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) also based in Blacksburg, to start developing models that combine stream information from the Forest Service and the USGS, a task long in the making and now in process because of a joint climate change research project launched in 2010. For Dolloff it was an easy fit: he and Angermeier have a 25-year history of collaboration.

A wider lens

What started in Virginia has spread, both conceptually and geographically and grown into a full collaboration between the Forest Service and USGS. The study now includes 204 sites and extends from Georgia to Maryland, and the first full year of data has brought good news for trout; the relationship between water and air temperature is relatively insensitive, which means that a rise in air temperature does not lock in a corresponding rise in water temperature. "That said, we also found that the correspondence between water and air temperatures varies a lot from one site to the next," says Dolloff, "It really matters where you are." In sites with a larger drainage area, for example, the water temperature tends to be much more sensitive to air temperature."...

More here-- http://www.fs.fed.us/ccrc/narratives/good-news-trout.shtml

That's only a forecast, of course. But the indications are hopeful- as long as the forest canopy manages to stay intact under the projected future climate conditions. I think that's the big unknown factor.

 

[JackM]

At least one person has already said what I would have said had I said it.

 

[krayfish]

No harvest for me...ever.

 

[pcray1231]

Regarding the climate change thing, in a previous life (internship), I studied climate at a DOE lab. I'll try to sum it up like this.

Has the Earth warmed? Yes. It's undeniable fact.

How much has it warmed? Difficult to say. The slope is generally UP. But how much up depends greatly on how you average the sampling sites, baseline it with satellite data, etc. And how much correction you give for urban heat island effects and so forth at the sampling sites.

Hasn't it stayed steady in the last decade or so? By some accounts, yes. But when measuring changes in climate, you don't look at individual months, years, or even decades. That's just noise, i.e. weather and shorter term cycles/patterns. Both sides of the political debate are highly guilty of ignoring this, with deniers cherry picking data to discredit science, and alarmists cherry picking data to blame every major storm or warm season on global warming. There's a lot of data and noise. If you come in with a conclusion, you can find something to support it.

How much is human induced? Tough to say. Likely some. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It has increased beyond natural cause explanations. Outside of other factors, it would cause the Earth to warm. But "outside other factors" is a false condition, CO2 and greenhouse warming doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are an infinite number of complex positive and negative feedback loops. A cooling effect can cause a warming effect and vice versa. As a simplistic example, if say, CO2 did increase temperatures via the greenhouse effect, this would cause:

A slowdown of the ocean conveyor currents - results in cooling at the poles, more warming at the equator.

Increased water vapor in the atmosphere from evaporation of seas - water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas, and would cause more warming. However, IF it condenses to form clouds, increased cloud cover has a strong cooling effect.

Decreased snow and ice cover - a warming effect.

Increased algae blooms in the seas - consumes CO2, pumps more oxygen into the atmosphere, pretty much as a counter to our influence on CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Further, so we know CO2 has risen. Is it purely due to burning fossil fuels? How about deforestation, since trees consume CO2 and create oxygen and all?

How to weight all these things? Not enough data yet to draw any hard conclusions. Will take centuries to collect statistically significant data.

Best guess for the future? More warming. If you don't understand the current trend, you're best option is to predict it to keep happening.

 

[pcray1231]

And regarding how it effects the trouts, trout stream temperatures are a stronger function of precipitation patterns than of air temperature. Could continued global warming affect precipitation? Sure, it's bound to. How? We don't know, and it very likely depends where you are.

But if in PA, we say, raised our average yearly temperature a full 5 degrees (which is a lot), but combined this with more precipitation in July and August and less frequent droughts during this time frame, it could actually help the fishery. I'm not saying that's going to happen. But it's just as likely as the reverse.

After all, mountain trouts do just fine in the mountains of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, etc. Their average temperatures are warmer than ours.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

We just got pcrayed! OT pcrayed!

Back on topic, if BT have existed in NCPA since the early 20th century (which I'm not arguing), then I wonder by what measure the state used to designate Lyman and Kettle a "WBTE" stream.

 

[PatrickC]

pcray1231 wrote:
Regarding the climate change thing, in a previous life (internship), I studied climate at a DOE lab. I'll try to sum it up like this.

Has the Earth warmed? Yes. It's undeniable fact.

How much has it warmed? Difficult to say. The slope is generally UP. But how much up depends greatly on how you average the sampling sites, baseline it with satellite data, etc. And how much correction you give for urban heat island effects and so forth at the sampling sites.

Hasn't it stayed steady in the last decade or so? By some accounts, yes. But when measuring changes in climate, you don't look at individual months, years, or even decades. That's just noise, i.e. weather and shorter term cycles/patterns. Both sides of the political debate are highly guilty of ignoring this, with deniers cherry picking data to discredit science, and alarmists cherry picking data to blame every major storm or warm season on global warming. There's a lot of data and noise. If you come in with a conclusion, you can find something to support it.

How much is human induced? Tough to say. Likely some. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It has increased beyond natural cause explanations. Outside of other factors, it would cause the Earth to warm. But "outside other factors" is a false condition, CO2 and greenhouse warming doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are an infinite number of complex positive and negative feedback loops. A cooling effect can cause a warming effect and vice versa. As a simplistic example, if say, CO2 did increase temperatures via the greenhouse effect, this would cause:

A slowdown of the ocean conveyor currents - results in cooling at the poles, more warming at the equator.

Increased water vapor in the atmosphere from evaporation of seas - water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas, and would cause more warming. However, IF it condenses to form clouds, increased cloud cover has a strong cooling effect.

Decreased snow and ice cover - a warming effect.

Increased algae blooms in the seas - consumes CO2, pumps more oxygen into the atmosphere, pretty much as a counter to our influence on CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

Further, so we know CO2 has risen. Is it purely due to burning fossil fuels? How about deforestation, since trees consume CO2 and create oxygen and all?

How to weight all these things? Not enough data yet to draw any hard conclusions. Will take centuries to collect statistically significant data.

Best guess for the future? More warming. If you don't understand the current trend, you're best option is to predict it to keep happening.

This one of the better things you have written. Well said sir.

 

[pcray1231]

Simple. They wanted to promote our brook trout fisheries, and figured they'd highlight a few to help the cause. More public awareness than "management", IMO, though if they can test some management policies, great!

They picked a few that were publicly accessible, capable of growing good fish and providing an overall good experience, yet not class A. And they put signs up.

 

[bikerfish]

I think the more important question is "how are we gonna cook them?"!!!!!!!!