FarmerDave
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2006
- Messages
- 14,172
Rant Warning!!!
Wait a second Woly, I didn't say the fishing IS getting better. I said it has gotten better since i was a kid. There is a difference. :-D
first let me say that this isn't really aimed at you Woly. I just feel like ranting some more against the doom and gloom stuff.
If ones idea of good fishing is chasing the white trucks to find trout, then I would say things definitely have gotten worse. Oh well. Personally I think stocking less streams is a good thing.
But maybe i should put what i said earlier in perspective. I'm looking at the broad picture when I say things have gotten better when it comes to water quality in PA. Some examples. I don't think brook trout enhancement is a bad thing, and where was that idea 30 or even 10 years ago? I can name a few streams off the top of my head that now have a good population of trout that didn't when i was a kid. the PF&BC has stopped stocking Class A streams since i was a kid. Definitely a good thing for most non TAP members. I used to fish the Clarion river quite often back in the late 70s and early 80s, and although it did have a few trout and lots of SM Bass back then, I guarantee it is a lot cleaner now than it was back then. It always had an odor to it. Hard to explain. Kinda like a paper mill, but it was probably from the textile mills upstream. Go back a couple more years from that, and the stream used to change colors based on what dye the mills were using. Some days it was red, some days blue... Mother nature is an amazing thing. Stop abusing a stream, and she will clean it up eventually.
I live in Ohio now, and we all know about the Cuyahoga catching fire as recently as 1969. But it wasn't a freak occurrence. It also caught fire in 1868, 1883, 1887, 1912, 1922, 1936, 1941, 1948, 1952 and 1961 (although the 61 fire is not noted in many sources because it was small). The 1952 fire was the worst, but the 69 fire is the most infamous and finally brought it to nationwide attention. Here is an August 1, 1969 quote from Time.
"Some River! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows. "Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown," Cleveland's citizens joke grimly. "He decays". . . The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration dryly notes: "The lower Cuyahoga has no visible signs of life, not even low forms such as leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes." It is also -- literally -- a fire hazard."
Now it isn't a half bad unstocked steelhead and smallmouth stream. It is good enough for Steelhead that some people would get upset by me putting that in a public forum. Good Pike fishing in some of the headwaters too, but don't tell anyone i said that.
How about the Mon in Pittsburgh. It is obviously better than it was 50 years ago.
Are you from SEPA? How does the Surekill compare to what it was 50 years ago? (I lived in south Jersey for a brief time)
Does anyone think I would state that things are getting better if I couldn't back it up?
Listen, optimism has nothing to do with it. I just don't go for the doom and gloom scare tactics. Some people take that as I am disagreeing, but it is just that I'm smart enough to see through that crap. Those tactics are exactly why some people are labeled wacko tree huggers, etc. Water quality is improving in most of PA, and before anyone jumps all over this and accuses me of being complacent, I don't think we should just sit on our butts and hope it continues either. I'm all for keeping that trend going, but I feel that outright lies and false scare tactics are ineffective and destroy the credibility of the people doing it. When I call them out on it, they predictably attack me and try to stuff me in a pigeon hole along with Rush Limbaugh. Not that I care, but why do some people insist on labeling everyone. It’s stupid! Besides, we both can’t fit, and I don’t do drugs. :-D
Shortages of water will be the next great hurdle in parts of PA, and that is a man made problem.
Water quality certainly is getting worse short term in some areas (e.g. Sus and Potomac), but in most of the state it has actually gotten better.
And by the way, isn't Bush pushing for opening our southern border? Don't just lame that one on just the Liberals. Big business wants it too.
It's a messed up world we live in right now.
End Rant Warning.
The definition of a pessimist is an optimist with experience.
Wait a second Woly, I didn't say the fishing IS getting better. I said it has gotten better since i was a kid. There is a difference. :-D
first let me say that this isn't really aimed at you Woly. I just feel like ranting some more against the doom and gloom stuff.
If ones idea of good fishing is chasing the white trucks to find trout, then I would say things definitely have gotten worse. Oh well. Personally I think stocking less streams is a good thing.
But maybe i should put what i said earlier in perspective. I'm looking at the broad picture when I say things have gotten better when it comes to water quality in PA. Some examples. I don't think brook trout enhancement is a bad thing, and where was that idea 30 or even 10 years ago? I can name a few streams off the top of my head that now have a good population of trout that didn't when i was a kid. the PF&BC has stopped stocking Class A streams since i was a kid. Definitely a good thing for most non TAP members. I used to fish the Clarion river quite often back in the late 70s and early 80s, and although it did have a few trout and lots of SM Bass back then, I guarantee it is a lot cleaner now than it was back then. It always had an odor to it. Hard to explain. Kinda like a paper mill, but it was probably from the textile mills upstream. Go back a couple more years from that, and the stream used to change colors based on what dye the mills were using. Some days it was red, some days blue... Mother nature is an amazing thing. Stop abusing a stream, and she will clean it up eventually.
I live in Ohio now, and we all know about the Cuyahoga catching fire as recently as 1969. But it wasn't a freak occurrence. It also caught fire in 1868, 1883, 1887, 1912, 1922, 1936, 1941, 1948, 1952 and 1961 (although the 61 fire is not noted in many sources because it was small). The 1952 fire was the worst, but the 69 fire is the most infamous and finally brought it to nationwide attention. Here is an August 1, 1969 quote from Time.
"Some River! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows. "Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown," Cleveland's citizens joke grimly. "He decays". . . The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration dryly notes: "The lower Cuyahoga has no visible signs of life, not even low forms such as leeches and sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes." It is also -- literally -- a fire hazard."
Now it isn't a half bad unstocked steelhead and smallmouth stream. It is good enough for Steelhead that some people would get upset by me putting that in a public forum. Good Pike fishing in some of the headwaters too, but don't tell anyone i said that.
How about the Mon in Pittsburgh. It is obviously better than it was 50 years ago.
Are you from SEPA? How does the Surekill compare to what it was 50 years ago? (I lived in south Jersey for a brief time)
Does anyone think I would state that things are getting better if I couldn't back it up?
Listen, optimism has nothing to do with it. I just don't go for the doom and gloom scare tactics. Some people take that as I am disagreeing, but it is just that I'm smart enough to see through that crap. Those tactics are exactly why some people are labeled wacko tree huggers, etc. Water quality is improving in most of PA, and before anyone jumps all over this and accuses me of being complacent, I don't think we should just sit on our butts and hope it continues either. I'm all for keeping that trend going, but I feel that outright lies and false scare tactics are ineffective and destroy the credibility of the people doing it. When I call them out on it, they predictably attack me and try to stuff me in a pigeon hole along with Rush Limbaugh. Not that I care, but why do some people insist on labeling everyone. It’s stupid! Besides, we both can’t fit, and I don’t do drugs. :-D
Shortages of water will be the next great hurdle in parts of PA, and that is a man made problem.
Water quality certainly is getting worse short term in some areas (e.g. Sus and Potomac), but in most of the state it has actually gotten better.
And by the way, isn't Bush pushing for opening our southern border? Don't just lame that one on just the Liberals. Big business wants it too.
It's a messed up world we live in right now.
End Rant Warning.
The definition of a pessimist is an optimist with experience.
