Panfish invading a trout stream!

[Swattie87]

troutbert wrote:
Is this a common practice? How many of you all do this?

And what is the intended purpose/goal?

The only sticks and branches I remove are the ones I inadvertantly hook and drag back to me. The intended purpose/goal is to save my fly!

 

[pcray1231]

Yeah, and if the twig/small branch isn't dragable, as in, still attached to the tree, I've been known to break it off, bring the stick down to my level, and THEN remove the fly.

I don't cut for cuttings sake. But I'm fairly aggressive about retrieving my flies.

 

[salmonoid]

troutbert wrote:

PatrickC wrote:

Did a little stream maintenance along the way as well. Just removed some sticks and branches from a few of the major pools.

Is this a common practice? How many of you all do this?

And what is the intended purpose/goal?

I'm afraid that this practice is one that only (short-term) benefits the fisherman and not the fish. I still will at times bemoan the stick, log, or tree that "ruins" a hole but have come to realize it's a whole lot better for the fish that way and usually better for the fisherman, in the long run.

 

[PatrickC]

You guys crack me up.

This is a website that praises the art of tying stuff to a hook, fooling a fish into biting it, hooking the fish in the mouth, and then taking it out of it's environment.

I removed 4 FOUR small branches from the water and you have an issue with that.

YET, you do not have an issue with fooling a fish and robbing it of a meal. Causing that fish to expend unnecessary energy fighting against your line after you hook it in the face, causing it some level of injury (barb or no barb). Then you take the fish out of it's habitat, let it flop around on the rocks, then goof up it's slime layer when you pick it up (whether you wet your hands or not). Now the fish is struggling for some oxygen exchange (after you wore the thing out fighting it) and you snap a few photo and half blind the thing with your flash. And best of all...then you gently set it back in that water, tell him thanks for making YOUR day, and send him on his way.

And then I read a statement that says removing a branch from a pool is only to the short-term benefit of the fisherman. Are you kidding me? EVERYTHING we do on this site is ultimately about what is to the short-term benefit of the fisherman. If it were not, you would stop fishing all together. And let's not forget, outside of the native brook char, the entire trout fishery in PA is contrived. Even though there are some wild populations of trout, they are not native and not doing anything for your other native species. They were put there for your short-term enjoyment.

You are all silly ;-) (Except for Squatch...I don't want him to pull my arms off or something.)

Now...commence with further silly statements. I will enjoy the flaming.

 

[FarmerDave]

PatrickC wrote:
You guys crack me up.

This is a website that praises the art of tying stuff to a hook, fooling a fish into biting it, hooking the fish in the mouth, and then taking it out of it's environment...

And don't forget about pumping their stomach. :lol:

 

[PatrickC]

FarmerDave wrote:

And don't forget about pumping their stomach. :lol:

I stopped reading that thread after the initial post because I knew that it would go full blown stupid ;-) BTW, I have never pumped the stomach of a fish.... I have removed some sticks from the creek occasionally

 

[troutbert]

I was (and still am) just wondering about the purpose of removing branches from pools and what is meant by "stream maintenance."

There have been posts about flyfishers removing some trash when out fishing.

But I haven't seen any posts before about doing "stream maintenance" when fishing, and what that means, the intended goals and theories behind it, etc.

 

[PatrickC]

They were brand new fallen branches that I was tired of getting stuck on. They were not logs. They were not some long established piece of habitat. They were branches with green leaves. Next time I will take pictures and submit them for your approval ;-)

 

[troutbert]

We thank you for your "stream maintenance" services.

 

[FarmerDave]

PatrickC wrote:

FarmerDave wrote:

And don't forget about pumping their stomach. :lol:

I stopped reading that thread after the initial post because I knew that it would go full blown stupid ;-) BTW, I have never pumped the stomach of a fish.... I have removed some sticks from the creek occasionally

I ignored it for awhile, but like most people I can't turn my head very long from a train wreck.

 

[FarmerDave]

PatrickC wrote:
They were brand new fallen branches that I was tired of getting stuck on. They were not logs. They were not some long established piece of habitat. They were branches with green leaves. Next time I will take pictures and submit them for your approval ;-)

Apparently JackM was there right before you.;-)

 

[PatrickC]

I just read the stomach pump thread. I had not read it prior to my statements about all of the stuff we do to fish. Creepy how closely my statements mirrored Maurice's, but then, well...GREAT MINDS ;-)

 

[salmonoid]

No arguments from me that fishing is not a no-impact past-time. However, trying to equate hooking and playing a fish, along with all the possible chances for injury to the fish, with stream "maintenance" is comparing apples to oranges. One has to do with the fish and the other has to do with the habitat of the fish (on a micro-scale, where that single branch is and on a macro scale, when those multiple branches accumulate in a log jam).

It's a given that a chance for injury to a fish exists by our very presence on the stream (regardless of what kind of tackle you use, or how delicately you play or release a fish). However, just because a fish might be altered in some way by our fishing for it does not also mean we have to alter their habitat and I interpolated that the removal was for the convenience of your fishing, not the convenience of the fish. If they were small limbs, streams have a pretty good means of cleansing themselves over a fairly short amount of time. And small limbs stacked up in front of a log jam make for some additional cover for fish to hide in.

I've accepted that my presence, for a time, is unnatural in a trout's world. However, I don't feel the need to alter their natural world by removing stuff from it. About the only thing I feel the need to remove from trout streams is man-made litter (although there will probably always be that entrepreneurial trout that has found a way to make that litter their home, like the two big browns in a shopping cart).

If everyone who fished removed four small branches from a stream, we'd have quite the piles of sticks streamside. If everyone who fished piled four small rocks into the tail of a pool, to raise the pool level, we'd have some unfortunate temporary fish barriers (but remedied by the next flood event).

 

[ocfisher]

I fished this stream a few weeks back for the first time in over a year...seemed like it was pretty loved then, but I didn't realize how much until reading this thread. Everyone must be doing alright by the fish, or there wouldn't be many left based on the attention they get.
Sunfish were everywhere...and saw the little LM bass, too. Aside from feeding the bigger browns, it would seem that alot of the spawn would get wiped out by these gangs of sunfish. Am I missing something? Seems like 30-40 2 inch bluegill sharing a pool with a few 7 inch trout will make it hard on the trout. BTW, I thought about tossing the sunnies I caught but thought it futile.

 

[PatrickC]

salmonoid wrote:

If everyone who fished removed four small branches from a stream, we'd have quite the piles of sticks streamside. If everyone who fished piled four small rocks into the tail of a pool, to raise the pool level, we'd have some unfortunate temporary fish barriers (but remedied by the next flood event).

Then don't do it

 

[streamerguy]

Aside from feeding the bigger browns, it would seem that alot of the spawn would get wiped out by these gangs of sunfish. Am I missing something? Seems like 30-40 2 inch bluegill sharing a pool with a few 7 inch trout will make it hard on the trout. BTW, I thought about tossing the sunnies I caught but thought it futile.

I was thinking the same thing about the spawn of the trout being effected. I guess only time will tell....

And the thought of the panfish competing for food with the trout also crossed my mind, but I noticed that if there were any hungry, non-spooked trout in a pool they were the first fish to attack my fly, not the sunfish. After I caught/missed/spooked the trout the only fish left in the pool that were interested in my flies were the sunnies. So pretty much the trout had first shot at my flies, and if they didn't want them then the panfish could have at it. Just an observation.

Next time I visit the stream will probably be either this winter(if it's not too icy) or next spring sometime. Definitely want to see what the panfish situation is like then.


fwiw, you can keep(not "toss on the bank") 50 panfish a day. With that said I'd be interested in seeing how mother nature handles it..

 

[dryflyguy]

There is a pretty large waterfall in the upper part of this stream. Any fish that washed down over it - especially in flood conditions - would have taken quite a beating. And I wonder if they could have survived it. I think that it's possible that those sunfish might have swam up from the larger stream below. Those lower waterfalls aren't very big
I also think that the browns in this stream likely migrated up over those falls from that larger stream - which is stocked. I kinda doubt that they were put directly into it - given it's remote setting

 

[Squaretail]

Next time I visit the stream will probably be either this winter(if it's not too icy) or next spring sometime. Definitely want to see what the panfish situation is like then.

My experience shows these panfish will be gone, or atleast not bite come winter and spring.
Then some storms will come and a fresh batch will show up.
They just dont seem to prefer waters cold enough for trout to reproduce in.

 

[osprey]

Squaretail , Dan..........remember when there were pretty many pickerel in Clarks creek? That co-existence went on for years and maybe still does. It's been awhile since i fished Clarks but there used to be lots of chain pickerel in there and there were days when you could not buy a trout but the pickerel would hit a flashy Clouser Minnnow , mainly early in the year when it was COLD!!!!

 

[pcray1231]

I also think that the browns in this stream likely migrated up over those falls from that larger stream - which is stocked. I kinda doubt that they were put directly into it - given it's remote setting.

Pretty sure it was stocked way back in like the 20's. They moved fish by railroad then, though I don't think this one had a narrow gauge along it. In many cases, with colder streams, they'd put fry and fingerlings in backpacks and take em up in. They still do that in Europe a lot.

Frankly, I think that's how MOST (not all) of PA's wild brown trout populations were originally seeded. The fish from that stream don't resemble modern PFBC brown trout genetics, so I don't think it's a stream that got it's population very recently.