Allenberry Resort To Host Discussion on Yellow Breeches & Stream Bred Trout

Saw on FB that Allenberry next Tuesday is hosting a symposium on "wild" trout in theYellow Breeches.

Cynical part of me is that they discovered that stocking their stretch, after closing it, is too costly.

Letort said:

Saw on FB that Allenberry next Tuesday is hosting a symposium on "wild" trout in theYellow Breeches.

Cynical part of me is that they discovered that stocking their stretch, after closing it, is too costly.

Allenberry Resort & Spa

Allenberry is a historic resort on a protected mile of the Yellow Breeches — lodging, dining, fly fishing, a spa, the Playhouse, and 75 acres to wander.

allenberry.com

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Dear Letort,

I'm guessing the paying "sports" at Allenberry are not enjoying the 5-star experience that was promised?

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

That whole stretch has been very stressed with all the sludge, packed in sand and gravel from the dam “improvements” a couple years back - the run was virtually wiped clean of most of the structure just below the lake - I’d show you where the previous rock bottom has had all the gaps filled in courtesy of draining the lake - but it wouldn’t be worth the walk … besides, we’d have to get a day pass - it would be funnier if it weren’t true 😂 blizzard white fly hatches, rising trout, misty evening suphur spinner falls to gorging trout, Caddis multi species bonanza, myriad midges, are all in the “yesteryear” files now.

Letort said:

Saw on FB that Allenberry next Tuesday is hosting a symposium on "wild" trout in theYellow Breeches.

Cynical part of me is that they discovered that stocking their stretch, after closing it, is too costly.

Allenberry Resort & Spa

Allenberry is a historic resort on a protected mile of the Yellow Breeches — lodging, dining, fly fishing, a spa, the Playhouse, and 75 acres to wander.

allenberry.com

Click to expand...

IT’S SCIENCE! (it says so on that thar interweb) Don’t forget the stream improvements (still don’t know who did them) just before the lake was drained - the whole thing is just one big flop - “science” indeed …

JG63 said:

IT’S SCIENCE! (it says so on that thar interweb) Don’t forget the stream improvements (still don’t know who did them) just before the lake was drained - the whole thing is just one big flop - “science” indeed …

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Dear JG63,

You are forgetting about the other science involved, the one which states, if you charge enough, they will come! 😉

While the Yellow Breeches is a storied creek and near and dear to many locals it never really excited me. I fished it several times with a PAFF local in the years after I moved to Harrisburg in 2001. We did well and had fun, but it never really interested me after those first couple trips.

I'm not glad to see a place that many people liked and enjoyed go by the wayside, but I'll admit that I don't mind seeing a destination lodge on a marginal stream poop it's pants in public. 😉

Money does not change science!

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

I would love to hear what Stauffer has to say because I can’t believe for a minute that stretch of the YB or most of the stream for that matter has potential for a wild trout fishery with fish big enough to make it a destination. I’ve caught plenty of wild browns in the upper end with maybe one 10” fish. They are beautiful but small. Sounds like Allenberry’s implementation of day passes has backfired on them.

How many wild trout are in the Breeches now?

Have surveys been done in recent years?

Perhaps, just maybe.... some folks are jumping to conclusions.

TimMurphy said:

Money does not change science!

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Science says what the largest funding source wants it to say. Science is largely and sadly no different than prostitution, you get what you pay for.

I wonder what Allenberry will say & do if in the interest of building a wild trout fishery, the good professor recommends shutting down their section to fishing ENTIRELY from June to September when the water gets warm??

You know, in the interest of "What it will take to build one here..." 😉

Which makes me wonder; how many folks who fished the Allenberry section (Section 03) have caught fish they were convinced were wild?

I haven't fished Section 03 very often however unfortunately, I can't include myself in this club despite catching almost exclusively wild fish in the Breeches upstream. I know everything I caught in my lifetime in Section 03 and the Run (with the exception of a sucker) were stocked fish.

McSneek said:

I would love to hear what Stauffer has to say because I can’t believe for a minute that stretch of the YB or most of the stream for that matter has potential for a wild trout fishery with fish big enough to make it a destination. I’ve caught plenty of wild browns in the upper end with maybe one 10” fish. They are beautiful but small. Sounds like Allenberry’s implementation of day passes has backfired on them.

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How far down do the wild trout extend?

If not very far, that raises the question of why not? The Breeches is a limestone spring creek, fed by massive springs at Huntsdale.

Which makes it similar to Spring Creek, Penns Creek, Kish Creek, LIttle J etc. And those streams support wild trout over many, many miles.

troutbert said:

How far down do the wild trout extend?

If not very far, that raises the question of why not? The Breeches is a limestone spring creek, fed by massive springs at Huntsdale.

Which makes it similar to Spring Creek, Penns Creek, Kish Creek, LIttle J etc. And those streams support wild trout over many, many miles.

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I would believe there is much more development along Breeches, at least in sec 2&3, than the streams you mentioned

troutbert said:

How far down do the wild trout extend?

If not very far, that raises the question of why not? The Breeches is a limestone spring creek, fed by massive springs at Huntsdale.

Which makes it similar to Spring Creek, Penns Creek, Kish Creek, LIttle J etc. And those streams support wild trout over many, many miles.

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Dear troutbert,

Don't let the limestone geology of Centre County affect your thinking. While the streams of the Cumberland Valley definitely flow through limestone geology, the difference is that the valleys are VERY WIDE in Cumberland County.

There realistically is literally ZERO opportunity for extensive housing development to occur on the streams you mentioned. I realize that Spring Creek has changed much over the last 25 years, but the stream corridor itself has been largely undisturbed. If you waded Spring Creek from the bridge in Lemont coming into town to the Paradise, the stream bank is essentially what it was when I graduated PSU in 1982. Rockview has been a great insulator. Penns and the Little J are pretty much not realistic areas for any development except for the odd home or cabin.

In contrast, the Cumberland Valley yearly sees several hundred, maybe even thousands of acres of former farmland converted to warehouses, homes and townhomes, and the bad word Data Centers. Everything coming off those developments finds its way to the streams. There are still 10's of thousands of flat farmland acres left in the Cumberland Valley to be destroyed.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

JG63 said:

That whole stretch has been very stressed with all the sludge, packed in sand and gravel from the dam “improvements” a couple years back - the run was virtually wiped clean of most of the structure just below the lake - I’d show you where the previous rock bottom has had all the gaps filled in courtesy of draining the lake - but it wouldn’t be worth the walk … besides, we’d have to get a day pass - it would be funnier if it weren’t true 😂 blizzard white fly hatches, rising trout, misty evening suphur spinner falls to gorging trout, Caddis multi species bonanza, myriad midges, are all in the “yesteryear” files now.

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All true. the sulphurs were amazing in the Breeches and all up the Run. And nice fish too. The last fishing I had there was winter midge fishing above the dam probably 10 years ago. Prior to that I had an excellent March day on the Run during a snowfall on BWOs. It is all gone now. The Run was absolutely destroyed with (once again) the "improvements". I am sad to say the big story of our generation will be to witness the decline of MOST of the best PA trout fisheries. Stocked, wild, holdovers.... I never really cared. The fishing WAS excellent.

Bamboozle said:

I wonder what Allenberry will say & do if in the interest of building a wild trout fishery, the good professor recommends shutting down their section to fishing ENTIRELY from June to September when the water gets warm??

You know, in the interest of "What it will take to build one here..." 😉

Which makes me wonder; how many folks who fished the Allenberry section (Section 03) have caught fish they were convinced were wild?

I haven't fished Section 03 very often however unfortunately, I can't include myself in this club despite catching almost exclusively wild fish in the Breeches upstream. I know everything I caught in my lifetime in Section 03 and the Run (with the exception of a sucker) were stocked fish.

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They are in there. Just in very low numbers compared to other sections since it was so heavily stocked. Definitely not a destination fishery, in that section at least

Our expectation of a destination fishery is enough wild trout that every decent angler can expect action even on a slow day.

But in the Charlie Fox Vince marinaro days of the post war era, an unnatural abundance of stocked trout in a peaceful setting constituted a destination fishery.

It is not ironic that Fishermen’s Paradise is a section of Spring Creek that runs through a hatchery. Fishing in a hatchery was regarded as paradise when I was a kid. I know a lot of you on this forum remember, as do I, the days in the 1970s and 80s when allenberry and the run were polluted with stocked trout from the state and coop hatcheries.

Gotta say, I loved it when I was young and didn’t know any better.

Like many of you, I grew up fishing places like that, but discovering wild trout really changed my attitude. I’m not opposed to fishing for stocked trout, but it has not been my first choice for decades.

The reality is, however, is that a substantial market still exists for heavily stocked streams as fishing destinations. Mossy creek in Virginia, upper beaver kill in New York, any number of places in West Virginia, and so on. There are a lot of places where the 1970s big trout, big numbers experience can be relived on the east coast.

But you have to be prepared to pay.

The folks who operate allenberry are in for a rude awakening. That few hundred yards of breeches can support a solid population of wild brown trout, but it’ll only be enough for maybe five or six guys to fish and catch on a given day.

And that’s not economically viable as a destination.

Or they can dump 2,000 or so trout a year in there, including a good number of big ones, and turn it back into what it was until the late 1980s.

That’s an expensive proposition. Expect to pay $8-$10 for a single 12 in hatchery trout. Plant 1000 in a season and you are dumping money into the stream. And to be what it was, you really need 2000 or more trout.

Allenberry will never be a wild trout destination, but it can be a solid local wild trout spot, like most of the rest of the breeches.