Big Spring video
- Thread starter vealboy
- Start date
Chotty
New member
IMO...It's important to add complexity to a stream through restoration with wood material, root wads, and floodplain wetlands but I don't know about adding boulders to a system that does not have much rock. That is a good bit of sediment from the work.
vealboy
Active member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2006
- Messages
- 122
That's not going to happen,lets face it there's no money in brook trout.Why is it if I catch a snakehead it's illegal to return to the water?Because it's a non native invasive,right,but yet there plenty of streams that have no kill regs on brown trout,also a non native invasive.Money talks and the brookies lose,the PFBC could give rats a$$ about our native fish.I'll stop here before I go off the deep end.
wildtrout2
Well-known member
What I see in that video is a lot of basically stagnant water. I don't really see all that work changing things much at all, at least in that section of stream. It's like trying to polish a turd.
Bamboozle
Well-known member
One of the things this "improvement" will do for sure is make Big Springs easier to fish. With that comes whatever positives or negatives you think will be the result...
I say this because I remember what Big Springs was like many decades ago when I fished it in rotation with the Letort & Green Springs every Memorial Day Weekend...
It was a b!+ch...!!!
Almost as much of a b!+ch to approach and fish as the Letort. Back then if you went, you saw folks fishing the Ditch, but hardly anyone below the Ditch.
Fast forward to the early 2000's when I went back for the first time in a long time which was post hatchery and first round "improvements." I couldn't believe I was fishing the same stream. All of a sudden, I could easily walk right up to the water's edge or walk the bank up and down without sloshing through water or walking through tall grass/brush. Wading was even possible on some sections.
The entire FFO stretch was almost as easy to approach as the Ditch... I even remember commenting to a fishing partner that it reminded me of fishing the former Heritage stretch of the Little Lehigh when wading was prohibited.
It became so easy that I stopped wearing waders when I went and instead just pulled on a pair of Muck Boots. It also became a destination on my early November trips to Southcentral PA as a cold day option when I didn't feel like donning waders.
In any case, we'll see if it is ultimately good for the fish. However, I have a feeling a need to increase the size of the parking areas should be a part of, or will be a consequence of the "improvements."
I say this because I remember what Big Springs was like many decades ago when I fished it in rotation with the Letort & Green Springs every Memorial Day Weekend...
It was a b!+ch...!!!
Almost as much of a b!+ch to approach and fish as the Letort. Back then if you went, you saw folks fishing the Ditch, but hardly anyone below the Ditch.
Fast forward to the early 2000's when I went back for the first time in a long time which was post hatchery and first round "improvements." I couldn't believe I was fishing the same stream. All of a sudden, I could easily walk right up to the water's edge or walk the bank up and down without sloshing through water or walking through tall grass/brush. Wading was even possible on some sections.
The entire FFO stretch was almost as easy to approach as the Ditch... I even remember commenting to a fishing partner that it reminded me of fishing the former Heritage stretch of the Little Lehigh when wading was prohibited.
It became so easy that I stopped wearing waders when I went and instead just pulled on a pair of Muck Boots. It also became a destination on my early November trips to Southcentral PA as a cold day option when I didn't feel like donning waders.
In any case, we'll see if it is ultimately good for the fish. However, I have a feeling a need to increase the size of the parking areas should be a part of, or will be a consequence of the "improvements."
TimMurphy
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2006
- Messages
- 4,449
Dear wildtrout2,
If you think it looks like stagnant water now, you should have seen it when I moved to the Cumberland Valley 25 years ago.
It was basically a 60-foot wide, give or take a few feet, featureless silt filled ditch. Like Bam said, even getting near the water was a challenge due to the semi-aquatic muck fields that comprised the banks of the stream.
The first round of stream work did a lot to enhance the stream from the ditch down about a mile or so. Hopefully this round, and the one after it whenever it happens, does the same until they get to Newville.
Give it time and turd floating rain or two before anyone passes judgement about the work being done.
Regards,
Tim Murphy 🙂
