Central PA Troubles Tully was 65 degrees at 3pm

[jifigz]

He said “on the fields,” not in the ground. I assumed he meant in bee boxes.

Yes, they are all in standard 10-frame Langstroth hive bodies sitting directly on the edge of a field that is a corn/soy rotated ag field, so this bees get all the good chemicals.

 

[wildtrout2]

Yes, they are all in standard 10-frame Langstroth hive bodies sitting directly on the edge of a field that is a corn/soy rotated ag field, so this bees get all the good chemicals.

When I hunted in Alberta, where they have wheat and conola fields as far as the eye can see, there were bee boxes stacked along the field edges. I didn't know the reason for them at the time, so I asked my guide about it. He said they were very important for pollination of the crops. Never done learning.

 

[jifigz]

When I hunted in Alberta, where they have wheat and conola fields as far as the eye can see, there were bee boxes stacked along the field edges. I didn't know the reason for them at the time, so I asked my guide about it. He said they were very important for pollination of the crops. Never done learning.

My family has a very rich beekeeping history. My grandfather was a commercial beekeeper, and my cousins run one of the largest commercial beekeeping operations in the country. They ship bees all across the United States each and every year for the sole purpose of pollination. In the USA, almonds are the best cash crop, but cranberries, blueberries, and apples, and squashes and other vine-plants are all things they pollinate from California to Wisconsin to Maine to New Jersey, New York, and PA.

Corn and soybeans do not require bee pollination, however, and so my hives just sit there and feed on the weeds that everyone hates. And the flowering trees, with black locust being the best one for honey production.

 

[JeffP]

My family has a very rich beekeeping history. My grandfather was a commercial beekeeper, and my cousins run one of the largest commercial beekeeping operations in the country. They ship bees all across the United States each and every year for the sole purpose of pollination. In the USA, almonds are the best cash crop, but cranberries, blueberries, and apples, and squashes and other vine-plants are all things they pollinate from California to Wisconsin to Maine to New Jersey, New York, and PA.

Corn and soybeans do not require bee pollination, however, and so my hives just sit there and feed on the weeds that everyone hates. And the flowering trees, with black locust being the best one for honey production.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

I'm worried, not just about mayflies, but macroinvertebrates in general, including terrestials. How many of you recall when you needed to use the windshield wipers and cleaners nine months of the year, from all the bugs? Audubon documents a 40% decline in songbirds, which depend on eating bugs. I worry about the herbicides and pesticides which are almost as persistent as forever chemicals.

I saw somewhere that there has been a 50% decling in insects over the last 30 years. At some point, the food supply is going to get affected, and that could be a very alarming situation.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

How could you control invasives plants like multi-flora rose, autumn olive, shrub honeysuckles, barberry, buckthorn, tree of heaven (ailanthus), Oriental Bittersweet without herbicides?

Good alternatives would be very welcome. Cutting them doesn't kill them, it just makes them mad.

Also, is there any evidence that herbicides used to treat these invasives cause harm to streams? The most commonly used herbicides used to kill invasive shrubs are triclopyr and glyphosate.

Insecticides are much more of a threat to stream life than herbicides, IMHO.

When our TU chapter was doing stream bank fencing on farms, we used a herbicide safe around water called Rodeo, and found that the safest application was to cut the invasive shrub at ground level and then paint the stub (usually in the fall when sap is being drawn to the roots. We used it on multiflora rose and typically 90% was killed in the first application (checked the following spring, and then we went after the last 10% the following fall. It was a much safer way to apply that broadcast spraying. More labor-intensive, but doable for our situation. There is also a generic form of Rodeo that works just as well, but is less expensive.

 

[riverwhy]

My family has a very rich beekeeping history. My grandfather was a commercial beekeeper, and my cousins run one of the largest commercial beekeeping operations in the country. They ship bees all across the United States each and every year for the sole purpose of pollination. In the USA, almonds are the best cash crop, but cranberries, blueberries, and apples, and squashes and other vine-plants are all things they pollinate from California to Wisconsin to Maine to New Jersey, New York, and PA.

Corn and soybeans do not require bee pollination, however, and so my hives just sit there and feed on the weeds that everyone hates. And the flowering trees, with black locust being the best one for honey production.

Wouldn’t intensive agriculture near bees lead to contaminated honey? I see signs all the time against roadside spraying put up by beekeepers. That would seem like nothing compared to what you are describing on your farm.

 

[jifigz]

Wouldn’t intensive agriculture near bees lead to contaminated honey? I see signs all the time against roadside spraying put up by beekeepers. That would seem like nothing compared to what you are describing on your farm.

To some degree, sure, but probably no more contaminated than every thing else.

 

[riverwhy]

True. I guess the soybeans and corn would have even higher levels.

 

[troutbert]

It happened so suddenly from my perspective that it hard to rule out that the massive rain events of 2004 & 2005 may have dislodged tons of silt because I've fished the Letort since the 1970's and other than the fish kill in 1981, conditions until then were pretty stable. Yea, the fishing was up and down but the Letort was never a place where you expected to catch a dozen fish every outing...

HOWEVER, things haven't changed radically along the entire length of the stream, in other words the banks are just ridiculously muddy in some areas, most notably where I mentioned.

Into the 1980's and 1990's it was relatively easy to walk from the lower RR trestle just above Letort Park all the way up to Bonnybrook Road on the Spring Garden Street side of the creek. That's partly because of the work done by Fox, Marinaro & the Letort Regulars and the stream saw a LOT more pressure back then so the trails were well worn and easy to follow.

In addition, myself and others spent time cutting back stuff like multi flora rose so the trails were passable while others put rocks or stepping stones in the marshy areas. There were also secondary trails that enabled you park either at Vince's Meadow or elsewhere and walk right down to Otto's, just below Otto's or right to the Barnyard without disturbing others fishing between points A, B or C..

Heck, I used to park right by the quarry gate and walk right through thier propery to fish and they never said boo. I doubt that would be the case today... The trail maintenece isn't happening today at all, so the trails are overgrown to the point of being impassable and invisible.

As far as silt goes; gravel areas I know intimately are still there, although Fox, et al. had a lot to do with exposing some of them initially.

A good silt test I'm willing to let someone else try is to see if you can still cross the stream at two places between the Vince's Meadow and Otto's. At those spots there was some some gravel and larger rocks that permitted those in the know a way to cross to the other side without walking all way to one or the other RR trestles.

Coincidentally at one of those spots I used to catch a VERY, VERY small Trico hatch and would always catch a few dinks every outing...

Another silt test to ask the locals what the status is of the Trico hatch below Shady Lane. I haven't fished it in decades so I don't know.

As far as development goes, there is a TON more in the vicinity of Carlisle, but along Spring Garden Street to the right branch (AKA, "UNT to Letort Spring Run") headwaters, things are are pretty much unchanged and these headwaters now are protected. The property from Trego's upstream to the mainstem headwaters isn't really developed much more either.

The rest of the property on both sides of the stream in the FFO section are pretty much the same as they were the last 20 years and the Union Quarry is still in operation.The only exception other than the Home Depot is a $#!+load of newer townhouses built beside the Home Depot. Like Home Depot, I would HOPE they had to do something special with their storm water, but until someone tells me differently, I haven't seen a finger of blame pointed their way.

The bottom line is as Vince Marinaro said, the Letort would benefit from river keepers like they have in England who cut back weeds, maintain trails and keep the stream in shape. Vince & company did a LOT of that with much of the work being done just before wrote "In the Ring of the Rise."

But those guys were older in those days and while CVTU picked up some of the slack, it ain't even close to the way it was when I made my first pilgimage as a wide eyed teenager. It really saddens me because I fished there an awfult lot for someone who lived anywhere from 90 - 190 miles away...

Bamboozle,
Thank you for this history. But it doesn't explain why that particular area has had increased wetness in the floodplains along the stream. There haven't been similar reports of increased wetness all along the Letort, or on similar limestone streams in the region like Falling Spring and Big Spring. The reports of increased wetness of the floodplains are for that particular area.

Does the increased wetness begin directly above the I81 bridge? That is what it looked like to me. People were talking about this and I saw it quite a few years ago. I think it was around the early to mid-1990s.

If the increased wetness does begin directly above the I81 bridge, that might indicate some change at or near the I81 bridge that altered the flow there, raising the water level upstream, and causing a grade control change, causing sediment to drop out above there.

A possibility would be some PennDot work under the bridge that raised the grade level. Another possibility would be the installed spawning area structures directly below the I81 bridge. I don't know when they were installed but I think they were there by at least the early to mid-1990s.

I'm not sure if those structures are still there or not. And if they are still there I'm not sure how much they affect the flow levels upstream. But the Letort is a very low gradient stream. And the I81 bridge is a choke point. The entire flow of the stream, including during flood stage, must go through that opening.

So, if the structures act as an impediment to flow there, that could raise water levels and cause sediment deposition upstream of there.

I'm not saying for sure that this is the explanation. It is just a possibility to check out.

 

[5footfenwick]

To some degree, sure, but probably no more contaminated than every thing else.

If it wasn’t for that meddling M&M factory, we would have gotten away with it too.

 

[Bamboozle]

Bamboozle,
Thank you for this history. But it doesn't explain why that particular area has had increased wetness in the floodplains along the stream. There haven't been similar reports of increased wetness all along the Letort, or on similar limestone streams in the region like Falling Spring and Big Spring. The reports of increased wetness of the floodplains are for that particular area.

Does the increased wetness begin directly above the I81 bridge? That is what it looked like to me. People were talking about this and I saw it quite a few years ago. I think it was around the early to mid-1990s.

If the increased wetness does begin directly above the I81 bridge, that might indicate some change at or near the I81 bridge that altered the flow there, raising the water level upstream, and causing a grade control change, causing sediment to drop out above there.

A possibility would be some PennDot work under the bridge that raised the grade level. Another possibility would be the installed spawning area structures directly below the I81 bridge. I don't know when they were installed but I think they were there by at least the early to mid-1990s.

I'm not sure if those structures are still there or not. And if they are still there I'm not sure how much they affect the flow levels upstream. But the Letort is a very low gradient stream. And the I81 bridge is a choke point. The entire flow of the stream, including during flood stage, must go through that opening.

So, if the structures act as an impediment to flow there, that could raise water levels and cause sediment deposition upstream of there.

I'm not saying for sure that this is the explanation. It is just a possibility to check out.

The increased wetness and flooding I'm referring to, is from the footpath leading to the stream from Vince's Meadow up to and beyond what the regulars call the "Little S," a distance of about 50 yards.

BEFORE the heavy rain events of 2004/2005 the bank there was basically dry/occasionally damp and it was VERY easy to fish/walk/kneel/crawl upstream to target rising fish or just look for risers before going back to the car to suit-up.

It started out muddy and now looks like this or is completely under water ALL the time (photo from 2006):

Directly upstream of the Little S, it used to be possible to walk along a dry bank and observe, fish or just walk through to get to the next meadow. Now that bank is basically gone.

If you want to walk upstream without sloshing through water at the edge of the stream and scaring every fish within 100 yards, you have step off the small footbridge over the old millrace on the trail from Vince's Meadow, hop INTO the millrace and slosh upstream and pop out where you want to fish.

That's what my buddy (who is barely visible) had to do to get to the spot he is fishing in the photo below:

Above there to Otto's the banks are dry/firm and pretty much the same the same size as I remember them from many years ago.

BELOW the end of the trail from Vince's Meadow through what the regulars refer to as the "Barnyard," those banks are also high & dry and look the same. Here it is in 2005:

As far as the I-81 bridge; before my time fishing the Letort the stream switched back and forth in that area. When they built the highway, they straightened out the creek so if ANYTHING it is less of a choke point than it was before.

In regards to the area directly above, walking through that area was always tricky and accomplished by virtue of stepping stones put in the creek to get you to the next dry spot.

Below is looking upstream from just below the overpass in the 1980's. There were stepping stones and some wire mesh stuff in the water between the spot where my then girlfriend (now wife) is standing to the rocks by the overpass support and other places in the water further upstream:

FWIW - We walked up to this spot from behind Charlie Fox's house at the end of Foxcroft Drive. If you knew my wife, you would know there was NO way she would have done the walk up TO this point if the banks were muddy or wet. 😉

Below are two photos of the area just above the I-81 overpass on the same day. As you can see, getting up to the dry bank by the spring house behind the old Laudenslager farmhouse always involved getting wet, even if you parked in the small pull-off just south of the I-81 overpass and walked in from there:

In summary, the only dramatic changes I've seen are in the area from the end of the trail from Vince's Meadow to approximately 50 yards upstream. Why that is the case I don't know, I just KNOW it wasn't that way before 2004.

I was never a big "picture snatcher" and I didn't get a digital camera until 2004 so I don't have any circa 2000 - 2003 photos of the Letort to prove my point. I also no longer carry a camera so I don't have any current photos, but I was there last year.

FWIW - The somewhat permanent spawning areas created at the end of Foxcrest Drive behind Charlie Fox's house go back to at least the 1980's and there are seasonal spawning areas set up at Vince's Meadow since CVTU purchased the property in the 1990's?

I'd find it hard to believe it took those small spawning areas 45 years to wreak havoc with the Letort....

Today there is definitely less room along the bank in several spots giving the impression of the stream is widening. However, I'll chalk that up to trail & paths becoming overgrown to the point where they are impassible forcing an angler to walk at the water's edge to move upstream or fences being moved which is the case just below the upper RR trestle at Otto's.

This wasn't the case when I regularly fished from I-81 or below all the way up to Bonnybrook Road on a daily basis, However, the stream width today looks pretty much the same to me as it has my whole life.

Beats me...

 

[vealboy]

When our TU chapter was doing stream bank fencing on farms, we used a herbicide safe around water called Rodeo, and found that the safest application was to cut the invasive shrub at ground level and then paint the stub (usually in the fall when sap is being drawn to the roots. We used it on multiflora rose and typically 90% was killed in the first application (checked the following spring, and then we went after the last 10% the following fall. It was a much safer way to apply that broadcast spraying. More labor-intensive, but doable for our situation. There is also a generic form of Rodeo that works just as well, but is less expensive.

Took a walk up Pachwechen Run from Tollgate Park last fall.Saw no signs of multiflora rose,although I didn't walk all the Bair farm.The trees planted back then looked good.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

Took a walk up Pachwechen Run from Tollgate Park last fall.Saw no signs of multiflora rose,although I didn't walk all the Bair farm.The trees planted back then looked good.

Yeah, I think we were pretty successful eradicating it. I believe you were the one who suggested we paint the MFR stubs, but I could be wrong. It might have been Jeff K., who always scored the Rodeo for us. If you remember the Ferrence farm, where the main branch flowed through an open meadow, the river birch are all pretty big and offer a full canopy over the stream. I was there in June of 2021. Where the water used to hit 83 degrees on hot days, the day I went the air temp hit 91, the stream was 70. After a thunderstorm, I fished that section and caught two wild brownies. Be well.

 

[riverwhy]

Oregon Owl,
I just read Rodeo is used to kill aquatic weeds and has glyphosate in it. I had no idea glyphosate could be applied directly to water. Is there a reason you used that compared to regular glyphosate?

 

[Mike]

Took a walk up Pachwechen Run from Tollgate Park last fall.Saw no signs of multiflora rose,although I didn't walk all the Bair farm.The trees planted back then looked good.

Yes, once that stretch from the park, which is at the confluence of Pachwechen and Perkiomen, had trees planted along it by TU and given time to grow, that stretch became a wild BT stretch. Formerly, my crew and I found no wild trout there…too warm and low gradient. Of course, in order to accomplish that, a substantial segment of Pachwechen above Rt 100 had to be cooled between Rt 100 and the previously existing wild trout stretch upstream by about 0.5 mi or so. The local TU chapter also did work on that formerly troutless stretch as I recall.

 

[jifigz]

Yes, once that stretch from the park, which is at the confluence of Pachwechen and Perkiomen, had trees planted along it by TU and given time to grow,mthat stretch became a wild BT stretch. Formerly, my crew and I found no wild trout there…too warm. Of course, in order to accomplish that, a substantial segment of Pachwechen above Rt 100 had to be cooled between Rt 100 and the previously existing wild trout stretch upstream by about 0.5 mi or so. The local TU chapter also did work on that formerly troutless stretch as I recall.

This is good evidence just to show that planting trees and giving a stream some cover from sunlight goes a long way to making it a viable wild trout stream, not to mention the bank stabilization and other positive things trees provide to a stream.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

Oregon Owl,
I just read Rodeo is used to kill aquatic weeds and has glyphosate in it. I had no idea glyphosate could be applied directly to water. Is there a reason you used that compared to regular glyphosate?

Yes, according to the label and the testing of the product, the other ingredients made it aquatically safe. I'm not a chemist, so I don't know why. Might have to do with absorption. Also, we never applied it to the water itself, just the cut of the stem of the plant.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

This is good evidence just to show that planting trees and giving a stream some cover from sunlight goes a long way to making it a viable wild trout stream, not to mention the bank stabilization and other positive things trees provide to a stream.

A very simple solution to 'fix' a sunburnt stream. We also added shrubs like silky dogwood and elderberry. They grow fast, and we found that if you cool the shallow edges of the stream that warm the fastest, the stream has a quicker recovery time.

 

[troutbert]

Yes, once that stretch from the park, which is at the confluence of Pachwechen and Perkiomen, had trees planted along it by TU and given time to grow, that stretch became a wild BT stretch. Formerly, my crew and I found no wild trout there…too warm and low gradient. Of course, in order to accomplish that, a substantial segment of Pachwechen above Rt 100 had to be cooled between Rt 100 and the previously existing wild trout stretch upstream by about 0.5 mi or so. The local TU chapter also did work on that formerly troutless stretch as I recall.

I've seen numerous stretches of streams transformed by riparian buffers. The streams have changed so much that they are barely recognizable as being the same stream and location.

But this is the only case I've heard of where there is solid data showing that a formerly troutless stretch of stream has been converted to a wild trout stream by restoring riparian vegetation. The PFBC should write this up and publish it.