Kettle Cr., Potter Co., 3/12/19

[Dave_W]

Fished the FFO in the afternoon. . .

WEATHER: Beautiful early spring day; bluebird sky; started cold and windy but by the time I was on the water the air temp was in the upper 30s into low 40s; high sun. Snow covered landscape with melting.

WATER: Ideal flow and levels; green and clean; 40 degrees F at 4pm, according to my thermometer.

HATCHES: Nothing of note on the surface with no rises seen. I had hoped to see some early stones but they were not around (nor on the two other streams I fished earlier in the day). However, the stream bottom showed tremendous numbers of staging caddis larva, mostly of the stick case variety, but also grannoms. These bugs were very heavy and up on top of rocks and woody debris. Some rocks had dozens of caddis and I actually tried to be careful where I stepped. Won't be long now.

All fish caught today took large, generic nymphs of the PT variety. Fish were 'bows that looked plump and healthy - perhaps holdovers? I don't think PFBC has stocked yet this year(?). Did get one large wild BT in the upper teens that - although my sighter went down - came up foul hooked.
Not surprisingly, most strikes were subtle and flies needed to be right on the bottom.

The northcountry is still mainly snow covered. I hit a well known Class A earlier in the day and had to stomp through knee deep drifts and many riffles and slack edges were still iced over. Other brookie streams were mostly still frozen. It is, after all, still March. Nevertheless, the bigger waters were fishable with little or no ice.

 

[Swattie87]

Nice, good to hear about the bugs, and the fish. The PFBC stocking page shows the FFO getting stocked on 03/21, so they've been in there for a bit. That stretch gets Fall stocked, though they certainly could have been Spring 2018 fish too given the wet Summer we had last year.

I always wondered why there aren’t more large wild Browns in Kettle, above the lake anyway. I know it gets loaded with stocked fish, which probably doesn’t help, but still. The water down in the FFO probably gets marginal most Summers based on the Cross Fork gauge readings (last year probably being an exception), but often that marginal transition zone can be a big Brown producer. I’ve caught some wild Browns down to a little past Ole Bull, but never any big ones, and never much further downstream than there. To illustrate the marginal character of that water, I’ve caught Smallmouth in the Fall just upstream from the Cross Fork confluence before.

Interesting note when looking at the stocking page…It appears they’re not stocking Brook Trout in the uppermost stocked stretch on Kettle (Long Run to Ole Bull), and in Little Kettle this year. It’s my camp’s tradition to help with these stockings, usually coupled with our Spring work trip, so I’ve seen the fish that have been put in the last several years, and all 3 species were present. Most of the largest fish were Brook Trout. What’s on the website page listings isn’t always what shows up in the truck I know, but I wonder if that’s deliberate to prevent mixing genes with the wild fish, or just based on hatchery stocks being light on Brookies this year? There’s Browns in that stretch of Kettle and in Little Kettle, but most of the wild fish are Brookies in my experience.

The last few years, I’ve stayed into the following weekend to fish up there after the work trip and helping with the stocking, but the weather’s been garbage. Early April in the northern tier is still very much Winter most years. Very cold, and blown out flows on the big special reg section streams relegated us to attempting Brookie fishing and/or napping back at camp. Decided this year to punt on that and save the extra few days off for better weather later, but your report is tempting…I’m going to try to resist though…

 

[troutbert]

I've seen smallmouth as far up as the bridge at the special regs area on Kettle Creek. And as far up as the Hungry Hollow Road on Cross Fork Creek. In both cases it was during hot, dry weather.

There are some good-sized wild browns in Kettle Creek. But their numbers are limited by the physical habitat.

There are some good habitat spots, but also a lot of thin water.

And Kettle Creek gets fished hard, and people harvest the wild trout as well as the stockies.

 

[Swattie87]

troutbert wrote:

There are some good-sized wild browns in Kettle Creek. But their numbers are limited by the physical habitat.

How far downstream have you caught them?

There's some good stretches of water above Long Run, but all I've caught up there is Brookies, though I suspect there are some Browns. I saw a nice mid teens fish that I'm certain was a Brown at the confluence hole with Germania Branch a few Falls ago, but I didn't catch it. The next relatively small rootball hole up on Germania Branch was loaded with about 30 small fish (it was low water). They all appeared to be Brookies.

The relatively limited wild Browns I've caught have been between Ole Bull and Oleona, and they've all been relatively small. Even down there, most of the wild fish I catch are Brookies. In that stretch Stockers are more prevalent than either species of wild fish though.

Though most of the wild fish I've caught in Little Kettle have been Brookies, the relative ratio of Browns seems to be higher there than in "Big" Kettle. I've understood the headwaters of Kettle proper can be slightly acidic...maybe tilting the playing field in favor of Brookies above the confluence.?

 

[Prospector]

The stretch I fish on Little Kettle has had a significant decline in brook trout numbers. I’m catching the same amount of browns per day but I’m catching far fewer brookies.
2016 - 11% browns
2017 - 42% browns
2018 - 55% browns

It is a little concerning.

 

[Dave_W]

Prospector wrote:
The stretch I fish on Little Kettle has had a significant decline in brook trout numbers. I’m catching the same amount of browns per day but I’m catching far fewer brookies.
2016 - 11% browns
2017 - 42% browns
2018 - 55% browns

It is a little concerning.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing this.

I'm not a regular up there and am guessing here... but perhaps an explanation might be a combination of slight warming in addition to improved AMD issues across the watershed that might have produced a some subtle changes favoring BTs over STs(?). Just speculating here.

If folks would like to explore this issue further - or better yet have knowledge of recent electrofishing data for the watershed - it would probably be best to start a new thread in Locations or Conservation. Would be interesting to hear from other Kettle watershed regulars.

 

[reds]

I don’t know of any AMD work done on kettle creek watershed. My guess would be the browns are moving upstream to colder water.

I have caught many browns up to the germania branch, but none above it. Oddly enough, after the bureau of forestry put fish structures in at the Roush Farm I started catching more browns in that section. I think they stock fish in germania branch for a kids rodeo so they could end up down in kettle. That may be why I don’t see any above that point, but I do below it.

 

[salvelinus]

Last season I caught one wild brown up along Sliders Road. It was the first I've caught in all the years I've fished up there.

The only AMD work on Kettle that I'm aware of was down below the lake on Two Mile Run.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

The vast majority of the coal mining activity and current AMD work areas are in the very lower reaches of Kettle Creek, Huling Branch and Two Mile run areas for example.

 

[sarce]

Prospector,

Though I have not fished the area, I know it was hit hard by the drought of late summer/fall 2016. I would guess the browns fared better in those conditions. This is the danger of letting browns hang around in a brook trout stream...a bad year for brooks might be only mildly stressful to browns. Then when you get a mild summer and the brookies try to bounce back, it is more difficult for them because the browns are now the dominant species.

Hard to say this is the case since I haven't been there, but just my $0.02.

 

[Prospector]

sarce wrote:
Prospector,

Though I have not fished the area, I know it was hit hard by the drought of late summer/fall 2016. I would guess the browns fared better in those conditions. This is the danger of letting browns hang around in a brook trout stream...a bad year for brooks might be only mildly stressful to browns. Then when you get a mild summer and the brookies try to bounce back, it is more difficult for them because the browns are now the dominant species.

Hard to say this is the case since I haven't been there, but just my $0.02.

Yes I agree. The sequence was 2015 had cold water all season due to cooler temps and timely rains. Fished Kettle on Aug 1 and if I remember correctly water temp was 56 degrees. 2016 was a huge fish kill year on the main stem. Seemed to start around July 10 when every pool had visible dead trout. The last 2 years have had some warm days too. I wasn’t there in late June but watching the USGS cross fork gauge, temps exceeded 70 (at some point in the day) for 19 or 20 straight days. Although Little Kettle would be a little cooler than that.

 

[Swattie87]

Prospector wrote:
I wasn’t there in late June but watching the USGS cross fork gauge, temps exceeded 70 (at some point in the day) for 19 or 20 straight days. Although Little Kettle would be a little cooler than that.

"Big" Kettle further upstream, above Ole Bull, was likely a good bit cooler than whatever the reading you're getting at Cross Fork is too.

 

[Prospector]

This may be useful for future reference. On June 9 2018 I caputured this data.
Air Temp: 73 Cloudy
Cross Fork Gauge (entire day): low 58. High 63
Kettle Creek FFO at 4pm: 62 degrees
Little Kettle at 6pm: 58 degrees
Upper Kettle at 8pm at Rt 44 bridge: 57 degrees

 

[Prospector]

The dangerous warm up in 2018 occurred between June 24 and July 22. As mentioned above, I wasn’t at Kettle during this time to confirm a fish kill. Here were the Low - High Cross Fork gauge readings by day.

June
24 62-68
25 61-70
26. 58-69
27. 62-65
28. 61-68
29. 62-72
30. 65-75
July
1. 68-79
2. 69-76
3. 68-76
4. 70-73
5. 68-72
6. 68-76
7. 63-74
8. 61-73
9. 63-75
10. 66-76
11. 65-74
12. 62-74
13. 64-76
14. 66-77
15. 70-79
16. 70-79
17. 71-77
18. 66-74
19. 64-75
20. 65-75
21. 65-70
22. 62-65
And then it stayed cooler for awhile.

The good news is despite these temperatures, Dave reported catching some fish that were likely holdovers. So those trout found cold water somewhere.

 

[troutbert]

Swattie87 wrote:

troutbert wrote:

There are some good-sized wild browns in Kettle Creek. But their numbers are limited by the physical habitat.

How far downstream have you caught them?

I have caught wild browns as far downstream as the stretch between Ole Bull State Park and the special regs area.

I've talked to people who said they have caught wild browns much further down than that, and I believe them. But I think that their numbers are pretty limited that far down, and probably mostly found where there are special habitat conditions.

 

[JakesLeakyWaders]

I caught a pretty nice wild brown below Ole Bull this past October.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Thanks for taking me "home", Dave. You all will be fishing NCPA far more than I will this year. I probably won't get up north til my family vacation in early October.

 

[Maurice]

Ha! You live a lot closer to”up North” than you did in Lanco.

 

[The_Sasquatch]

It was 3.5hrs to my cabin from Mount Joy. Now it's 7hrs.

That being said, I have EXCELLENT wild trout fishing about 2hrs east of me. But, it's still not my home turf.