Native Brook Trout Reintroduction

[silverfox]

Here's a perfect example of what burns me up. I took the day off and hiked 2 miles down into a remote beaver pond. This little stream is full of brookies. Apparently, someone decided it would be a good idea to put rainbow trout in it. I caught 4 of them like the photo below and broke off on a big one (using 6x because of the spooky pond fish/brookies). I didn't take a photo of the others. I also let them go. They're emaciated and not long for this world obviously. Which reinforces the question of why? Why put them in there?

About 2 or 3 years ago I was talking to the AFM about the biomass here and mentioned catching rainbow trout down further. He was surprised and said, "they aren't supposed to be putting rainbows in there". State Forest land. Why on earth?

 

[wildtrout2]

Here's a perfect example of what burns me up. I took the day off and hiked 2 miles down into a remote beaver pond. This little stream is full of brookies. Apparently, someone decided it would be a good idea to put rainbow trout in it. I caught 4 of them like the photo below and broke off on a big one (using 6x because of the spooky pond fish/brookies). I didn't take a photo of the others. I also let them go. They're emaciated and not long for this world obviously. Which reinforces the question of why? Why put them in there?

About 2 or 3 years ago I was talking to the AFM about the biomass here and mentioned catching rainbow trout down further. He was surprised and said, "they aren't supposed to be putting rainbows in there". State Forest land. Why on earth?

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You let the rainbows go???

The times, and they've been very few, when I caught a stocker on a wild stream, it was not returned.
Also, FWIW, I used to fish a very small beaver pond in Pike county back in the 70's that was LOADED with natives. None of them were very plump because of their numbers.

It was located on SGL 180, off of Rt. 739 near, what was at the time, the shooting range. Anybody know of/remember this beaver pond? It was still beaver active.

 

[silverfox]

You let the rainbows go???

The times, and they've been very few, when I caught a stocker on a wild stream, it was not returned.
Also, FWIW, I used to fish a very small beaver pond in Pike county back in the 70's that was LOADED with natives. None of them were very plump because of their numbers.

It was located on SGL 180, off of Rt. 739 near, what was at the time, the shooting range. Anybody know of/remember this beaver pond? It was still beaver active.

Yeah. I thought about it but didn't want to mess with them. It doesn't look it, but they were in terrible shape. Basically starving to death. Not enough food in there to support a 12 inch trout and it's probably still confused why sticks don't go down right. They wont make it once the temps warm up. Their bodies can provide nutrients to the stream I guess since it needs it more than I do.

 

[silverfox]

A few more thoughts on this place in particular. Full disclosure, it isn't a true beaver pond. It started life as a manmade impoundment for some purpose I can't find any history of. It failed or was breached at some point and the beavers reinforced it. Sadly, the beavers aren't there any more and in my 5 miles of fishing I didn't see any active beave sign. Their lodge is collapsed and there's no fresh cut anywhere.

I wish there were more beavers in there to dam this stream up in more places. It's mostly Burgoon Sandstone and Mauch Chunk and there is another manmade dam a little upstream of this one that was pretty thoroughly breached. The stream through the old pond bed has cut through about 4 feet of sediment. Most of it is very channelized because of the fine substrate. The pond provides a nice collection of natural wood and leaf material and more ponds would do the same. Obviously, it's very infertile.

I just can't imagine how these rainbows got into this spot though. Unless the SF gives someone access via a gate, it's quite a lot of effort to haul buckets of fish down in there. I just can't imagine there's a lot of anglers that walk down in there to fish that pond to justify putting a bucket of rainbow trout in it. While I only caught 4, there was probably 12 or more in the pond. Wouldn't they have been better served at an angler access point?

Why disrupt a wild brook trout fishery with beaver ponds (or analogs) which we have too few of in my opinion, with stocked RT in such a remote place? It just blows my mind that we go to these lengths to spread these things in such places.

 

[troutbert]

The people doing illegal stocking often use ATVs to stock remote places.

In addition to the rainbow, the second brook trout also appears to be a hatchery fish.

 

[silverfox]

The people doing illegal stocking often use ATVs to stock remote places.

In addition to the rainbow, the second brook trout also appears to be a hatchery fish.

Yeah, the state used to stock brook trout here but stopped recently. I agree on the one looking stocked. I actually suspect a few of the larger ones are or are offspring of mixed wild/stocked. The “normal” brookies here are all small and dark. So the bigger lightly colored ones always make me suspicious. Some of it could be the substrate.

Annoying that people stock these state forests. They should be natural IMO.

 

[troutbert]

It's good that you discussed this stocking over native brook trout with the Area Fisheries Manager. You might want to follow up with him again.

It's important that they hear from the pro native brook trout people.

They certainly hear a lot from the people who want everything stocked, including these small streams.

 

[Fish Sticks]

Why detrimental on one hand and serious concerns on the other? I understand why the lab study results would produce serious concerns (my addition: that would deserve further study), but is there a diet analysis of stocked brown and/or RT trout in hellbender streams that suggested or showed that stocked trout are detrimental to hellbenders at the population level? If so, great that such a study exists.

He told me they were detrimental and if a studying showing hellbenders can’t defend themselves against an invasive species responsible for the decline of other amphibians around the world after introduction doesn’t make make PAFB concerned enough to look into it and examine their stocking’s repercussions I don’t even know what to say. As far as the entire body of research on this topic of invasive salmonids and hellbenders one would have to ask Dr. Petokas. However Mike, if anyone at the commission will share with you, maybe you can get some links to such research you speak of from a copy of the letter Dr. Petokas just wrote to them this past year pleading with them not to stock a certain northern potter county stream. It was the last population of hellbenders in that watershed in PA and they ignored his letter and stocked over them anyway. “Resource first” right.

But your right Mike he’s probably wrong. All this is concern about the effects of stocking around 3 million adult invasive species and another 3-4 million more fingerling invasive species in some of our highest quality cold water ecosystems is probably over blown. Despite the well documented negative effect of these fish on native fish around the world it’s probably happening everywhere else BUT Pennsylvania. We should probably change nothing at all at the commission or how they stock