Pa Wild Trout Summit (Recap/Commentary)

And besides. The fisherman that comes in bragging about 150 trout actually caught about 50 if he was lucky.
 
Pennsylvania sportsmen around the Fishing Creek area are definitely not more refined. If anything its gotten worse over the last 3 or 4 years. Instead of harvesting the stocked fish often they are thrown back and the wild browns are the ones that are kept. Then you have anglers that only target the wild browns to keep taking them out at a rapid pace that nature can't keep up with (in the non stocked no reg section). Also I'd love to see them do a study on Fishing Creek at how the stocking effects the wild brown population. I'm almost willing to bet it has very little effect. Same thing on Bald Eagle Creek from Spring Creek down to the dam. Same type of environment that gets stocked yet both stocked and wild populations seem to flourish.
 
haha, yeah bigjohn, you and I are from the same town.......I know all about it. Some of them would use TNT if it didn't make so much noise 😉

I would like to see that too. Might be tough to do though, because you would have to not stock it for a while to let it establish a baseline. I suspect it has less impact than a smaller creek would, but impact none the less.

btw....you don't drive an FJ cruiser by any chance do you?
 
wjkosmer wrote:
haha, yeah bigjohn, you and I are from the same town.......I know all about it. Some of them would use TNT if it didn't make so much noise 😉

I would like to see that too. Might be tough to do though, because you would have to not stock it for a while to let it establish a baseline. I suspect it has less impact than a smaller creek would, but impact none the less.

btw....you don't drive an FJ cruiser by any chance do you?
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Nope...I drive a black Chevy pickup. Its pretty easy to spot.
 
Zak wrote:
And besides. The fisherman that comes in bragging about 150 trout actually caught about 50 if he was lucky.
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I'm either thinking you are one of the gentlemen I am talking about or you have no clue. These weren't 150 stocked trout or mix bag of stock/wild. These were all wild browns from a few sections of that stream that yes its class A waters but does not have the protection of the narrows and no stocking. Say what you want but that can destroy a fishery by over fishing. If you want to catch some decent fish in some of the sections I'm talking about good luck because they just aren't there!
 
I hope it was understood that my "we are not Montana" comment was intended to be snarky and sarcastic. I 100% believe this is NOT an excuse to do what is right for our wild trout populations, which is to stop stocking over them.
 
Sasquatch.....I didn't take it that you were being serious at all. I honestly don't believe we could ever actually be MT, but it could be really good.
 
I know a few guys that take a lot of trout from BFC. I don't fish it much these days has really been hit hard and a lot of trout taken out. Blad eagle milesburg to the dam i think can withstand the pressure a little better is hard to wade and bigger water.
 
You totally have an agenda and it's a old outdated one. So you have physically seen these guys hauling that many fish out and can confirm that they are all wild browns lol?? It's a BS story. Listen, the one thing you learn as a trout fishing real fast is to be VERY skeptical about what you 'hear', especially from guys like that. But even if it is true, do you realize how many trout it takes for a stream the size of BFC to become Class A in the Mill Hall area? 150 trout is a meaningless number on a annual calendar year basis. You have to understand the scope of what you are complaining about here. We're talking thousands upon thousands upon thousands of wild trout in a Class A stretch like that. I have certainly never spoken to you as I haven't frequented that area in a long time but I do know the stream well and know Class A wild trout populations even better. I am certainly not clueless even though disagreeing with you clearly points you towards that verdict. While I agree that it is unfortunate that a fella would want to keep that many trout I am also rational about the fact that him keeping 150 wild browns from a stream like BFC will have absolutely zero impact on the trout population of that stream. None at all. He could do it every single year till he dies and it wont matter. Don't let your emotions get in the way of a rational discussion. Fact is you hate seeing trout kept from a stream you like (which I appreciate completely) and some guy 'saying' he catches and keeps 150 wild browns a year fits your agenda perfectly so you run with it like he's devastating a fishery. It's just not factual, proven by the fact that the place is Class A despite his best efforts to destroy it lol! It's Class A even with all the years of stocking and creeling. Do you need it to have more fish than Class A? Would you be happy then? Would you notice a difference? The answer to all those is probably no even though you'll wanna say yes to stay on agenda.
 
Zak wrote:
You totally have an agenda and it's a old outdated one. So you have physically seen these guys hauling that many fish out and can confirm that they are all wild browns lol?? It's a BS story. Listen, the one thing you learn as a trout fishing real fast is to be VERY skeptical about what you 'hear', especially from guys like that. But even if it is true, do you realize how many trout it takes for a stream the size of BFC to become Class A in the Mill Hall area? 150 trout is a meaningless number on a annual calendar year basis. You have to understand the scope of what you are complaining about here. We're talking thousands upon thousands upon thousands of wild trout in a Class A stretch like that. I have certainly never spoken to you as I haven't frequented that area in a long time but I do know the stream well and know Class A wild trout populations even better. I am certainly not clueless even though disagreeing with you clearly points you towards that verdict. While I agree that it is unfortunate that a fella would want to keep that many trout I am also rational about the fact that him keeping 150 wild browns from a stream like BFC will have absolutely zero impact on the trout population of that stream. None at all. He could do it every single year till he dies and it wont matter. Don't let your emotions get in the way of a rational discussion. Fact is you hate seeing trout kept from a stream you like (which I appreciate completely) and some guy 'saying' he catches and keeps 150 wild browns a year fits your agenda perfectly so you run with it like he's devastating a fishery. It's just not factual, proven by the fact that the place is Class A despite his best efforts to destroy it lol! It's Class A even with all the years of stocking and creeling. Do you need it to have more fish than Class A? Would you be happy then? Would you notice a difference? The answer to all those is probably no even though you'll wanna say yes to stay on agenda.
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You ever been present during electroshocking on Fishing Creek? I have...it has wild browns but not the numbers you are referring to unless you are counting the entire stream. You take a mile stretch of that stream outside of the narrows and you aren't going to be getting thousands upon thousands of wild browns and even fewer brooks.
 
BigJohn, It takes 40 kg/ha to be considered Class A so even at that we are talking about a tremendous number of trout over a several mile stretch. They would have to have shocked up hundreds of wild browns in a 350 yard stretch of stream. Otherwise the math doesn't work and the PAFBC is lying about it being Class A. If that is the case then I'm having a discussion about nothing here and the whole conversation changes. My posts are based on the section being Class A in fact in which case we are talking about a ton of wild trout even if it is on the low end of Class A.

I'm trying to find the biomass from the last survey but I need to get some more work done here.
 

Fishing Creek has always been fished hard.
 
The title refers to the "PA Wild Trout Summit"

At the summit, almost nothing was said about:

1) Future ending or reductions in stocking over wild trout.

2) Future reductions in harvest of wild trout.

From the discussions it seems as though many people are assuming that these were the topics discussed. But they weren't.

You can surely find the agenda for the meeting with a web search and see what was actually discussed.

 

Thanks for clearing that up Bert Im sure that will surely help out.
 
I agree the harvest of 150 wild browns by one or several anglers along BFC would have little impact on the overall population for the stream but it could certainly impact the quality of fishing in particular stretch.

If guys are fishing the same stretch 100 days/year and keeping the 150 biggest wild browns they catch the population of trout and quality of fishing will suffer in that area. There are not THAT many miles of BFC or any other stream. Our resources are good but not endless.
 
If that were remotely possible then yes that would be an issue but luckily there isn't a single one of us bait, fly, lurers that is even close to being skilled or lucky enough to achieve that. The whole scenario isn't plausible.
 
The history of wild trout management segment included info on harvest, stocking over wild trout, and the future of statewide trout regulation changes. The PFC Policy for the Conservation and Management of Fisheries Resources was described as having been approved in 1981 and the portions that most pertained to wild trout were presented as follows: 1. Manage wild trout (WT) as renewable natural resources that are to be conserved. "renewable" implied sustained yield, not necessarily C&R; "conserved" meant wisely used. 2. Stock fish where wild trout populations are inadequate to sustain fisheries at desired levels. Does not say: "do not stock over any wild trout."

As for the need for future statewide trout reg changes, that answer was made clear by the presenting the 2004 statewide wild trout stream angler use and harvest survey result and by presenting the Wild Brook Trout Enhancement regulations study result. The angler use and harvest survey showed that the average harvest was 11 wild trout per mile. With that low harvest rate no changes in statewide regs were needed. Likewise, the results of the Brook Trout regs study that followed independently showed the same thing... there was no need for a change in the statewide regs for Brook Trout.
 
Zak wrote:
If that were remotely possible then yes that would be an issue but luckily there isn't a single one of us bait, fly, lurers that is even close to being skilled or lucky enough to achieve that. The whole scenario isn't plausible.
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To catch 150 fish in a year?
 
ryansheehan wrote:
Zak wrote:
If that were remotely possible then yes that would be an issue but luckily there isn't a single one of us bait, fly, lurers that is even close to being skilled or lucky enough to achieve that. The whole scenario isn't plausible.
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To catch 150 fish in a year?
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Yeah, I didn't understand that either. I've concentrated on other things and don't consider myself a great fly fisherman, but when I was a young man I kept a journal and my annual catch was a fairly large multiple of that (and I released them all then too). There's no doubt that harvest could wipe out the fishery on stocked (holdover) streams and on wild trout streams.
 
Mike wrote:
The PFC Policy for the Conservation and Management of Fisheries Resources was described as having been approved in 1981 and the portions that most pertained to wild trout were presented as follows: 1. Manage wild trout (WT) as renewable natural resources that are to be conserved. "renewable" implied sustained yield, not necessarily C&R; "conserved" meant wisely used. 2. Stock fish where wild trout populations are inadequate to sustain fisheries at desired levels. Does not say: "do not stock over any wild trout."
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I think the bolded segment is key to this whole thing, and what is prohibiting us from swaying away from stocking streams with Class B, C, or heck even some A streams. Exactly what is a "desired level"? Ask your average opening day fisherman, and then ask someone walking through the woods later in the year......you'll likely get two very different answers. To many people seeing 30 stocked fish piled up in a bridge hole on a stream you can almost jump across may be the preferred scenario, while a lone 12in wild fish(and a few smaller fish up and downstream) from the same type of spot may make someone else's day, and it's a more natural experience to that person(and many other like-minded people).

There's been a couple times when I've had a pretty satisfying day of wild trout fishing, and then I run into someone at the parking spot on the same stream rambling "arrghh this crick is fished out, fishin stinks, they ain't stockin as much as they used to, etc."

It seems the general license buying public likes large-ish fish and lots of them, and that just isn't a realistic scenario at many places, that already have "good enough"(to wild trout enthusiasts) wild populations. But ya gotta sell licenses so.......dump them buckets.

As for stocking places like BFC, it just doesn't make sense. ESPECIALLY when streams with ZERO wild trout are getting cut from the fall stockings.
 
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