Spring Creek, Center Co. 4/25/11

[PSUFishMenace]

I will guess wild for bottom pic and hatchery for top. Top one is super bright but just looks too well-fed for me to think it's wild. Bottom one looks closest to what I have seen/caught. Tricky photos. Understand that I am basing this off of limited experience compared to what some of you guys have.

 

[pcray1231]

midnight,

Top = escapee. I'm 90% sure.
bottom = wild. I'm 70% sure.

So I'm concurring with PSU.

 

[BPS]

I will be the different one here and say top wild, bottom hatchery.

way too many silvery scales on that bottom one.

 

[midnightangler]

The top is the definite escapee.

fyi, i don't think the fishing on spring creek will be too bad this weekend. certainly you could catch fish on streamers. my wife and i went for a walk upstream of the paradise, and we watched one brown rise at least fifteen times within a minute. It was holding behind a rock in a back eddy not more than a foot from the bank, less than five feet from where we were standing.

 

[PennKev]

jayL wrote:
In my experience, the only large central PA stream that has rainbows that seem to be wild is the j. I have heard of them in spring creek, but haven't been convinced that any of the ones I've seen are wild. That includes the fish above. Nice fish, though.

Don't forget that Spruce creek gets loaded with hatchery 'bows of various sizes and some, if not a lot, of them find their way into the river. With that in mind, I do think it is likely that there are some wild bows in the LJR and Spring, but I'd be curious to see how many would turn up if Spruce wasn't stocked and there were no hatcheries on Spring.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Falling Springs has tons of bows and so does Big Spring. I think it reasonable assume natural reproduction in our other limestoners. IIRC, I've also seen 'bows in Big Fishing (but have never caught one there).

At any rate, it is nice to have some variety of wild fish in our creeks.

Kev

 

[David]

PennKev wrote:

jayL wrote:
In my experience, the only large central PA stream that has rainbows that seem to be wild is the j. I have heard of them in spring creek, but haven't been convinced that any of the ones I've seen are wild. That includes the fish above. Nice fish, though.

Don't forget that Spruce creek gets loaded with hatchery 'bows of various sizes and some, if not a lot, of them find their way into the river. With that in mind, I do think it is likely that there are some wild bows in the LJR and Spring, but I'd be curious to see how many would turn up if Spruce wasn't stocked and there were no hatcheries on Spring.
Kev

Don't forget the recent survey, though, that demonstrated that most of the smaller fish stocked just became food for the larger wild fish on the J.

 

[PennKev]

The survey was for browns. I don't recall bows even being mentioned in the survey results. The survey DID turn up some stocked fingerling browns, so some do survive. This is important to consider as the rainbows aren't all that common, so we're not talking a high survival/reproduction rate for them either. If I catch more than a few, even on a really good day, I would say that is unusual. Finally, most of the rainbows I've caught there have been 10" or better, with several being rather large 15"+ fish. Only a couple have been small, in the 6" or so size range.

Regardless of all that, I think it is still heavily dependant on what is going on in Spruce. I'm inclined to believe a lot of the rainbows in the watershed are fish stocked into spruce even though I think there is at least some natural reproduction there.

Kev

 

[midnightangler]

I'd be curious to see how many would turn up if Spruce wasn't stocked and there were no hatcheries on Spring.

I'd wager it would be zero. There are definitely some "wild" rainbows in spring creek, but I believe this is only because stocked fish and escapees spawn in the stream. This is also happens on spruce creek, and the number of little rainbows in there is a lot higher because so many pig rainbows get stocked into that stream. I would be shocked if either of those populations is self-sustaining.

I think most of those little rainbows end up being eaten by browns in the central PA streams. I've caught rainbows in all of those streams, but there aren't very many in any of them. Aside from Big Spring, Falling Spring, Trindle Spring and the upper delaware, I am not aware of any other self-sustaining wild rainbow fisheries in PA. It wouldn't be surprising to me if there were others in the southern limestoners, but it would be news to me for there to be one in central PA.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Aside from Big Spring, Falling Spring, Trindle Spring and the upper delaware, I am not aware of any other self-sustaining wild rainbow fisheries in PA.

There are more. I would name them but some SEPA guys would get knots in their panties.