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eastern brook trout ecology/conservation in compromised systems

Started by Guest_mikez_* , Sep 22 2010 09:24 AM

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#41 Guest_mikez_*

Guests

Posted 01 October 2010 - 11:19 AM

... so I'm not very comfortable with the idea of controlling beavers to promote brook trout. Controlling beavers is also a short-term local 'fix' to a widespread and long-term decline, and in any case I don't see it being a viable long-term strategy.

Not to worry, as much as some TU guys and lots of neighbors would love to see the beaver go, cooler heads have the reins at the moment. There's no way this is going to become a trout preserve at the expense of diversity.
I'm good with that.
So far I've walked the line of supporting the trout without alienating the pro-beaver folks. I do believe there can be balance. The trout and the beaves did ok before we got involved.

#42 Guest_brookiechaser_*

Guests

Posted 01 October 2010 - 12:35 PM

Just a thought on the silt....

Brookies don't seem to be as sensitive to silt as some other trout. Also as long as you have constant flows (which seems to be the case) there will be continual flow across gravel at the tailout of pools to keep it clear of silt and this is where spawning occurs. Check out the photo below from last fall. I took this on a stream that is polluted with brook trout. Note all the sediment around the redd. The first good flushing rain will clear a lot of it out. Remember too that sand doesn't equal silt, in fact it looks like that picture of the seep with all the sand, that there is a small patch of gravel that could provide a spawning site. Also, you have trout already so obviously there is enough spawning habitat around.

Also...don't be surprised if there aren't any trout in the mainstem right now. They may all be in the tribs spawning. I would look for trout in the mainstem in the late winter and early spring up until temperatures get problematic at which point they will probably move back into the tribs.

Good luck on finding redds. At your latitude, now should be about the right time. Here in WV, we are still probably a few weeks away except that spawning may have started at our highest elevations.

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#43 Guest_mikez_*

Guests

Posted 01 October 2010 - 04:07 PM

This is the dam about 1 mile downstream from the springs and brooks. What's he doing there? Second time I've seen him there.

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#44 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 01 October 2010 - 05:14 PM

What's he doing there? Second time I've seen him there.

He's fishing! And he does not waste his time where there are none... fishing is a way of life for this guy... so he is also proving to everyone beyond all doubt that there are fish there...

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

#45 Guest_mikez_*

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Posted 02 October 2010 - 09:44 AM

He's fishing! And he does not waste his time where there are none... fishing is a way of life for this guy... so he is also proving to everyone beyond all doubt that there are fish there...

He's fishing all right and he's entirely focused on what is moving upstream.
First time I saw him he was at the top of the far side where fallen chunks have made a decent fish ladder. He was staking out the fish ladder.

#46 Guest_az9_*

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Posted 03 October 2010 - 04:19 AM

Years ago I went fishing for brook trout with a friend in a tiny creek system in Acton. We caught several of the most intensely colored brook trout I ever saw. I can't imagine those were stocked... and maybe that creek is still there. I couldn't even tell you exactly where it was now. And then there were some interesting places in Winchester. But, I hope yours works out and can be preserved.

I used to fish a small lake by the name of "Mirror Lake" (actually historically the name is Big Hell Pond at Fort Devens not too far from Acton, (the military took it upon themselves to rename the lake), that had naturally reproducing brook trout over a spring seep on the northeast corner at the mouth of a cove near the shoreline. I know it was a spring seep as it was a gathering point for brook trout in the lake by the hundreds and walking on it in the spring it felt ice cold. Granted the offspring were from planted brook trout but there was some hatching, as I would see some fry in the spring. Most likely though survival was probably pretty low due to the nonnative fish in the lake. I did see a 5 inch intensively colored brook trout caught that was too small to be planted.

I also saw brook trout in the 12 inch range in a remote brook on the reservation. It was so remote I doubt they were planted.

This was all however back in the late 60's and early 70's.

Edited by az9, 03 October 2010 - 04:24 AM.

#47 Guest_mikez_*

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Posted 06 October 2010 - 02:50 PM

az9, I can say conclusively there are no brookies in Mirror lake today, not counting recent stocking.
I icefish that place hard for trout. Only one brookie ever turned up, certainly a truck fish.
They stock it so heavy the browns and rainbows ate up any natives long ago.

#48 Guest_mikez_*

Guests

Posted 06 October 2010 - 03:08 PM

on Sat I made a quick fish survey below the dam in the main brook.
I just swung a streamer through the best pools to see if anybody would show themselves. In a decent trout brook that'll usually provoke at least a flash or follow to reveal the fish. In a crowded brookie stream you'd raise five or six little ones at a time.
Certainly not conclusive however and absence of hits does not equal absence of trout.
My results were the same as the electroshock and other fishermen.
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The bass were most abundant and apparently kept down the fallfish numbers. Normally a brook like that has a half dozen adults in every riffle and schools of minnow sized juvies in all the pools. I only saw a few, all big.

You can see how the bass do so well. There's just so little gradient, the water meanders slowly.
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I'm not convinced there're no brookies. Herons don't lie for one thing, plus there were lots of holes and root balls and overhung banks to hide plenty trout.
Plus the springs and seeps.
Some places they come up close enough to make a mudhole.
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Other times it seeps up and starts flowing. This one emerges from the base of a hill at upper right and commences to flow as an intermittent stream. Clean sand at lower left hints at decent flow.
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Sometimes they are running as underground streams. Here you're looking into a gap in the solid ground and seeing two feet down a decent little rill flowing right along.
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Eventually as they reach the level of the main brook they becomee tiny surface streams of clear cool water. There has got to be trout benifiting.
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Cool stuff!

#49 Guest_mikez_*

Guests

Posted 04 November 2010 - 08:35 AM

Update:
Yesterday, 11/3, I was able to observe a pair of brookies over a redd at close range. They seemed huge in the tiny brook, actually maybe 8 inches tops.
Very different from what I've seen in high gradient freestone streams with big populations. Only the two of them, no chasing or nipping, everything in slow motion in the slow current. The pool is a big bowl with a clockwise eddy. If it weren't for the floating leaves turning slowly round and round, you could barely percieve current at all. The fish are actually facing downstream, but into the slight current of the eddy. The redd looks just like a rectangle shaped sunfish nest, clean gravel exposed of all silt and a fine layer of sand settling on the sunken leaves around the edges.
The larger and paler [female?] stayed over the redd, occasionally undulating gently, more like fanning than cleaning. At times the fish rested static on the bottom, something I've never seen in faster water. The larger one seemed dedicated to the nest and returned soon after being disturbed.
The smaller darker one spent more time moving around but usually hovered a few inches behind the bigger. I never saw actual egg laying or milting.

Does this sound like they have already spawned? Does the female or male guard the nest? Any idea how long they stick around?

#50 Guest_panfisherteen_*

Guests

Posted 04 November 2010 - 03:17 PM

i think they are still spawning, they leave the nest once they are done (after the female covers the nest with gravel)

#51 Guest_mikez_*

Guests

Posted 19 February 2012 - 12:32 PM

To update this thread in case anyone is interested, I got some people really excited about the trout and they took it and ran with it. They had huge troops of people, locals, students, reporters and folks from the state stomping through the springs and electroshocking everything in site and finding wild trout all over the place right under everybodies' noses. Way too public and showy for my secretive nature but lots of attention has been brought to the streams and management decisions by federal [some of the streams flow through a NWR], state, various towns and at least four or five conservation groups will take into account the wild native brook trout. Also some of the streams ended up receiving state "Cold Water Habitat" status which is mainly symbolic but at least keeps them on F&W radar.
here's a link to a Boston Globe article which is very incomplete and lacking in much detail - except plenty of clues to find the stream. :-$

Sorry, the fisherman in me cringes at public information but it's all really good. O:)

http://www.bostonglo...6WzM/story.html

#52 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 19 February 2012 - 12:56 PM

Nice work Mike... and thanks for following up and telling a little bit more of the story, I know some may frown on posting on such an old thread, but I think this kind of follow-up is great! I remember reading this the first time through ad am glad to hear that you got some of what appears to be the right kind of attention. Yea, I hate the dumbing down that newspapers seem to always do... but hey it is the beginning of awareness, so I guess we have to take what we can get.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

#53 Guest_mikez_*

Guests

Posted 19 February 2012 - 01:26 PM

Thanks Michael. I didn't even realize old threads were NG. I guess a new thread with a link would have been OK. I wanted to go back and see what I had written earlier and when done, I just hit reply. maybe someone new will enjoy the old thread.

The news piece wasn't terrible bad, I was hoping for mention of the springs and water conservation but I wasn't in on the article. I was invited to attend some of the trips but only went to very small ones. I stay out of the limelight. I never knew they'd call the paper. I about died when I heard there was an article. Again, I was raised by fishermen to hide secret streams like pots of gold . It's in my nature. If it were me searching, I could have been on that stream within an hour of reading the article.
At least you got a slight sense of how cool it was to find the fish close the city and a tiny taste of trout biology.

Bruce and I had a laugh about how he "found" the trout. The remains of granite weirs show that the First locals as well as colonial era farmers knew the fish were there. Persistent fishermen rumors of wild trout have abounded in the area for generations. I heard them as a kid from friend's fathers who heard it from their's...
Bruce heard those rumors and tossed a worm under a cut bank and caught a little brookie. He didn't really appreciate what he had at the time and didn't believe he'd found a breeding population. He never followed up but did post the pics on the site of the conservation group who own the land.
I stumbled on his pics during a totally unrelated web search in pursuit of an entirely different quarry. My excursions turned up the springs and the breeding population related in the old thread above. I tipped off the folks who owned the streams and Bruce heard about it and got TU involved and that was it.
Pretty cool really how it all played out and the internet connections and the people involved even down to the news paper article. Be even cooler if I told what I was after in the first place...