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I don't think TU would be much help in this region, there's just no major fisheries until you get further east into the mountains. There havn't been native brookies in this part of Tennessee since well before the last glacial advance (as differentiated as southern Appalachian brookies are, maybe even longer than that). High-diversity sites in northerly and formerly glaciated areas (like French Creek or the Tippecanoe River) are now way too warm for brookies by the time you get far enough downstream for peak darter diversity, but it likely hasn't been long since they dropped out of the fauna.

There haven't been many documented cases of darter predation by bows, although few diet studies have been done in super darter-rich habitats. There's been some concern in other states about local effects of put-n-take fisheries; Virginia was (and still is?) dumping a large number of brown trout on top of their last good candy darter population -- a former prof examined gut contents of a fair number of trout from there but I don't think he found any darters...

Hmm. It might be interesting to set up a fish cleaning booth in Shelbyville one weekend and offer free filleting of trout in exchange for the GI tracts... Doesn't look like I'll be back that way before May though.

Dave

I think you're getting at a source of predators?

Well, it depends... Brookies are found in some of insane richness streams in the east, but not in the segments that have the insane richness. Brook trout (like creek chubs, Clinostomus dace, some Luxilus species) specialize on capturing allochthonous (out of system) food materials to supplement their diet with their aggressive behavior and/or large mouths, rather than relying solely on autochthonus (in system) food materials that begin with primary productivity (grazers that feed on algae). The Shelbyville riffle is interesting in this regard, as the cyprinid species found there are either striped shiners or chub species that have derived characteristics that make them more like a darter, rather than your typical shiner.

Anyway, take home message: historical trout streams are boring as hell.

The predators in the central TN systems were spotted bass and ol' goggle eyes... I'm not sure what role smallies played (I need to look at FoTN) but they're way not dominant now, nor do any of the above cross niches with these darter species. In east TN, I think it was just rock bass. The upper Mobile in TN, GA and AL has the corresponding shadow bass and coosa bass (redeye).

However, a hunting brown or rainbow doesn't have any problem going on a hunt. And mind you, the brookies in TN aren't anything like the mosters you see in the Great White North and etc. They're quite stunted. They have some monsters at the NC Hatchery outside Brevard in the upper French Broad, but I've never seen a brookie that was approaching a foot (and that was unusual, in spite of the stocking programs and paradox of eutrohpication compared to how the streams were as these communities evolved). The big fish are always the rainbows and browns.

Honestly, I don't know what the answers are. But stocking put and take trout in the Duck is just plain wrong. That is black and white to me.

I can cross post anything else too.

Todd

Edited by farmertodd, 24 February 2008 - 07:58 PM.

So my answer out of FoTN regarding Micropterus....Smallmouth in the upper TN drainage, Spotted in the lower, lowland versus upland characterisics, gradient, habitat, blah blah blah. I have seen and caught some monster smallmouth in the lower French Broad, Little, Emory, and ObeD though the later stick out as two are a bit geologically different. They weren't cross niching (I like the sound of that) but they were close by and made the frequent incurssion into a shoal or run. Don't discount the smallies too much. I kid you not I grabbed a 2' longnose gar by the tail snorkeling in 2006 that was within a foot of 3 species of darters in glide. ... and I'd see spotted occasionally too. There are some substantial runs of sauger in are in the upper TN tributaries and Cumberland.

We (TTU lab) were begining looking at brook and brown stomachs in the Watauga and honestly there wasn't much in the way of fish. It's been completed so hopefully that is coming out shortly in some report to TWRA or a pub. When it was fish in the stomachs, it was brookies inside browns. You wouldn't believe the number of snails browns ate too! Sculpin have to be a major component of those trouts diets in alot of those, but I expected to see some Notropis. The Hiwassee would be a good place to investigate with the Duck as a contrasting system. That's probably the highest (rare) darter diversity where year round trout fishing exists and supplimental stocking occurs. The only other systems I can think of are the Little Pigeon and the upper Little where you have intensive trout fisheries and a diverse historic fauna. Much of the other streams, South Fork Holston, Caney Fork, Tims Ford, just don't have much below them with that temperature and flow regime. Hence why they are "mitigated" with trout

The economic gain realized from stocking a few of these high diversity areas we've mentioned surely cannot be substantial. There are oppurtunities in lakes and ponds nearby that provide ample shoreline access and IMO a better put and take fishing oppurtunity than a river full of snags or tailwaters that provide more access in an area devoid of its historic fauna. It's a terrible contradiction in policy, plain and simple. Maybe the real travesty is any state or private stockings in recent history or that continue in the spring fed headwater reaches in the barrens. Talk about a unique and imperiled fauna!

Speaking of all of this diverse aquatic fauna, gamefish management, contradictions in management policy...I'm really interested to see any effects/recovery on relict fauna in the Cumberland with the drought and dam repairs ongoing at Wolf Creek. How is that going to be dealt with when they complete the process in 7+ years and want to resume the same ultramodified flow regime in the Cumberland from KY all the way to Nashville.

What would the major preditor be in the high gradient, smaller streams in the niche trout would occupy further north? Creek chub/fallfish? [Those are the ones that take over that niche up here when the stream is too warm/degraded to support trout]. We don't usually see smallmouth until the size of the river increases and the gradient decreases. They seem to prefer good sized water with plenty of pools between the riffles.

Another question [bear with me, I've never visited these areas], what is the aquatic insect population like? Do they have mayflies, caddis, stoneflies, chrinomids etc? Is that what you're calling autochthonus? I was very surprised to hear of snails in brown trout. I don't think I've ever seen a snail in all my years of checking stomach contents. OTOH, most decent streams up here have huge and diverse aquatic insects and those seem to be the prefered forage for trout when available. It's very rare to find any fish in stream trout stomachs. Sculpin are the only ones I've seen with any regularity and those were almost always in brown trout. I guess if a trout will scoop a sculpin off the bottom, it could just as well grab a darter. I know the trout I've kept in my stream tanks seem to hold a grudge against darters and chase them relentlessly, even when the darters are far too big to swallow.

Take this with a grain of salt, but:

Creek chub and other large minnows are major predators in small high-gradient streams (we don't have fallfish in Tennessee), but I would guess that the most important piscivores in many of these streams are or were herps: softshells, snappers, watersnakes, and mudpuppies in the 2nd-3rd order streams; watersnakes and gartersnakes (as well as crayfish and odonate larvae) in the smaller streams.

Oh, and aquatic insect diversity is absurdly high in Middle Tennessee streams. All the groups you mentined are abundant and diverse in most of our streams.

What would the major preditor be in the high gradient, smaller streams in the niche trout would occupy further north? Creek chub/fallfish? [Those are the ones that take over that niche up here when the stream is too warm/degraded to support trout]. We don't usually see smallmouth until the size of the river increases and the gradient decreases. They seem to prefer good sized water with plenty of pools between the riffles.

Another question [bear with me, I've never visited these areas], what is the aquatic insect population like? Do they have mayflies, caddis, stoneflies, chrinomids etc? Is that what you're calling autochthonus? I was very surprised to hear of snails in brown trout. I don't think I've ever seen a snail in all my years of checking stomach contents. OTOH, most decent streams up here have huge and diverse aquatic insects and those seem to be the prefered forage for trout when available. It's very rare to find any fish in stream trout stomachs. Sculpin are the only ones I've seen with any regularity and those were almost always in brown trout. I guess if a trout will scoop a sculpin off the bottom, it could just as well grab a darter. I know the trout I've kept in my stream tanks seem to hold a grudge against darters and chase them relentlessly, even when the darters are far too big to swallow.

Edited by Newt, 25 February 2008 - 03:12 PM.

The brook trout in the high gradients of eastern TN are definately who has the biggest mouth but the increasing gradients of middle TN really is left to rockbass, green sunfish, and longears after the smallies drop out. Some of the streams that are right on the plateau have some insane gradients too and are just lacking the larger bodied fish.

Mikez

The stream I mentioned, several of them actually, where snails are the dominant food source is a tailwater below a hydroelectric dam. Much of the benthos below these streams is depressed or completely devoid. The Caney Fork, a good example of a large middle TN stream below Center Hill Dam is really lacking macroinverts. Too much of the stream still goes dry on a daily basis (1-3 m flucuations) and the temp is so messed up. The trout fishery there, at least those having success, is all on jerkbaits, spinners, or streamers if you are fly fishing. When the shad die off late in the year and get chopped up in the turbines the trout gorge for a week or two. Being a fulltime piscivore is about the only way to survive in a stream like that.

Really some of the stuff is just so horribly disturbed that trout are the only thing that can survive, hence what we were bemoaning about when you create a 3 month put and take fishery in one of the most diverse and unique warmwater aquatic assembalges on the continent.

Another question [bear with me, I've never visited these areas], what is the aquatic insect population like? Do they have mayflies, caddis, stoneflies, chrinomids etc? Is that what you're calling autochthonus?

Yep, you got it Mike.

But be careful how you characterize a stream by the abundances of macroinverts that you find. Don't fall into that trap. Remember, there's still the "paradox of eutrophication" going on in MOST streams in eastern North America. Those streams are, in effect, processing the "sunlight of yesterday" and will be for a long time.

Even those that are "pristine", which by comparison are still far more productive by reach than when these communities evolved. The streams that seem flushed and rehabilitated now are dominated by springs and groundwater, and it's good that we've reforested these segments... Because now we're about to watch the eutrophication of the past come out of the ground water.

That's not to say that increasing ecological function and ecological improvement are out of the picture. I hope to make a whole career out of rehabilitiation. But "restoration"? There's no such thing in watershed work. I've only found that obtainable in high disturbance terrestrial communities, and pretty much only those that have evolved on sand with weird hydrology and fires that kept nutrients low. The rest of it needs a glacier again

Todd

The rest of it needs a glacier again

So, global warming = new ice age = good!

I'm down with that!

Yeah that is exactly what we want to see on the forum...and another serious discusion get's jacked in under 5 post.

Yeah that is exactly what we want to see on the forum...and another serious discusion get's jacked in under 5 post.

It's not Jacked... that is just Martin bringing an interesting insite that might very well be worth not discarding and worth pondering for a moment or two.. just because it is a fragment does not really mean it does not have content.

Anyhow carry on as this is interesting.... I may have my own little points of interest to bear in on this also eventually as it pertains to areas outside of TN but still intricately applicable to the same situations and problems... Good discussion going so lets keep it flowing.

What I am saying in my cryptic, shorthanded way is that despite all the furor about the declining state of our ecosphere (as defined by those of us who live in this microscopic temporal slice), most folks seem to be against the one thing that would restore balance (whatever that is) to the system - a new beginning. My views are nothing new to you old-timers - I look at time on a LONG scale.

Really, it doesn't do any good to look at historic ranges, etc. - all you do is get pissed off and you're not gonna be able to turn the effect of hundreds of years of human occupation on its head no matter how many federal grants you throw at the problem. I am tempted to view humanity as a natural disaster, but the fact is, tornados, hurricanes, floods, etc. stop fairly quickly, whereas we're still building towards our peak of destructiveness. But Homo sapiens will not persist forever. It is doubtful we will even persist 100 million years. An eyeblink. Perhaps MUCH less.

Species decline, species flourish, things change. It is the way it was meant to be.

Sorry if ya'll think I'm derailing an important discussion. This is not an attempt to denigrate those of you who try to figure this stuff out for a living - I once pondered such a career. Nowadays I tend to have a simplistic view of things, I guess. It frees up my mind for other things.

Now, where did I put my beer? While I'm trying to figure that one out, continue talking amongst yourselves.

"Anyway, take home message: historical trout streams are boring as hell."

Are you saying that trout were the direct agent in limiting diversity?
Were the trout [or their ancestors] already established when the ancestors of the darters came on the scene?
I have always wondered how the first brook trout got into the tiny high gradient head water streams. Some of them have falls that seem like they should have blocked upstream travel. To me that implies they [or their ancestors] were around when the glaciers first started to retreat and the water was higher, or the terrain flatter.
Interesting that sculpin are often the only other fish species in those places. Maybe they're an ice age surviver as well.

Edited by mikez, 26 February 2008 - 10:55 PM.

In much of southern Appalachia, the last species found at increasing high altitude is the stoneroller. This probably has something to do with their oral and visceral adaptations to living on a diet of diatoms scraped from rocks in oligotrophic streams. Forget about trout, they're a species left over from irregular glacial episodes of the last 5 million years. Are we still in the Pleistocene, and should we expect another glacial cycle soon? From the perspective of the last 251 million years since the Permian ended glaciation has been rare. Commentators like Irate have to decide if glaciation cycles are now the norm, rather than a flukey Pliocene/Pleistocene thing. In truth none of us will live that long to know, so I guess it's a moot point. And I guess I never aspired to the English upper class, so trout fishing to me is largely something vaguely silly.

"Anyway, take home message: historical trout streams are boring as hell."

Are you saying that trout were the direct agent in limiting diversity?

Not at all. The loooow levels of autochthonus carbon limits diversity. Places where trout live are like Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard

Not at all. The loooow levels of autochthonus carbon limits diversity. Places where trout live are like Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard

That's hard for me to reconcile with my life long love of trout streams. The number of aquatic insects in their various life stage must represent tons, literally, of forage. That doesn't even take into account algae, diatoms, inverts, minnows and terrestrial critters. Sometimes in May, you might have two or three mayfly species, three or four caddis, the odd stonefly and 40 bazillion chrinomids all emerging or egg laying at the same time. The air is so thick with bugs you eat 'em with every breath.
And that's not even the streams with the "paradoxical eutrification" you keep mentioning.
Not my image of Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard.

As I said earlier...

But be careful how you characterize a stream by the abundances of macroinverts that you find. Don't fall into that trap. Remember, there's still the "paradox of eutrophication" going on in MOST streams in eastern North America. Those streams are, in effect, processing the "sunlight of yesterday" and will be for a long time.

Even those that are "pristine", which by comparison are still far more productive by reach than when these communities evolved. The streams that seem flushed and rehabilitated now are dominated by springs and groundwater, and it's good that we've reforested these segments... Because now we're about to watch the eutrophication of the past come out of the ground water.

We're talking about these streams in two different situations. And the one you're familiar with is not what was in the past when community evolved. That doesn't mean it's good or bad or anything. That's just what was.

You also have to remember that your experience is completely slanted toward a completely depauperate fauna as well. So what "IS" in New England was not what "WAS" in TN.

Todd

As I said earlier...
We're talking about these streams in two different situations. And the one you're familiar with is not what was in the past when community evolved. That doesn't mean it's good or bad or anything. That's just what was.

You also have to remember that your experience is completely slanted toward a completely depauperate fauna as well. So what "IS" in New England was not what "WAS" in TN.

Todd

True.
Also, since I've been mulling over what I typed this morning, it occurs to me that my memories are slanted toward best case scenarios [who remembers the fishless days?].
In reality, the upper reaches of the so called "freestone" streams really are pretty devoid of life. Brookies, maybe sculpin, black flies and a couple chrinomids at best. Further down, that eutrification is having more effect and the system is richer.
Limestone streams are a whole different story but I'd have to go west to Pa before I ran into that.

Yes, your free stone segments are exactly what I'm talking about. That type of habitat extended much further historically.

Also good to note the tendency to autocorrelate! That is a TOUGH thing to break yourself of. Gotta record the "misses" when you record the "hits".

Todd