The Redd Count

On Sunday I took part in the redd count on Spring & Slab Cabin Creek's for a shared project between Spring Creek TU and PA Fish & Boat Comm., I was teamed up with a fellow from Hershey who hailes from Trevorton! Our section was a 1 mile beat from the bridge at Benner Spring's upstream to the bridge at The Rock, walking was easy for the first 1/2 mile as we stayed along the hatchery fence up above the stream for a good vantage point, all the while spotting spawing fish or their redd's that were empty, in the span of 1 mile we noted 126, that is nothing short of great but another two man team doing the canyon area counted 196 redd's that my friend is just great- sure makes you smile when you see numbers like them. The trout in Spring Creek are doing very well.
  My partner has a cabin on Penns near the Boy Scout camp and spends a lot of time in Coburn and was telling me of the wonderful project that the PVA is doing in that area, insect population studies and tem and water testing, I'll try to get some info. and share it, why can't we do the same for the Cherry Run - Weikert area? More later

Results of trout tracking

As I said on the other post a presentation at Spring Creek TU by Dr. Uma Ramakrishnnan Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Juniata at College on Monitoring Brown Trout Movement Using Radio Trackers: Lessons Learned. I got the results of the 1st stage and they are as follows;
The results so far are very inconclusive, the only verifiable conclusion is that trout will move to try to get away from turbidity. Just as a note I will follow up on this topic from time to time from her web site and e mail to her about any other results they may find. This is a good tip to remember when your faced with a feeder dumping muddy or off colored water into your main stream, trout will hold on that line between the two, makes sense because trout are sight feeders.
  On Nov. 22 I will be helping Spring Creek TU with their redd count on Spring Creek, this is done every few years to help the PA Fish & Boat Comm. determine the relative health of the Brown Trout population and give us a chance to see just how many redds  there are over the entire stream length, I will be able to see the results because we all report back to the event heads and enjoy some food and drink while they tally up the results, this is the kind of activity that is needed on Penns but sadly there is none!

Time to do this

November is the best time of year to hunt some very large trout with streamers but be careful not to target the reeds of spawners! It might be a bit early for a good amount of the brown trout to be in the mating mood but I have seen some evidence of pre spawn behavior in some of the smaller males that are around. It's just unfortunate that we have not had a good water year and that our streams are on the low side of normal and the leaf litter in the water is at times bad, but if you can find some deep dark holes and some deeper water below good gravel bars the fish will at some point in the near future start staging in these areas. For flies I like to use light colors on bright days and darker ones on those dark overcast days (I really like purple and electric blue), I have a bunch of new tandem flies that I am just itching to try out, I hope that I do not see any adverse effect of hooking fish near their eyes or in the gills- if so these flies will be retired fast. I have only thought of using tandem's because sometimes you will suffer short strikes and only have swirls to your credit and no good pulls, if only we had the reflexes to stop the fly when a short strike or swirl occurs because sometimes I think the fish tries to disorient their pry and come back to finish them off but after all those years we strike and  hope for the best.
  One more thing we can all do is when we are on streams that have a lot of feeders take some time and make sure our brown trout have access to the feeder by cleaning our the mouth of any debris or rocks that may block their ascent to their spawning grounds, this is especial true in this low water year. it would be also a good dead if you are walking in the stream to watch where you are stepping, avoid the new reeds because they are our future.
  Last night a Dr. presented a show to the Spring Creek Chapter of TU about radio tagged mature brown trout to learn where they spent their time, I will try and get a copy and post it.
  I have at least 2 lbs. of yellow water Iris seeds that I will be planting this winter and spring in Penns, Big Fishing Creek and Spring Creek, look at my planting at Johnson's on Penns. I also have 5 small Ginko seedlings that will be planted along Penns on a bluff to avoid high water, some where that I can watch their growth- maybe they can take the place of all those Ash trees we have lost- hey feel free to plant a tree, it is heart warming to see something that you planted to mature- I have one in front of Station 22 on Penns that I planted at least 15 years ago and it is doing well, every time I see it I smile because of the memory of my black lab Abby and Warren Fisher  and I working to get the darn thing up the road to plant it (had 2 Ginko's and a second Maple that did not make it) just happy to remember those memories.