Redd count for 2016

Sunday was the annual Spring Creek redd count, yes Sunday in all the wind, snow and cold but the people came out in force. We had coffee donuts and some heat at the picnic pavilion, got our maps and final instructions so off we went, I was paired up with the same partner as last year, a fine fellow from Palymra who is originally from Trevorton and has a cabin on Penns. We have the section that borders the Benner Springs PFC hatchery and this year we decided to start upstream and walk down. The first observation we had was that the water is extremely low and clear, all you had to do is move just a little and the trout blasted out from their holding position, second observation is the there is just so much fallen wood in the stream that the flow has been altered and shifted the main current to different locations not where they were last year, we are not talking about a few trees but a load of them both in the water and falling along the banks, the effects of the Emrald beetle has been dramatic everywhere but here worse than ever, if we get a really big water event I do not want to think what all that wood will do to the bridges! Our over all result this year was a total of 97 clean redds down from our total for 2015 of 160+, this has to be because of the low water conditions, we saw plenty of trout swimming away from us, We need rain badly and there is none is sight. Back at the check in site the same story was told by the other teams, some had counts off as much as 50%, Dr. Bachman said that we might have to revisit some sites in mid December to get a more complete picture of the number of redds in the stream. After some hot dogs, chili and very hot coffee a warm drive home was in order, no fishing after the count this year. Maybe next year we can get some of you guys to help, it is a really great way to learn a stream and have some fun.