ADK acid rain impact on trout

[beaverPond]

Hello all,

I'm 31 years old and never saw the golden days of ADK trout fishing. At least this is what the old timers have told me. I also haven't spent enough time on the water to notice if the fishing has gotten better or worse. In general, can some of you older(experienced) fisherman tell me what their experience has been looking back over the years? Did you see a huge decline in trout followed by an ever improving population. I know I can track down some stats online but you can't replace personal experience with data.

cheers,
beaverPond

[pondhopper]

Don't think I qualify as an oldtimer.

My take: in the western area the late 70's & all the 80's were the worst, save for a few havens- such as one heritage strain, which became extinct. Places like Hawk pond , Upper Moshier & Loon Hollow pond in the Pepperbox/5 Ponds area had brookies right up to the early to mid 70's. Then it was like a critical mass was met & acid buffering capacities were exceeded.< & those ponds have yet to recover. In the mid to late 90's, I started landing larger & larger brookies in a broader range of places. I believe the stocking program has a lot to do with that- however, I have seen quite a few streams, where the trout are definitely, branching out much farther in the streams/rivers < whereas, they used to be tightly contained to the spawning stream run-ins, where apparently, deep welling springs/aquifers had enough buffering capacity to sustain them.

Edited to add: In SOME places.

[Buckethead]

I'm around your age, and I missed the "golden age" of fishing as well, although since I moved, I miss the current age of fishing more....

I have some relatives in the Indian lake area who showed me some photos from the 60's where they were absolutely cleaning out Puffer Pond. There were 3-4 men fishing with like 30 (large) trout on a tree branch. And they claimed that they regularly had days like that. My best day on Puffer was 4 trout, although I'm not a local.

Judging from the evidence, I think my relatives "ate" most of the golden area fish, in a golden brown butter sauce!

[stripperguy]

I'm older than most of you and I can remember the good years, though it's through my fathers experiences...I didn't fish (still don't) but often accompanied him. Some of the trout he caught were truly impressive.
A coworker used to complain about the acid rain ruining everything and we all laughed at him. LAUGHED! The year was 1974 and boy was he right...
And the day before I got married, my father trekked in to Brooktrout Lake and West Canada, he later told me he would never go back, and didn't. The year was 1977.
But a buddy of mine caught one of those native Brookies on LTL the first year of public access, it was 18 or 20 inches long and nearly pulled the canoe around...very cool.

[Seeker]

i've got a cousin who's about 80 now (i'm 43), who told stories like Stripperguy's dad. he used to take us (his kids and my brother and me) to stillwater, eagle's nest, the oswegatchie, and bubb/sis lakes to fish in the 70s. you could see clear to the bottom of some of those lakes, 30' down, and it wasn't healthy... we'd catch a few, but not like in his 'old days' back in the 50s and 60s. and i've seen the photos of some of the 'takes' at the Great Camps, and there were literally tens of dozens of large trout caught. wonder how many actually were eaten.

glad it's coming back... catch and release is a good thing, or release most of them anyway. someone on here has a tag line about a trout being too valuable to catch just once.

[trouthunter]

someone on here has a tag line about a trout being too valuable to catch just once.

Someone?

[Creekwader]

When I talk to the old timers about brook trout it seems like more of their old favorite locations have actually been lost to fish pollution rather than acid rain. What the acid rain has created by my observations is a quasi-sterile and sometimes unstable environment that can only sustain small fish and essentially a put-grow-take fishery. I've gotten to the point where if I have a day to fish I end up driving to the northeast part of the park where the ponds seem healthier and the fish bigger.

[fisher39]

When I talk to the old timers about brook trout it seems like more of their old favorite locations have actually been lost to fish pollution rather than acid rain.

That's what I was thinking. My guess is that if you compared what had a bigger impact on the quality of fishing in the Adirondacks - acid rain or competition from introduced species like Yellow Perch - the latter would would come out far, far ahead, even in the most acidified areas such as the western Adirondacks.

[colden46]

That's what I was thinking. My guess is that if you compared what had a bigger impact on the quality of fishing in the Adirondacks - acid rain or competition from introduced species like Yellow Perch - the latter would would come out far, far ahead, even in the most acidified areas such as the western Adirondacks.

I'm going to have to disagree with you about that last part. The quality of fishing is pretty darn low in a dead lake, which is what the most acidified areas are.

[otterbrookie]

I'm 52 and have spent 40 years camping and fishing in the Moose river rec area. When my friends Dad first took us fishing up there, it was incredibly easy (and fun). There was this one Lake (Beaver lake) that we would hike up to and when we waded across to the far side the trout waould be jumping. We would catch our limit in no time. That was during the late sixties. We still continue to camp, fish and enjoy the area but it is sad to see how the fishing has been affected by the acid rain. We hiked back in to Beaver Lake a couple of years ago and it was so still and we caught no fish. The streams produce some fish but you really have to work at it and be lucky.

[chairrock]

try this for specfic ponds, a bit dated but.....http://www.adirondacklakessurvey.org/choicepage.php

[ny-beaver]

I thought that DEC was stocking brook trout that can handle acid better. It's some type of new breed that are raised in acidic water.