News & Updates:
2009 Jones Falls Stream Walk
On March 7, 2009, MDTU volunteers walked over ten miles of the upper Jones Falls and its tributaries. While enjoying the early pre-spring day along this stream, the volunteers collected observations as tong the overall health of the stream. This stream is of particular interest to MDTU because while being only minutes from downtown Baltimore, it is the home to one of the best wild brown trout populations in Maryland.
The Jones Falls is a wild trout stream just north of Baltimore City. The stream flows through Green Spring Valley before entering Lake Roland. Upon leaving Lake Roland it then flows south into Baltimore City to the Inner Harbor. The area above Lake Roland in the Green Spring Valley contains a healthy population of wild brown trout. The cold fertile springs of the Green Spring Valley provide enough cold water to keep the conditions ideal for trout for miles above Lake Roland. The Jones Falls is a productive but challenging fishery. There is good fishing even where it flows under the Baltimore Beltway. However its brown trout are wary and at times reclusive.
In an on-going effort to monitor and protect the Jones Falls, MDTU maintains a focus on the watershed. In cooperation with local landowners, MDTU conducts an annual watershed walk. This year on the first Saturday in March, an enthusiastic group of MDTU volunteers gathered at a pavilion in Baltimore County’s Meadowwood Park. The group, consisting of over twenty volunteers, was organized in teams of two. Each group was assigned a section of the Jones Falls watershed or one of its tributaries. Each team was instructed to walk and collect observations relating to the stream’s condition, appearance, and overall health. Upon returning the group enjoyed a cookout and a few did get to do some fishing.
While the Jones Falls is in good health, the evidence being its thriving wild brown trout population, its location causes it to be subject to ongoing threats inherent to a stream so close to a large metropolitan area. The Jones Falls being only minutes from over a million residents in the Baltimore area is continually threatened by pollution, development, poor farming practices, invasive species and list of other potential problems. This year’s stream walk yielded evidence of a healthy stream, however a few areas particular concern were identified.
1) On Deep Run (a tributary to Jones Falls), an area upstream of Seminary Avenue: A stretch for about 250 yards contained an excessive amount of trash and debris. The trash was ending up in the stream.
3) On the mainstem of Jones Falls upstream of Park Heights Avenue: This area has an irrigation pump station slowing the flow and a pipe draining from the field into the stream. This stretch contained an excessive amount of sediment, stream bank erosion, and algae. In addition, the farmer has built a stone tractor crossing through the stream.
MDTU’s efforts to monitor and protect the Jones Falls will continue. A wild trout resource so close to a major east coast city is certainly unique and worth preserving. To ensure this stream and its wild trout are around for future generations will be a challenge. Unless an awareness and appreciation of the Jones Falls continues, the stream and its trout will be neglected. The factors that threaten its health will go unchecked. The stream’s fragile ecosystem will rapidly degrade and the trout will eventually perish. Without a persistent and focused effort such as MDTU’s, this sober truth could be realized in just a few years.
Gunpowder Falls Tailwater 2008 Fall Trout Survey
Prepared
by Charlie Gougeon –
The
The
Generally, Blue Mount station showed a 33% increase in standing crop of
adult brown trout in 2008 and a 14% decrease in adult brown trout
density when
compared to estimates in 2007. The Blue Mount station was estimated in
2008 to
contain 36 kg/ha (32 lbs/acre) of brown trout adults and 487 brown
trout/km
(783 trout/mile). The Blue Mount station demonstrated fair recruitment
in 2008,
as 74 yoy brown trout were collected which resulted in an estimate of
271
yoy/km (436 yoy/mile). Brown trout
standing crop was estimated lower in 2007 at 24 lbs/acre. Although
adult
density was higher in 2007 (911 trout/mile), the trout were smaller in
average
size. Recruitment at Blue Mount station was estimated as 436 yoy/mile
in 2008
and 224 yoy/mile in 2007.
Overall, anglers will be met with a plethora of wild trout when fishing
the
Assistance was provided by staff from the MDNR Inland Fisheries Western
Region ,
Our thanks to all of those who participated in the survey this year or
who just appeared to offer their support!
City Catch 2008: A Sunny Success
Richard Schad
MDTU, in cooperation with Baltimore City, conducted another tremendous “City Catch” event this past April. If you are new to our chapter’s ctivities, City Catch is our partner program with the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks which provides Baltimore City children with a half day's fishing experience and a spin cast outfit to take home. We stock a local stream with trout, and provide the tackle, bait, and guides from our membership. The Recreation and Parks Department provides a hot dog lunch for the children. It is our Chapter's chance to teach the children something about streams and fishing, while demonstrating some fundamentals about watersheds and environmental ethics that might be new to them.
This year we moved the event back to the original City Catch site on Dead Run in Baltimore’s Leakin Park. We had been unable to use this ite in recent years due to water quality problems caused by faulty sewer pipes. But since the City has completed repairs, MDTU was able to return to our favored site.
Something more that was an improvement over our last event was the weather! The sunny sky and warm spring temperatures were a welcome improvement over the left–over hurricane rains we endured in October 2005 when we last hosted City Catch. Baltimore Recreation and Parks provided about 100 children for the event, all of whom were eager to catch some of the 800 rainbow trout we had stocked the day before. Our volunteer guides each assisted 2 to 4 children in the basics of casting and fishing during the morning. Low clear water and the only recently released fish, however, made it pretty tough to get them to take the bait. But our guides refused to give up for the children’s sake, and by midmorning we saw many guides abandoning the Power Bait for their own spinners and even flies with good success. Not everyone caught a trout, but I’m confident everyone had a great time, including our MDTU volunteers. A hotdog lunch followed the fishing to end a great day for the children and volunteers. And, yes, I heard from some who visited Dead Run on their own in the following weeks and reported great fishing.
So, we had great weather, no one was injured, many of the children caught fish, and our volunteers left with a great sense of satisfaction for their involvement in this unique program. MDTU wants tothank all our volunteers for their tremendous help and Tochterman’s Tackle Shop for their support. MDTU is looking to next spring for City Catch 2009, and we hope you will consider volunteering for the event.
Many thanks!
Invasive Species
Theaux LeGardeur
As we've learned this year, anglers can do their part in fighting the spread of Whirling disease and containing Didymo by subjecting their gear to an initial one minute wash with a 5% salt solution followed by thorough drying by exposure to sunlight. To help us be more responsible anglers, Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff has placed approved wash stations along stream access points on many popular streams throughout the state of Maryland. Of particular concern to the Gunpowder River in 2008 is Didymo, an algae that originally hails from Scotland that thrives in cold, nutrient poor water. Owing to its tail water character, the Gunpowder is just about ideal for this hard to manage invasive. As ongoing testing from MD DNR biologists has shown, Whirling Disease, which accounted for the untimely deaths of over 155,000 hatchery fish in 2007, has not yet shown up in the Gunpowder. However, as anglers we can certainly do our part to contain and stop the spread of these invasives by considering a "sticky" bottom for our wading shoes. It has been proven that the same gear recommended to fight Didymo also goes a long way in preventing the Whirling disease spores from spreading (typically by "untreated" felt soled shoes) into unaffected waterways. With Northern Snakeheads reported in the Potomac watershed this May, I don't think that we're that far off from seeing Old West era bounty signs littering the banks of the Potomac. The Northern Snakehead, an introduced species from Asia, is only one of 28 species commonly referred to as Snakeheads, and associated with both the aquarium and food trade. The toothy fish, which exhibit a primitive lung, can grow up to 15 lbs and have been aptly referred to as "Frankenfish." This invasive species first made it presence known in 2002 in a Crofton pond. The latest reports from May 2008 on the MD DNR's inFOCUS web page point to two Northern Snakeheads recently caught within a week of each other in the Potomac watershed. The first fish was caught in Little Hunting Creek, a Virginia Tributary of the Potomac; the second fish, an immature female, was caught on the Maryland side of the Potomac. Signs were posted this Spring at the Fort Washington Marina that advised anglers to: "Kill all northern Snakehead fish that are caught, retain the fish, and report them to DNR. his action is necessary to assess the number of northern snakehead fish in the Potomac, and the corresponding threat level to the ecosystem." "They are considered highly invasive with the potential to quickly affect native ecosystems. Once established, eradication of invasive species may be impossible." While removing these two fish is a small victory, it is inconceivable to imagine what kind of effort it would take to remove these hardy creatures entirely if they had a little more "breathing room." Lesson learned: it's much easier to introduce a species than contain it. Case in point, a friend of mine just returned from Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and told me of the veritable bounty, (compared to our recently passed no kill regulations for Brook trout in the state of Maryland) on Brook trout in the Park because they have become so prolific they're now damaging Green Back Cutthroat habitat. Maryland's DNR and the USGS are now working together to have all Snakeheads listed as "injurious" under the Lacey Act, which could provide grounds to stop the importation of these damaging fish. For more on invasives, check out the Fish and Wildlife Service website: www.protectyourwaters.net.
Jone Falls Stream Walk Report
Tom Starrs
On May 10, 2008, in spite of heavy rains, a few MDTU volunteers came out to assist with the Jones Falls stream walk. The upstream section of the Jones Falls above Lake Roland in Baltimore County is MDTU’s area of focus because it is home to one of the best wild brown trout populations in the state of Maryland. With its close proximity to the Baltimore metropolitan area and the region’s one million residents, this stream is a unique treasure unlike any other in the region. It is this special trout stream that will need the awareness and the efforts of many to preserve it for future generations. This is why our chapter sees this as a vital resource worth protecting. MDTU has been involved in conservation efforts along the Jones Falls since the early 1970s. These efforts have helped foster an ongoing collaboration between our chapter and the stream valley’s landowners for more than 30 years. This makes it possible to share the long-term vision of protecting the Jones Falls, while aligning the interest of conservationists, fishermen, landowners and all parties concerned with the welfare of the Jones Falls. This year’s stream walk results yielded evidence of a stream in excellent health. However, the volunteers recorded observations reflecting the typical concerns that have plagued the Jones Falls in the past: erodingbanks, sedimentation, horse and tractor crossings, drainpipes leading into the stream, lack of stream side buffer, and other potential threats to the stream’s health. After the stream walk, there was a cookout at one of the Meadowood Park pavilions for the stream walk volunteers. Upon leaving the park, I could not happen to notice how well Deep Run, a tributary running through the county park, was holding up with all the rain. It was running full, but clear. I decided to go down stream about a mile on the Jones Falls to do one more type of stream assessment—with a fly rod. With a few casts I made the final observation of the day. The Jones Falls brown trout are doing just fine.