Eight Years of Sampling Wild Trout Streams in North Central Pennsylvania For the PFBC's Unassessed Waters Program

Elaine Langone Center, Terrace Room

Since 2011 Susquehanna University has been a partner of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's Unassessed Waters Initiative. This cooperative program between the PFBC and colleges and universities seeks to collect biological data on previously unsampled (unassessed) streams across Pennsylvania to determine their status as possible new Wild Trout streams. Prior to this program which began in 2010, only 8% of the 62,725 streams across Pennsylvania had been sampled for biological data by the PFBC. Since 2011, Susquehanna University faculty, staff and students have surveyed 849 previously unassessed waters as part of the program. Sample sites across north central Pennsylvania have mostly been in the following major watersheds: Loyalsock Creek, Schrader Creek, Muncy Creek, Lycoming Creek, Buffalo Creek, Penns Creek, Swatara Creek, White Deer Creek, First Fork Sinnemahoning Creek, Redbank Creek and Dubois River. Over the course of 8 years we have found wild trout (brook and brown trout) in 47% of the streams (401 of the 849). In 2018, the majority of the sampling occurred in the following sub-basins: Redbank Creek, Little Sandy Creek, Sandy Lick Creek, First Fork Sinnemahoning Creek, and East Licking Creek. In 2018, we sampled 88 sites and found that 43 of the sites had wild trout in them. We found a total of 15 sites that were dry at the time of the surveys this summer. The Unassessed Waters Initiative has led to the designation of over 1700 new wild trout streams, with many more to be added in the future.