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3. A warning about the little j

A couple day ago the money box at Greenhills Church Camp Grounds was stole and found later by police mils away. Their is talk about posting land and assess to river.
On the lower section of river,two toyotas were parked in the farmers corn field,their was some talk about that from the locials.
As a final note the bridge at Barrie will be closed for up to two years.

News form the J---by JAD

PS we have Yellow flies

I would encourage fly fishers to help police their own in terms of cars parked in the wrong spot, etc. It can be tricky, but if we approach people without a superior attitude, explain to them that land can get posted, and encourage them to ask before they park or to stick to clearly marked pull offs it may help. Also, it sounds like we should always lock up and keep an eye on each others' vehicles in terms of anyone suspicious. Nothing we can do about that bridge, though. Thanks for the heads up, John.

Thanks, John. I thought there were residences on the other side of that bridge. While I wouldn't be happy if I was a homeowner there, this could actually be good news for those of us who don't mind walking a little to get to a fishing spot. What do you say, Louis?

Finally, a little clarification: Was the fuss over cars being parked in a farmer's field or the fact that the cars in question were Japanese? Perhaps the locals could be appeased by our simply driving Chevy pickups to our fishing spots.

-Shawn

I have to travel some 1,600 - 1,700 miles to fish the J; I'll certainly not be letting an extra half mile of walking get in my way. Though, as Shawnny points out, maybe it'll keep some of the other folks at bay...

Back in 1993 George Griffith wrote a memoir called, "For the Love of Trout" and there is a line somewhere in there about "loving our rivers to death." I don't have any answers here, but it would of been nice years ago if the states would have recognised the importance of fresh water and stopped some of the development near the major sources of it...

There was a campaign and saying awhile back here that went, "It's the Fish Stupid!"...I always said, "It's really the fresh water, stupid!" I have said that one day there will be wars fought over the resouce here in the Great Lakes area...There are so many other developing area's away from the "Rust-Belt" that are dying to get their hands on our water...Without fresh water there are no trout.

It's a strange irony though that some of our nicer stretches of rivers have been protected by large tract owners. Think of the love/hate relationship with ranchers in Montana for example. They have kept large stretches free from development. There are some old hunt & fishing clubs in New York and Michigan that have preserved great stretches of river.

We had for awhile a similar problem on the Au Sable in an area with quite a few cabins. Anglers were parking all over the place and there really wasn't any access there. Some folks were upset and let air out of tires etc. Somehow a land swap/purchase was arranged and a small patch of land was set aside for parking...It took the cars off from the sides of the road etc. It's only a little longer walk to the river, but it solved the problem.

We have serious problems here in Michigan on the rivers that have runs of salmon and steelhead in them. The big fish sometimes brings out the worse in folks and from what I've seen were I a local landowner on the river I'd get a little steamed as well. Some places have hired guards to keep folks in the river and off the land.

Anyway...Maybe something can be worked out with some of the local fishing clubs and a landowner or the state even. Maybe there is a watershed council there or landowners association...If there isn't maybe there should be.

Hey...Just some random, disjointed thoughts here...Good luck!

Spence

As a native Pennsylvanian who will be coming back from the Midwest in 3-5 years, I see Pennsylvania as being in both good and bad shape in terms of the future of its high quality cold water fisheries.

Its good in terms of the vast tracts of public lands contained in the state forest system, the state game lands system and our one national forest. Assuming proper and judicious management and barring natural catastrophe, there will be a lot of good freestone wild trout fishing available well into the future. The one cloud on this horizon is what the eventual impact of the Marcellus "gas rush" turns out to be. As a native of the NW portion of the state, I'm well aware of the history of the industry in PA. It has not been nearly so much ruinous of cold water fisheries as it has been chronically suppressive of their quality. Sort of like rather than killing them outright, it gave many of them a long terms case of mono or walking pneumonia. We'll have to see what this Marcellus thing does. Its a different process with all the attendant things we cannot yet know.

PA's situation is considerably worse in terms of trout water on privately held lands. Its riparian access laws and proximity to the East Coast megablob have significantly cut into access opportunities on some of PA's best limestones through commoditization of the fisheries. This is troubling not only in the instant situation as it applies to access, it is also troubling for the future of the sport.

But Pennsylvania's biggest problem, IMO, at least, is that somehow, it missed the boat on the sort of forward looking easement system that in the anchor of much of the cold water fisheries access in other states, most notably, in my limited experience, NY and WI. And now, the sort of fiscal outlay that would be required to catch up is simply beyond anything the agencies or the state can do. 50 years ago, this may have not been the case. Land (to lease or buy) was cheaper and landowner demographics were much more favorable to this sort of program. But 50 years ago, PA did not see it coming. If the PFBC had put anywhere near the sort of revenue into access that the Game Commission did, there would not be a problem. But they did not. In the end, this situation may well be the wages of having a semi-autonomous fisheries agency without ready access to general fund revenues. I was always for this set-up because it helped keep biological decisions out of the hands of the halfwits in the PA legislature. But in retrospect, it also served to limit Commission revenues and was probably a contributor to the situation as it stands now.

Certainly, not all is gloom and doom. Far from it. But things are changing and I don't think the change, as it continues to unfold, is going to be good for access.

Mr. R-L-P,

Thanks for the warning you're coming back!

:)