Trout Power 2016 Field Study
As always when one tries to change anything, there is always resistance to change. Usually opinions arise based on lack of information, and what starts as a comment can turn into quarrel.
So what are the facts around Trout Power 2016 and the Sagamore Historic Preservation Management Plan?
Preservation: The whole reason that Trout Power and Great Camp Sagamore want to do the creel study is because of a desire to preserve the wild fish in the watersheds around Sagamore Lake. In order to do so, we need to establish a baseline. What is the current state of the ecosystem right now? We will find out.
History: In the late 1800's Dr. Arpad Gerster frequented this area and with special access granted to him by W.W. Durant himself, he fished and camped all along the backs of this area. His notes are now reference that wild fish existed in the turn of the century, and because of this historical reference this watershed should be deemed protected wild brook trout water and should never be stocked by hatchery fish.
Methods: In this study only fly fishing, catch and release, barbless hooks will be allowed. Anglers will be instructed by Trout Power and will be trained with proper methods to document, and release these fish un-harmed. Fish will be caught, placed in a clear bag for photograph, and a small fin clip the size of a 1/4 inch square will be sampled from the specimen and packaged in approved containers. Then the fish are released gently. Later these fin clip samples will be sent to the New York State Museum to be classified. All data will be put in a data base by Trout Power.
Science: In 2015 Trout Power did a WAVE assessment of the creek. This is a set of protocols that one can be trained in, by the State DEC, to study the macro invertebrates in the stream bed to discover if the body of water is impacted by anything negative. What we found was that the watershed was not impacted and was very healthy. Current Ph levels are around 6 or 6.2. In the past they measured as acidic as 5.0.
Reasoning: There is Historic reference to this watershed in the stories and encounters by Dr. Gerster. This historic reference coincides with the Special Management Area around the great camp. Because of this historic documentation, the wild brook trout and lake trout in the area are covered under this land use and need to be protected just like the trees, and other organisms that make up this ecosystem.
Protection: In this study we will be catching and releasing mainly brook trout, photographing them, measuring them, and taking a very small fin clip that will be processed for DNA classification. Invasive species such as smallmouth bass and perch will also be documented. Because we are fairly certain there is wild brook trout in this ecosystem, we want it protected as Catch and Release Fly Fishing only water, single hook only, no bait, and barbless hook only. The data collected in this study will prove or deny that wild fish actually exist. All assessment up to this point is speculation and anecdotal. This will be the data that determines the origins of these existing populations of fish.
Risk: Because these streams are so small, just one angler that abuses this fishery can devastate the population of brook trout and the wild breeding DNA that exists in their blood. Bait fishing has been proven time and time again to not only be extremely harmful to the fish that are released, but also greatly decreases the chances of a quality release at all, and is a large risk of contamination and litter to the environment. It is strongly recommended that bait fishing is not allowed in this fishery at all, and we are proposing to ban bait fishing in this Special Management Area entirely.
Field papers of interest to Trout Power
Brook Trout Diversity in Labrador
Lake trout stocking and its affect on genetic diversity paper
Acid recovery in Adirondack Lakes and Ponds
Risk Management: This ecosystem is absolutely too fragile and too important to allow it to be managed under basic fishing regulations. So how do you manage this area to not be abused?
- There is a Ranger Station right at the end of Sagamore Road. This area will be patrolled heavily not only by the state but also by Trout Power and Sagamore team members.
- Under the Special Management Area guidelines, no trails will be cut in this area. Therefore the wild areas of this ecosystem will only be explored by those that are able to navigate in the wild bush. There are no proposals for any parking areas or anything to promote and allow for an increase of use. We want to leave it as is.
- As stated, fishing methods will be regulated by law as only being fly fishing, catch and release and single barbless hook. Because of the size of the streams in this area; bait and even tandem fly rigs have too high a risk to harm the small wild fish in the water.
Why not just keep it a secret? If this place is so great, then why not just keep it a secret? The answer to this is simple... it is not a secret. Proof of this is in the blue bait containers that we pick up every season. Usually the fishing is great for about a month or so, and then one day we will trek to our favorite spot and catch nothing. Not a bite, and not even a sign of a rising fish. Then on the way back up the trail we will spot something on the bank. A used empty worm container will stand in the weeds, misplaced and unrelenting.
It was the great John Muir that inspires us at Trout Power. If someone does not stand for the mountains, who will?
Although John Muir did so much for the National Parks, there is one learning from his experiences that haunts us. It is the damning of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. Too late did John Muir bring to sight the importance of this valley and how beautiful it is, and that it needs to be preserved. Only too late the valley was damned and its natural cathedral of beauty was covered with 175 feet of water so that man could reap more "good" from the earths resources. It is only in this failure, does one find understanding and perspective to win. We don't want this to happen to the beautiful places in the Adirondacks. In this case the Great Camp Sagamore and its surrounding watershed is too special to leave it as is... the water, and the fish that live in it need to be protected and preserved for generations to come.
If you do not support this, or you find yourself totally against the preservation of wild brook trout in the Adirondacks, please take a moment and read these quotes below, and perhaps just one will make you change your mind.
Quotes by John Muir.
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
― John Muir mystic quotes
“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
― John Muir
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
― John Muir, Our National Parks
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
― John Muir quote
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity...”
― John Muir
“The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”
― John Muir
“The sun shines not on us but in us.”
― John Muir
“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
― John Muir quote
“Keep close to Nature's heart...and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
― John Muir
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
― John Muir
“I will follow my instincts, and be myself for good or ill.”
― John Muir
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”
― John Muir
“Going to the mountains is going home.”
― John Muir quote
“As long as I live, I'll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I'll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can".”
― John Muir
“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”
― John Muir
“Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.”
― John Muir quote, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”
― John Muir
“In God's wildness lies the hope of the world.”
― John Muir spiritual quote
“Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.”
― John Muir
“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
― John Muir, Our National Parks
“Earth has no sorrow that earth can not heal.”
― John Muir
“Most people are on the world, not in it-- having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them-- undiffused seporate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate. ”
― John Muir mystic quote
“There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties”
― John Muir
“Going to the woods is going home.”
― John Muir quote
“God never made an ugly landscape. All that sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.”
― John Muir
“God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons.”
― John Muir
“When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.”
― John Muir
“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news”
― John Muir
“Everybody needs beauty...places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.”
― John Muir quote
“Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance.”
― John Muir, John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings
“Who wouldn't be a mountaineer! Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing”
― John Muir
“Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress...”
― John Muir quote
“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains”
― John Muir
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”
― John Muir
“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.”
― John Muir
“One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books.”
― John Muir quote
“One should go to the woods for safety, if for nothing else.”
― John Muir, Our National Parks
“Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and give strength to body and soul alike.”
― John Muir
“How narrow we selfish conceited creatures are in our sympathies! How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation!”
― John Muir
“Writing is like the life of a glacier; one eternal grind.”
― John Muir
“Long, blue, spiky-edged shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to me the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed like devout worshippers waiting to be blessed.”
― John Muir, The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
― John Muir quote
“Nothing truly wild is unclean.”
― John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
“The wrongs done to trees, wrongs of every sort, are done in the darkness of ignorance and unbelief, for when the light comes, the heart of the people is always right.”
― John Muir
“God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fool”
― John Muir
“We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men.”
― John Muir quote, The Mountains of California
“Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.”
― John Muir, The Wilderness World of John Muir
“Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.”
― John Muir, The Wilderness World of John Muir
“Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant.”
― John Muir, Travels in Alaska
“Anyhow we never know where we must go, nor what guides we are to get---people, storms, guardian angels, or sheep....”
― John Muir
“Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”
― John Muir
“Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California
“I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness.”
― John Muir, Wilderness Essays
“What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!”
― John Muir quote Stickeen
“One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made; that this is still the morning of creation; that mountains long conceived are now being born, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes...”
― John Muir
“In drying plants, botanists often dry themselves. Dry words and dry facts will not fire hearts.”
― John Muir
“I was awakened by a tremendous earthquake, and though I hadn ever before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken, and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and frightened, shouting, "A noble earthquake! A noble earthquake" feeling sure I was going to learn something.”
― John Muir, The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures
“No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is Beauty!”
― John Muir
These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.”
― John Muir quote
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life. Awakening from the stupefying effects of the vice of over-industry and the deadly apathy of luxury, they are trying as best they can to mix and enrich their own little ongoings with those of Nature, and to get rid of rust and disease.”
― John Muir, Our National Parks
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
― John Muir quote
“…their eager, childlike attention was refreshing to see as compared with the decent, deathlike apathy of weary civilized people, in whom natural curiosity has been quenched in toil and care and poor, shallow comfort.”
― John Muir, Wilderness Essays
“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.”
― John Muir
“If for a moment you are inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps, climb to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling, puttering hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even speed. You will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly discover the music and poetry of these magnificent rock piles -- a fine lesson; and all Nature's wildness tells the same story -- the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods, the silent up-rush of sap in plants, storms of every sort -- each and all are the orderly beauty-making love-beats of Nature's heart.”
― John Muir
“Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action.”
― John Muir quote, The Mountains of California
“I ran home in the moonlight with firm strides; for the sun-love made me strong.”
― John Muir, The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures
“Never while anything is left of me shall this... camp be forgotten. It has fairly grown into me, not merely as memory pictures, but as part and parcel of mind and body alike.”
― John Muir
“...full of God's thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons of life, mountain building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stone, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful with humanity.”
― John Muir quotes
“God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. Even so, God cannot save them from fools.”
― John Muir quote
“Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer.”
― John Muir
“...every sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality.”
― John Muir, Wilderness Essays
“It is always interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make everybody earnest.”
― John Muir, Our National Parks
“All the world was before me and every day was a holiday, so it did not seem important to which one of the world's wildernesses I first should wander.”
― John Muir, The Yosemite
“So also there are tides and floods in the affairs of men, which in some are slight and may be kept within bounds, but in others they overmaster everything.”
― John Muir quotes
“At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed like devout worshippers waiting to be blessed.”
― John Muir quote
“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like
worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.
― John Muir
“Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.”
― John Muir quote, The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures
“I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!”
― John Muir
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.”
― John Muir
“It was the afternoon of the day and the afternoon of his life, and his course was now westward down all the mountains into the sunset. [speaking about Ralph Waldo Emerson]”
― John Muir quote, Our National Parks
“The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.”
― John Muir mystic quote
“The finest of the glacier meadow gardens lie ...imbedded in the upper pine forests like lakes of light.”
― John Muir, Our National Parks
“C. albus...I think the very loveliest of all the lily family - a spotless soul, plant saint, that every one must love and so be made better. It puts the wildest mountaineer on his good behavior. With this plant the whole world would seem rich though non other existed.”
― John Muir, Our National Parks
“...therefore all childish fear must be put away.”
― John Muir quote, Wilderness Essays
“We were glad, however, to get within reach of information…”
― John Muir, Wilderness Essays
“He had gone to the higher Sierras... [about Ralph Waldo Emerson's death]”
― John Muir quote, Our National Parks
“In the beauty and grandeur of individual trees, and in number and variety of species, the Sierra forests surpass all others”
― John Muir, Our National Parks
“This is Nature's own reservation, and every lover of wildness will rejoice with me that by kindly frost it is so well defended.”
― John Muir, Our National Parks quote
For information and booking Email: info@greatcampsagamore.org
Phone: 315-354-5311 X21
more info at Sagamore.org
http://www.jprossflyrods.com/
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