Ep 62: Georgia Mountain Brookies, with Palmer Henson and Sarah Baker
Palmer Henson is an angler from Georgia (also appearing in episode 3), who has spent the last few years trying to hunt down as many brook trout streams as he can in Georgia. Sarah Baker is a Fisheries Biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources who focuses on trout. Palmer and Sarah have been working together on a sort of “citizen science” project, in which Palmer’s personal passion for finding remote brook trout streams assists the DNR with their surveys. In this episode, Palmer and Sarah discuss how they got connected, how they’ve been working together to uncover new brook trout streams, and a few ways the DNR will be able to use the data to protect this iconic species.
Palmer’s Instagram: @lost_angel_fly_fishing
Sarah’s email: sarah.baker@dnr.ga.gov
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 62 with Palmer Henson and Sarah Baker on Georgia mountain brookies. well I guess we can just get started Palmer I'm sure a lot of people already know your name having been on one of the very first episodes of the podcast but I'm gonna maybe just go back and forth between you guys and get just a recap on you, Palmer, what you've been up to, and then we can get an introduction from Sarah as well.
Palmer
That sounds great. Why don't I just start by giving some basic changes and progress since, you know, it's been two years since we recorded the first podcast, and I've probably put in another 100 plus days on tiny brook trout streams, maybe more, because during COVID, I tended to hit those streams a lot more than I had been just because I couldn't travel and do other kinds of fishing. So it's probably been more than a hundred more days. When we last left off, I had gotten 70, found 74 brook trout streams or caught brook trout on 74 streams in North Georgia. I just last weekend hit 102. But my rate of finding streams has plummeted. first first year I got the first year I really put a lot of effort into it I picked up 14 streams but it was it wasn't really a full year and then at 28 the next year then 42 and then since we've talked I've you know I dropped down to 11 last year and just four so far this year. So it's, it's gotten really difficult to find, find new streams. And I've, from a technique standpoint, things like that, I probably haven't changed too much. I've, I've been fishing nymphs a bit more during the winter. You know, which you would have thought I would have done that anyway. But I, you know, for the first couple of years, I had spent a lot of time with dry flies. So I've been fishing nymphs a lot more in the winter, even employing some Euro-nymphing techniques with San Juan worms and things. So that's been good and kind of productive. And then probably the biggest change is I've been spending lots of time with the DNR, and particularly Sarah and one of her colleagues, namely Leon Brotherton, who we'll talk about a little bit. I just two years ago met a trout biologist with the DNR who covered North Georgia. And within a matter of weeks of us recording that last podcast, he resigned and went off to school to get his PhD. And it was quite a while. It must have been nearly a year before Sarah took over his position. But in the meantime, I spent a bunch of time with this fellow Leon Brotherton, who we'll talk about, who's been with the DNR for must be like 30-ish plus or minus years and grew up, you know, spent his whole life in the North Georgia mountains. And it's just unbelievable. And the combination of he and Sarah together is just incredible. is like just knowledge of everything up there. Then Sarah will give during her description of her background, you know, her educational background and things like that. So it's an awesome combination. So Sarah, you want to jump in and talk about yourself?
Sarah
Sure. Well, yeah, as Palmer said, I am the trout biologist for the Jordan Department of Natural Resources. So I cover, that's about 4,000 miles of streams. It's a lot of fun. I greatly enjoy my job. And I didn't actually plan on going into fisheries when I first kind of started. I'll give a little intro about in high school, they offered this. It was called Entomology and Art. And I thought, hmm, we're going to be drawing bugs? Okay. So I signed up for it because I do really like bugs. And it was a fly tying class. So I was really enamored with it. And it just took a lot of patience. And it was tedious. So I guess I was attracted to that. But I had never fly fished before. So I didn't have any practical use for it. So flash forward to college and they offered a fly fishing class. And so I took that class. And, you know, whenever you take an intro class to anything, you get the basics and you get familiar with the equipment. But practicing is just a whole new, like actually putting that into motion is a whole new world. So I didn't actually get to fish until a couple of years after that. And at this point, I had originally wanted to go into into pediatrics. So I was studying at the College of Idaho in just general biology with some pre-medicine minors. And then I took this ecology, evolution, and diversity course and was just captivated. The instructor, the professor was really just this amazing guy. He loved the natural world, loved studying it. And he invited me to go and deploy some temperature loggers and some streams. I said, okay, extra credit. Sure. So I did that. And, I didn't, I didn't really realize that there was a whole world beyond just being a park ranger, for example. So he got me plugged in and I just fell in love with, the entire discipline of fisheries. And, I was uniquely attracted to, how trout can be such important indicators to human health and how, when we make sure that we're looking at patterns related to trout, we can also find patterns related to human health. So those indicator species are really important. And, I just continued on, got my master's at Auburn university and worked on a trout fishery to water fishery there. And, then got to come to Georgia and meet Palmer. So Leon told, I remember it, we were sitting in the truck and he said, you know, I really think you need to meet this guy. He's, he's like actually serious about brook trout in Georgia. And I thought to myself, all right, you know, we'll see because a lot of people are very passionate about brook trout and, and I love it. I love that. But, anyway, so we got to meet, I got to meet Palmer and he truly is the most dedicated angler I've ever met. It's fantastic.
Katie
Hearing your background is just really interesting because I feel like a lot of people, most people that I know got into fisheries, they got into it because they loved fishing or something like that. And it kind of seems like for you, it was reversed. But I know that you mentioned in the like, intro document that you also like hunt, hunt fish and all these outdoor things. Did this all come after this? You know, was this all triggered by a fly tying class in high school? Or did you pick up some of these other things on the way?
Sarah
Yeah, it really was triggered by that, which is really cool. And, you know, I mean, it, it definitely speaks to the volume of, you know, having classes like that in your high school, you know? Um, but yeah, so my husband and I didn't hunt and mind you, I was born and raised in Idaho. Like I spent a lot of time hiking in the mountains, backpacking and camping, but, you know, we would go fishing for pike, once in a while and we would yellow perch. And, and so we just, we just really enjoyed that, But it wasn't anything, you know, you were just kind of along with the family. But then when I came to the southeast, I really put learn from a lot of people. And it really is important to find people to connect with over a sport, because that's how you really learn how to get better at it. So for the example, there was a biologist in Auburn who said, sorry, there's a fisheries biologist who said, yeah, why don't you come out and hunt on my property? So that was a big shift in my mind was a majority of hunting opportunities in the southeast were on private land. And obviously out west, public land is where it's at. So that was kind of a shift in my mentality, but I got to learn in that way. And so after being in Alabama and learning how to hunt, my husband and I started doing it together in Georgia, and we really enjoyed learning how to do that. So that's awesome. On public land.
Katie
And so I saw that you have kind of worked your way through a bunch of different states. Was that all kind of doing very similar work to what you're doing now, but just like in different states or have you kind of run a gamut of different jobs related to fisheries?
Sarah
Yeah, it's fisheries will take you places. That's, that's kind of a fun reality, but yeah. So I've worked in Nevada and Washington and yeah, Alabama, Georgia. I can't even remember the other ones, but Charter Limited was kind of my first job. So I got to work under the science team out of Boise, Idaho. Just an incredible group of scientists out of that office, Dan DeWalter and Helen Netville, among a couple of others. And so I got to go out and deploy temperature loggers and retrieve them, hike in the backcountry and just really hone in on a lot of the skills that you need to be in the outdoors for long periods of time. So really got to experience a lot of neat things in that job. And I had that for two summers, actually met my husband, the second summer working for TU. And then I worked for a private organization and we focused primarily on habitat. So it was with the Columbia Habitat Monitoring Program. And that was just really cool because it was looking at habitat restoration projects and how like we call them post and analog. So you put these wood pieces in the stream. And then we went through with a top con total station and actually 3D imaged the channel. So how that channel changed throughout time. So, you know, the whole goal is to try to quantify what the habitat projects are actually doing, how many pools are actually creating. And then on top of those, we would do population surveys. So then we would count the number of fish actually using those habitats over time. So really cool. I loved working for that organization and then, yeah, to water system. So it was kind of cool how it was always trout for me. So I feel like most people get more of a broader experience with their species, but mine was specifically trout. So it's been fun. But one major difference is in the West, obviously, brook trout are non-native and more on the invasive. And then out here, obviously, brook trout are the native and they're very special and near and dear to my heart now.
Katie
So tell me what what like a typical day of work for you looks like now, like what what specific projects are you working on? And I guess we'll just transition this into kind of how you guys are working together. Palmer with your projects, your personal projects, and how that's kind of integrating with what you're working on, Sarah.
Sarah
Sure. So a typical summer day for us is we strap on some backpack electrofishers. So it has an anode and a cathode, and it creates an electrical current in the actual stream. And then we go along and we have them in three different sections of a river, about 300 meters total. And we'll do a depletion survey and collect trout, identify them by species and then length weights. So that's pretty standard. And, and that will get and then we'll look at how those data change over time. And that just gives us some population estimates. And those are important because it can really tell us a lot more about how our populations are changing and give us some ideas about maybe why. So obviously I'm still new to the position. So I've been going through historical records of, I think we sample roughly 17 streams. So it doesn't sound like a lot of work, like 17, but it actually ends up being pretty, pretty a lot of work. And so those, those don't change over time. So we do those same streams over the years. And for example, my predecessor was able to find that brook trout are really influenced by the floods that happen in the fall season. Obviously, brook trout will spawn in October, early November. But if we get a tropical storm or tropical depression to come through, all of those eggs are just washed downstream and can significantly impact that particular year's young of year production. However, what we've also identified is even though those years will happen, for the most part, brook trout are really resilient. So they'll come up and down and up and down, depending on those extreme weather events. So that's it in a nutshell. And now what we're also do is improve our historical records. So in the 60s, we were able to go out and sample streams throughout North Georgia, and now we don't have any updated information. So we're going out and seeing, okay, that stream that was sampled in this year, does it still have brook trout? And so that kind of is a good segue to our Palmer and I's relationship here.
Katie
yeah so after you guys met how how did it become something more than just I like Brook Trout you work with Brook Trout how can we work together like Palmer what what were you told because I heard her side of the story of how how she found out about you but you know what what did you hear? when did she contact you and and what did she say that you could help her with
Palmer
no Leon Leon and I and I called Leon just to check in and he he said you know we've got a new biologist who you've got to meet and so we all just got together for lunch one day and it turned out it was a probably a two and a half hour three hour lunch just talking about all the you know it was really kind of Leon and I just talking for a couple straight hours about streams. You know, it was kind of unbelievable the number of streams that Leon can just talk about, you know, off the top of his head, having been involved in it for so long and talking about where I found Brook Trout and where he thought there were Brook Trout. And then, you know, we just kind of carry that on. And Sarah was almost like kind of a bystander in those early discussions, but then kind of kicked in more heavily because it's really her job to track all these kinds of things. So Sarah and I now, you know, she has, she's probably got better insights into my database and all the things that I'm doing than maybe I do with hers. They'll point me to streams and say, you know, you didn't find brook trout here. And we thought, you know, we were pretty confident there were brook trout there. And I'll go refish and look for brook trout on those streams. Then if I don't find any brook trout on those streams, they might go electroshock. The streams, I know this summer, they're going to go electroshock, you know, a dozen or so streams that used to have brook trout. And I haven't found brook trout on them and just kind of confirm whether they're there or not. But the databases, I've got 227 streams in my database now, you know, and 102 I found brook trout on. another 90 something I've convinced myself they're definitely not brook trout and then the rest either I've fished and I haven't convinced myself or I haven't haven't gotten to yet and I'm yeah I'm I'm sharing all that information with with Sarah and Leon and they can you know they're they're basically just kind of comparing it to what their results are and updating I don't know if they're really updating their databases, but they're checking them out and starting to speculate why there wouldn't be brook trout in some of these places. And of course I'm trying to find brook trout in places that aren't on their radar. And when I do, there was a point earlier in the spring where Sarah and I, I had a stream where I knew there were brook trout, I'd caught them there and they weren't on their database at all. So Sarah and I went up there and caught some brick trout and she got pictures of it. She was able to document it. And now they, you know, that's an established population. So if it ever disappears in the future, one, they'll know it disappears, but two, they could conceivably restock it if they wanted to. And we found, you know, kind of comparing and looking for brick trout, we've found all kinds of little anomalies and things like that. We found a couple of streams where there probably shouldn't be any brook trout. The elevations are too low and there are a bunch of rainbows and things like that. But at one point they were stocked and no one ever thought maybe a population would take. But they definitely successfully spawned at least one time. And there's some wild brook trout now. We found that a couple of times. Good vera, it's pretty crazy the number of streams where they've disappeared. But then there are also the majority where they thought they were brook trout, or where I found brook trout, they'll look and confirm, yeah, we knew about that population.
Katie
Are you almost acting as a feeler system where you'll go out and just scout around and maybe bring up some places they hadn't heard about before, or at least give them a good idea of whether, you know, we should definitely go survey this. Because I assume that even if you catch a brook trout out of there, Sarah, I would assume that you still have to go shock it to get the actual like survey numbers and things like that. You can't just, you know, check a box and be like, yep, there's brook trout out there because we got a picture of one. So is that just kind of like a preliminary, like Palmer goes out, sends us back a report that like, hey, there's brook trout here, like definitely go there and survey or, you know, hey, I didn't, I fished here for three days and didn't catch anything. So what would you do with that information when he tells you something, Do you hear, I didn't catch anything, so maybe hold off on surveying that one for a little bit and go survey one that there are fish? This is just such a fascinating process of almost like citizen science here. I just want to know how it works.
Sarah
Yeah, yeah, you're right on. I mean, Palmer will text Leon and I with a beautiful picture of a brookie, and he'll put a stream name down. And Leon will say, awesome. And then I'll know if Leon says awesome. that means it's probably, it's already been documented. And then, and then if he doesn't put anything, then I'll hear from him the following Monday morning that says, you know, Hey, did you see what Palmer found? And I'll say, Oh, is that a new one? And he's like, yeah, I'm not sure that that's on our index, you know? And, so anybody will, will, we'll like look and check and make sure. Um, but yeah, I, exactly what you're saying. It's, it's just kind of a good preliminary way for us to have that on our radar. And, and I think that what really helps is that Palmer doesn't just go and fish a stream and say, Hey, I caught a bunch of rainbows. Palmer will go to that same stream. Maybe what Palmer four or five times before saying, okay, I really don't think there's brook trout here. Right. If there were one, he would have found one by now. Yeah. Yeah. So he, and, and also his fishing trips aren't just like an hour long. Right. So he's been, he's taken me on a couple of his trips and, they are very meticulously planned. He knows the topography very well. He knows exactly where they would probably be at what elevation and everything like that. So he, he plans these really well. And, I, completely trust his fishing ability. So it'll be funny. Sometimes it's like, Liam, I'll say, nah, there's, there's gotta be brook trout in there. There's gotta be. And so I'm like, okay. So yeah, we're, we're just ending our standardized sampling. And now we're going to head into our, what I'm calling historic stream sampling and, and Palmer's, you know, streams are how I'm kind of prioritizing how we're going to, the streams that we're going sample this year. You know, obviously we'd like to go and sample 50 streams, but the practicality of that is just not there. So we've looked at the streams that Palmer has fished and feels really confidently that he hasn't captured anything. And where our records indicate that yes, there are those populations, because as Palmer said, you know, if, if there's, if that population has gone away, you know, we need to know about that because that's really important information. As he said, you know, we'll work to translocate fish to try to reestablish a population there.
Katie
Now, if he goes to fish somewhere, I assume, you know, he obviously is looking at where brook trout might be based on elevation, things like that. But also, he has to fish where he can fish. You know, he's, I assume you're not going to be hiking back 30 miles into some stream, Palmer. No offense, I'm sure. I remember you were quite the outdoor athlete back in the day. But do you basically always go sample where he has fished or are you assessing it separately of where you're going to sample? Because I could just picture it being that the ideal place to sample might not always be the perfect place for Palmer to go access it and fish it.
Palmer
So one thing that you have to keep in mind is the electroshocking equipment. You have a 30-pound backpack it's like a big brick and then you've got the wand is I don't know five feet long Sarah six feet long yeah and then you've got long handled nets too so so the reality is I can cover like way more water and get like way deeper in up into the mountains with you know with a fly rod particularly if it's broken down I'm just like that and I don't know if you remember from the first podcast, the vegetation's just so incredibly thick and the trails and roads and things that are going in there are frequently just completely overgrown. So I can actually get a lot more places without the electroshocking equipment than they can. It's kind of the reverse of what you're thinking. I mean, they're electroshocking places that are reasonably accessible. I mean, one of the outcomes of this is Sarah's ready to go electroshock some difficult places and the rest of the team is kind of like whoa time out just because Palmer found Bertrand there doesn't mean we're we're dragging you know two two electroshocking units back in there so so it's the range that I have fishing you know but obviously it's you know particularly if it's in the winter you know I'm not It's a far less certain thing, fishing than electric hockey.
Katie
I guess that leads me to a different question then. What if you find brook trout in a place that they can't really access? Do you make the best of it and access it where you can? What's the process there? If you're like, I found brook trout, but man, it's going to be really hard for you to get back up in there.
Palmer
I just wish them luck.
Katie
Maybe I'll direct it more towards Sarah.
Palmer
I've gotten better about taking pictures. Yeah, it was two years ago. And part of it is you'll remember we've got our, my fishing, little fishing group. And I have our Lost Angel fly fishing group, which Sarah is now a proud member of. We actually doubled our membership during COVID, which is particularly impressive given we still don't offer a single benefit to our members. but we said we started an instagram and because of that we have like a whopping like 90 followers so it hasn't exactly gone viral but because of that I've like been trying to take pictures which has allowed me to you know I started carrying a camera and so now I'm documenting where I'm catching brook trout which it's kind of a long way around to but yeah it's I think there are plenty of places where, yeah, they won't, if the part of the stream that they're likely to electroshock, they might not find brook trout. But I'm going, you know, if I go a mile further in or a mile and a half further in, you know, maybe they're some up higher and in the denser areas. And, you know, another part of that too, I'd love to get Sarah to jump in on this one also. A lot of the areas say sample maybe have had stream improvements and they're closer to the road so it's easier for other fishermen to access so frequently I'll be fishing a you know stream that's maybe a little bit better known and fish through some stream improvements and not find any brook trout you know find find like nothing but you know half a mile later I'm starting to get into brook trout you know my speculation is that people just come in you know bait fishermen and just clean it out I might be wrong about that but I don't know Sarah what what your thought is on all that
Sarah
yeah as far as access goes I think that I will definitely be leading the guys into some challenges because I think that Palmer does do a pretty good job of just getting an estimate you know when when Palmer finds the stream that we also know is a productive population of brook trout is hardy. He'll catch what we catch. You know, he'll catch, you know, a handful of young of year brook trout and he'll catch a handful of, you know, size four to five inches. And then he might catch one that's a whopping seven and a half inches. And that pretty much represents what we'll get in our electrofishing example. So to me, that would be a population that is stable. And so I don't think that, you know, if he found a stream and said, yeah, it's, it's there, I caught a lot of fish, lots of different sizes, you know, and, and maybe Palmer, this has kind of changed since you've met me. I'm not sure. But I would trust that that's a solid stream. And, and if he shows me a picture of it, we're not going to go investigate it. So right now that's not necessarily my priority. is to try to get a formal sample done on those types of streams. So that would kind of say, okay, we've added a brook trout stream to our knowledge. So we're more on the back end of Palmer not catching anything. And then we are going to have to find the challenging ways to get back in the bushes. we do back yeah we do do it even though it's painful sometimes
Katie
so that maybe answers my next question which was going to be say he goes up somewhere and you know definitely catches brook trout but it's out of your range to sample I was wondering like on the on the scientific side is it one of those things where it's worthless unless you can truly get it like a measurement from you guys like or do you just have to basically toss out the anecdotal like there are fish in there or you can it sounds like you can kind of still use that like if you couldn't get up in there to get the formal sample which would be ideal you could say like hey we can at least chalk this up say there's brook trout in there you might move on to something else in the meantime that's more accessible but it's not completely I don't mean worthless like just personally worthless but it wouldn't be considered scientifically worthless to just have that anecdotal evidence even if you couldn't get up there
Sarah
right right okay and and it's currently you know angling is not an official form of sampling technique that fish, that fishery biologists enjoy.
Katie
They could be like, well, we can't really acknowledge this because it's not what we measured, you know?
Sarah
Yeah. But, but I have just kind of taken the liberty to go with Palmer when he tells me of a new one and I'm like, okay, well, I will unofficially sample this.
Katie
I'll go take a couple casts in the name of science.
Sarah
Yeah, exactly.
Palmer
You know, one thing that Just to make clear, the reason that Sarah is so focused on the exceptions, where they think they're brook trout and I haven't found any, is because usually we agree on nearly every stream, particularly with Leon. Leon and I almost never disagree on where we're likely to find brook trout or where I found them. I mean, we go through stream after stream after stream, you know, agreeing and agreeing and agreeing. And then, you know, when I'm not finding brook trout, it's kind of a bigger deal, you know, because they'll know that there were definitely brook trout there at some point in the past. You know, he will encourage me to go do some wild goose chases just out of curiosity, but that's good. That's all part of it. But he, you know, Leon is all those years he's spent just in the woods in North Georgia. And when he's not, I mean, he's in the woods working, you know, focused on the research side of everything Sarah's doing. But then he's, you know, he's hunting, you know, deer and turkey and he's looking for mushrooms and he's digging up ginseng and he's looking for sheds. I mean, he's like all in on the North Georgia mountains and he's been doing it for a really long time and just knows so much. it's a from my perspective having spent you know a bunch of time with them you know as as like someone who's in an office you know all day every day and just does this on the weekends being with people who are all in all the time you know Sarah didn't mention her I mean she talked about her husband you might have figured it out but he's he's also a biologist with a he just got his masters Sarah is that right or one masters maybe he's getting another one they we joke that they only speak latin around the house and then you know there's an another person that's you know is has actually been a big part of this also named rob smith who he's kind of a a local legend in Atlanta he he works out of a are kind of the biggest fly shop in Atlanta called the fishhawk. And Rob is, he's, he's maybe a year older than me. He's 62, I think, and has been, grew up in the mountains, you know, right on actually the shores of our big tailwater, the Chattahoochee. Fish this whole life, spent, I think, at least 10 years working for the enforcement division of the DNR, the, I'm not even sure what agency, he's been a fishing guide. And, you know, he is just like this, you know, if Leon doesn't know the answer to something, you know, Rob will or vice versa. I mean, combined, and we've had, you know, Sarah and I and Rob have fished together up in the mountains, you're brook trout fishing, and then he spent tons of time with me. So anyway, just thought I'd point that out, why they're so focused on these exceptions.
Katie
Now, Palmer, have you gone to a stream and caught nothing? And then, Sarah, have you gone to one of those streams and they're all over the place for whatever reason? Palmer just didn't find them while he was there?
Sarah
I'll let you know next year. Okay. We're in a month, actually. So I was just talking with Palmer earlier today about our plan of attack for the fall or for September, really. So he was like, OK, I'm interested in I'm interested in knowing what you guys find.
Katie
So you're going to some of these these, quote unquote, empty streams coming up here soon.
Sarah
Yep. Yep. And, you know, if, if, if we go and sample one of these streams and they don't have brook trout, you know, in a hundred meters, a hundred meters is usually what we'll sample. Then we'll extend that to up to 500 meters. And if we still don't have a fish, then what I'm hoping is we can kind of tally those streams up and hopefully we could get some in the future to look at some eDNA samples and collect some water samples and have those tested. And that way we can be certain because as both of you have figured out, you know, it might just be up higher where we're not able to get to that there is a small population. So we could get those to kind of have a, a yes, a positive yes, or a positive no, or a positive no, and, then move forward on the translocation. So that's my hope.
Katie
Oh, go ahead, Palmer.
Palmer
Katie, I don't know if you know, I didn't know when I first met Sarah and Leon what eDNA is.
Katie
The environmental DNA?
Palmer
Yeah, it's super futuristic. It's like very cool.
Katie
I don't know a lot about it, but I'm familiar with the concept of it.
Palmer
I don't know if the listeners want to give like a 30 second.
Katie
Yeah, yeah. you want to give a brief overview, Sarah?
Sarah
Sure. I mean, I, I haven't done it before myself. so I, I do know that there's a few different concerns. I mean, you obviously have to have a genetic marker for that fish, which we do for brook trout. Um, but you're able to basically capture some water, which is really convenient because it's a lot less hours, obviously in the field. But you collect this water and the DNA from those fishes will be able to be recognized if it is present, like within the last couple of days or even weeks, I think. So we would be able to say, yes, there's at least one fish in here that DNA is being shed into the stream somewhat closely. And yeah, so it's a pretty remarkable technique.
Katie
You know, it sounds way less fun than electroshock. Yeah, I feel like I'd be pushing for having to shock the fish. That's right. What other species do you tend to find while you're shocking? Because obviously lots of other things might be coming to the surface there. Do you find lots of other either game fish or non-game fish that are that are floating by
Sarah
so brook trout are pretty unique in that they occupy high enough elevations in Georgia where they are the the lone rangers so a lot of times the brook trout are all by themselves in in some streams though we do have sculpins and we also have some yellowfin shiners and some of the lower elevations but primarily if you're going to see those, you're going to also see rainbow trout and brown trout. Now, we'll, we will call them wild, wild trout is what I consider to be one that is naturally reproducing. So obviously, rainbow and browns are not native to Georgia, but they were stocked at some point. And a lot of these streams, that, you know, we no longer stock on top of brook trout streams, but it didn't used to be that way. So then those fish are just remnants of populations of fish that had been stalked long ago. But now they are just continuing to reproduce. And so they're pretty wild.
Katie
Now, Palmer, I think we may have gotten into this the last episode. I don't remember what your answer was, though. Do the brook trout tend to not overlap with brown and rainbow trout in these streams? Or do you occasionally find all of them together or brook trout with one or the other species?
Palmer
There are, and Sarah's going to have a much better answer to this one because there's a reason why. So there are a few streams that you've got rainbows and brook trout mixed, but usually you'll have rainbows up to some kind of barrier like a waterfall and then brook trout above them. I mean, that would be the most typical scenario. And part of the information I'm providing to Sarah is that I found a rainbow above a barrier where we thought it should just be brook trout. And if a barrier is only four feet high and the pool is deep and you get a really motivated rainbow, they can jump four feet. But usually they're separate. And my impression is that browns and brook trout cohabitate better where you know where if it's just rainbows the rainbows will just out compete the brook trout we Sarah and I talked about this for a long time several weeks ago someone had asked me you know why they're not mixing better in the southeast where out west they tend to you know they tend to mix a lot a lot more often than you you do see You catch a brook trout and then you catch a rainbow and then you catch a cutthroat. And ours are more separated. And Sarah, I don't know if you want to jump in here because it's pretty interesting, the difference.
Sarah
Yeah, I primarily think that brook trout have just evolved this very specific ability to be in those very high elevations. And they're able to withstand the flow regime that comes along with that. you know Georgia is unique in that it has these very distinct step pools I mean Palmer can kind of come on that and that later but very narrow you know pool and then very extensive steep and then and then pool and so I think that when they have that habitat they're just able to maintain their populations versus a rainbow trout and like Palmer said you know if they get the opportunity of the right flow condition, rainbow trout could get up and over that. And we have seen some of our brook trout populations decrease in recent years, just because those rainbow trout are getting up above that, that what used to be a barrier and rainbow trout are able to proliferate pretty extensively. And that's what I believe is due to when you think about all of the different rainbow trout that are produced across the country, we have been able to produce them at different times according to when we need to produce those fish. And so what used to be a primarily a fish that spawned in the early spring out west, we've actually, Palmer and I have been able to see this is, is we, we caught some rainbow trout that, were melting in, when was that November, December, November, yeah, November, you know? Yeah. So, so we have that going on and, and when we go into our rainbow trout populations, I mean, we see the gamut of sizes. So that indicates to me that there are multiple spawning events that are happening within one stream. So obviously if you're able to spawn all the time, you know, that, that definitely has negative implications to a brook trout, which are consistently spawning when they're supposed to be spawning.
Palmer
So, you know, I also think that our streams, you know, these smaller mountain streams are more sterile than a lot of the streams out West. There's just less food. And so, you know, aggressive rainbows can outcompete and there's not enough food for everyone, basically, though. When when I'm fishing with Sarah, oftentimes, you know, in the small streams, you know, swap pools. So I'm fishing a pool, you know, Sarah will be down with her camera looking at taking pictures of something. And I'll, in my mind, I'm thinking, well, it's a super sterile stream. And then when we're back at the car, she'll show me a picture of, oh, yeah, here's, Here's a leech and here's a crayfish and here's some case caddis I took pictures. I mean, there's like eight different food sources that she's got pictures of when I thought it was just like rocks and water.
Katie
That's what it looks like a lot of the time, at least. Yeah. It's interesting to hear about the pool setup where you are because, yeah, like you mentioned, Sarah, it's, you know, out here, it's kind of more of a gradient. Like you'll have just one kind of consistent stream and the fish will all kind of be mingled together. I mean, there is usually some sort of gradient like cutthroats in the very top, sometimes fading down to like brook trout and then down to browns and rainbows. But it is kind of like a fate. It fades from one to the other. And there's often some like overlap in between. And we don't I don't tend to see as many of what you're talking about where there's very definitive pools. For fishing purposes, there are distinct pools, but they're all connected. It's just that the water in between is water. You don't really want to fish, not a true vertical drop. So that's really interesting to hear that that's kind of how it gets stratified there instead of just being, you know, the fish that tend to do better in the higher elevation, colder sections. You know, most of them are up there and most of the like browns and rainbows are down lower. That's pretty cool. It's fun to fish that way. It's different, but it's fun.
Sarah
Palmer has taught me.
Palmer
Yeah, if there weren't, there wasn't so much vegetation between each pool, it would be more fun. But it's still fun.
Katie
Now, the last kind of theme I wanted to cover was just, I don't know how much you can talk about, but the future plans of like, what do you do with this information? I don't know how close you are to actually using it for anything, or if you're trying to get more of a comprehensive data set before you move forward, or if you're, I don't know, already working on projects. But what is the goal of finding where these brook trout are, where they're not? Would you be trying to reintroduce them to the streams where they were historically? Would you be participating in habitat restoration on streams where maybe they're getting outcompeted? Like, what's the process like in the future?
Sarah
Yeah, I mean, your last point was a really good point in that sometimes we'll have a brook trout stream listed and Palmer will tell us, hey, I found a whole bunch of rainbows in there. Uh, so why don't you go check that one out? So we have been able to do that a few times. And, in those situations, we will go and actually try to do some physical removals of rainbow trout, just to kind of help that brook trout population. Uh, there there's a different outcomes sometimes that's, that helps. And then sometimes it really has. It's just a little drop in the bucket. So I mean, I know that out West, like occasionally wrote known as an option, but I don't think that we'll do that anytime soon. I know that North Carolina has done that on some of their streams. But yeah. Why is that not an option? I mean, it is an option. It's just, it's pretty extensive decision. So I would probably only do that under really dire circumstances. I see. Okay. Yeah. And just killing a lot of fish.
Katie
Yeah. I mean, I don't love the idea of it either. I like the idea of reintroducing native species, but I don't love the idea of just slaughtering masses of fish in any situation. So yeah, I understand.
Sarah
Yeah. But yeah, I think that right now we're in a period of rebuilding and trying to, I mean, just on the ground. And it was really perfect timing that Palmer initiated this challenge for himself because it has really benefited us. And what we're doing, like I said, in just a couple of weeks, sampling those streams, that what we find then will really dictate kind of what we're going to do next. So like I said, next steps are sample a small section. If we don't find anything, sample a larger section. if we don't find anything, DNA, eDNA, and then doing translocation. So we would prefer, there's been a lot of genetics studies throughout the native range along the east coast of brook trout. And there's some really interesting findings. But Georgia hasn't, it is fairly expensive to get those genetic samples run. So Georgia hasn't been able to put forth a ton of financial resources into this specific project. But I'm hopeful that we could get some grants and some funding to be able to do that. And what we want to be able to do is introduce, quote unquote, like a southern strain. So we don't want to reintroduce like hatchery brook trout into a stream.
Katie
Like Colorado brook trout are not the same as what you guys have there.
Sarah
Right. Yeah. So the so the brook trout that came from Colorado most likely came from a strain from the northeast area of the U.S. from those hatchery strains. So it's a lot more complicated than just a southern strain and a northern strain. But generally speaking, the southern strain, if you will, does have its specificities. And I think that those are obviously very important, because that's how they're able to survive. Yeah. Now, can you like tell the difference between the strains?
Katie
Like I'm thinking of our, you know, cutthroat subspecies here. And I was actually just talking this yesterday and how half the time when we catch a subspecies of cutthroat or even, you know, beyond that, a strain of one, which I view is even deeper than a subspecies. The only way we know what it is, is we just Google what the drain, like what is supposed to be in the drainage, but we can't actually tell the difference if we look at it. It's like, okay, well, this one's supposed to have kind of more spots, but just looking at it, you don't really know. Is it kind of the same thing where if you held a southern strain brook trout alongside like a northeastern strain, would you be able to see some physical differences or is it more on a, like a genetic level that you can tell those differences and, and they just allow the species to proliferate in slightly different environments?
Sarah
Yes. I think, would you be, I don't know if you could tell Palmer, but I personally think that it's nearly impossible to be very confident. But I will say like, I think that you can somewhat tell because if you just look at a Georgia brook trout and you compare it to, let's say, you know, one from Wisconsin, for example, I mean that, that Wisconsin brook trout, or even one out there, like it would be more dull gray versus ours are just more vibrant. Would you say that?
Katie
I've seen pictures of the ones that you guys have caught and I'm like, they just look like someone turned the saturation up a little bit on the picture.
Palmer
I don't think I have any ability to tell. Well, if you can, I don't know if anyone can. Yeah, both Leon and Sarah and Sarah's predecessor, Zach, I mean, they've all separately assured me that I do not have the ability to tell them apart. And I believe it. And, you know, the, if you catch them, you know, in the fall, we have near spawning, they're going to look pretty different too. So I just don't think you can.
Sarah
I think you definitely need genetic testing to be 100% sure. And, you know, there was a study and I think it's, you know, going to come out. There's an excellent geneticist, David Kazak, and he has been looking at genetics of brook trout and so you know he it's it's beautiful work but he found in Georgia you know a percentage so some fish like have a percentage of of hatchery strain in them for example so you know in that situation you could definitely not tell them apart right called a mutt a mutt brook trout
Katie
yeah I think that's actually kind of similar to like I keep comparing them to the cutthroats, but same thing where it's often not just one thing. It's like, well, they've, you know, they've been put back in here after being in a hatchery for a while and they got pulled from somewhere else. And it's, you know, I think the waters get kind of muddied a lot of the time in there's percentages for sure. Now, one kind of like last separate question I had was just, do you know if there's any other states or departments that are doing a similar thing where they're using, I guess, like a citizen science strategy like this, where they're taking information from anglers. I know sometimes I fill out like an angler survey when I leave, but I usually feel like that's in the context of we want to know what people are catching, what they want to be catching so we can stock accordingly versus trying to use anglers to find out whether a species is even there at all. Do you happen to know if there's any other similar setups like what you guys are doing?
Sarah
I'm sure there are. I know they're most often in your situation or what you were talking about. But yeah, I'm sure there might be. It is pretty cool.
Katie
Well, it seems like it would be a really useful tool because there's how many people in a department? I mean, dozens maybe. And there's thousands of anglers out there. So it just seems like it would make a lot of sense to say, hey, if you're out there, we're looking for places where this species exists. you know, report it. And I feel like that would be like a really cool use of citizen science to help these departments structure their research or what they want to focus on.
Palmer
You know, I think one of the tricks to that or one of the issues with that is if someone's sharing their information, they expect a certain amount of information back. And when you're talking about brook trout streams that no one wants to share those names, I mean, And Sarah and I and Leon have developed this great, like, trust. Blood bond. Yeah, we're, like, not going to talk to anyone else about these stream names. One thing that's worked for me is the fact that I didn't really start. I mean, I just started because I wanted to catch brook trout on as many streams as I could. And I didn't need any supervision. It was all just kind of self-directed.
Katie
You had a personal mission to do this anyway.
Palmer
Yeah, and I didn't need any permitting. If you look at just doing stream enhancements, it's three years to get the permitting in place to do some structures. I mean, it's crazy. It's really tricky to figure out how best to use volunteers when you start looking at trout habitats and what can really help out. In my mind, the things that you can do, you plant a ton of hemlocks, which the American hemlock is a great shade tree in the east for brook trout. that you know you'd have to kind of go rogue I mean if if a handful of people and I've so you're encouraging people to go rogue yeah yeah basically I mean just go buy you know 500 hemlocks and go plan them and not tell anyone you're doing it I mean that's that's like that's always key not to tell anyone you're doing it. Yeah, Sarah's having to cover her ears while I'm saying this.
Katie
Sarah doesn't approve of any of this. This is all Palmer, not Sarah.
Palmer
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, this is, and there's a disease that hemlocks get. It's really identifiable. I can't remember what's, Sarah, what's it? The woolly adelgid. Yeah. And there's a chemical that you can just ring around the bottom of the, of the, the tree and it knocks it out. You know, so if you, if you just sent a bunch of people into the woods with, you know, gallons and gallons of this chemical to put it around every hemlock where they found that, but I don't know what you would have to do to get permission to do that. I mean, that's, you know, and then, then there are things, you know, one of the big issues is runoff from forest service roads. I mean, if you have a forest service road going along a stream, you know, they're in a range, you get a bunch of silt. I mean, silt, silt's a bigger issue than pollution or development or anything like, like that for these brook trash streams, because they're usually above where there's development anyway, and usually on public forest, you know, national forest type land. But it's a big, you know, to figure out how to, you know, stop that runoff over, you know, hundreds of miles of forest service roads. It's a tough one. If you could do that without any permanent permission, I mean, if I was looking to invest my time and, you know, I've got 3,000 hours into this project so far, roughly, and lots more to go. So I've got a big project already. But if I was, I would be out there planting hemlocks and not telling anyone I'd be putting this pesticide around the trees I'd be trying to figure out how to keep the runoff I would be doing all that before I was doing stream enhancements so but I don't think Sarah should comment on any of that if I do it I'm not going to tell Sarah she can just plug her ears yeah yeah the whole thing it's and you know one change in the last couple years too with with the introduction of Sarah and spending time with rob you know smith who I mentioned and Leon is you know I've refished you know it two years ago I hadn't really refished many streams now I'm going back and maybe Sarah's with me or a couple of the other people we fish with, Gene Wilson and Jeff Giuliano, come a lot too. Going and refishing and exploring more in places where, you know, I checked the box four years ago that they had brook trout and hadn't been back. That's been really fun. The whole, I mean, the whole exploration part still, I mean, you know, five years into it is still like really cool. You know, the wildlife encounters are cool. There's one weekend. When was bear season? Is bear season the fall? Anyway, last time Sarah and her husband were going to fish because they were going to go bear hunting. And they didn't see a bear. And in the meantime, I had like my closest bear encounter fishing. It was really cool. It was really cool because I didn't get like killed or anything. I was in this deep gorge that was really hard to get to. And I doubt anyone had fished the stream in forever. And I was tying on a fly. So I was just kind of standing there pretty quietly. And this juvenile bear, I don't know how old it was, but under two years, came down this really steep rhododendron covered bank. And I yelled, you know, hey, bear. And it, it like stopped and kind of like tumbled and skidded, almost like a cartoon or something. And I turned around, you know, looked at me and turned around, like went right back up this incredibly steep hill really, really fast. And then, so I thought, okay, that's good. That worked. And 30 seconds later, the mama bear, you know, maybe like 50 feet to the left of it came down that same bank and the same, you know, I yelled, hey bear. And at that point I was like ripping off my backpack to get, I had bear spray, but it was in like the bottom of my backpack. And the mama bear like stopped and was like staring at me and it was starting to get kind of huffy. And I had the protector off the bear spray, the trigger guard off the bear spray. And then the mama bear figured out that the juvenile bear had gone. So it turned around and went back up. But it was right there. I mean, there's so many cool things like that that you just see out there. I was struck, this was probably right after that podcast we did before. And I wear snake gaiters usually when I'm doing fishing. I think I mentioned that before. But I got struck by a copperhead in the snake gaiter, so I didn't get hurt. I don't think I'd ever get used to that one. But anyway, it's all been very cool, and it's much more fun with Sarah and Leon and Rob and Gene and Jeff all kind of being a part of it in their own ways.
Katie
Yeah, it's kind of like your project has expanded beyond you at this point, which is always kind of fun.
Palmer
Yeah.
Sarah
Yeah, it's been really remarkable to be able to work. You know, this is kind of my first exposure to having a citizen science project. And, you know, Pollard is very unique because he is a very good angler.
Katie
So it's really helpful. I'm sure most citizen science projects don't start from the citizen side. They start from the science side. And this one is kind of the opposite. it, which is, which is cool. Um, but we're, we're coming up on time here. So, Palmer, I don't remember if you shared any contact info last time, but if, if, people want to reach out to either one of you, do you have a email address or anything? Um, I don't, I know it's not, you know, we're not giving like fishing tips and stuff today, but I don't know if someone's interested in, in what's going on in Georgia and the brook trout there. I mean, is there anywhere they can reach out to you guys with questions or anything?
Palmer
So I didn't have any social media before, but they can follow us on our Instagram, just lostangelflyfishing. And I think you can message through that. I'm not that great at it, but that would be the best bet.
Katie
Okay, sounds good. And Sarah, do you have any contact info?
Sarah
Yeah, yeah. I'd love to hear from you. My name is Sarah, or my email is Sarah, S-A-R-A-H dot baker at D-N-R dot G-A dot go.
Katie
Perfect. Well, guys, thanks so much for coming on. This was a lot of fun. I know we don't usually get to do these three person ones, but it's great hearing from both of you from both sides. It's, you know, I heard Palmer's story last time, which I found interesting as an angler myself, but it's really fun to hear the other side of the coin here, what's going on. Two sides of the same coin. It's just, it's really interesting.
Sarah
Yeah. Thanks so much for having us, Katie. This is great.
Palmer
Yeah, I agree. This is, it's always really fun. So thanks. Thanks.
Katie
Well, I'd love to check in again in a year or two if any progress has been made to hear how things turned out. Let's do it.
Palmer
Absolutely.
Katie
All right, guys. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to head over to the website, fishuntamed.com, for all episodes and show notes. And also, please subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. That'll get my episodes delivered straight to your phone. And also, if you have not yet, please consider going over to Apple Podcasts and leaving a rating or review. That's very helpful for me, and I'd greatly appreciate it. Other than that, thank you guys again for listening, and I will be back in two weeks. Bye, everybody.
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