Dunkard Creek Restoration

As many of you may know, Dunkard Creek, which once was a very productive smallmouth and muskie fishery, was destroyed a few years ago.
The stream has since cleaned up and now has some fish in it that have moved in from the monongahela river.
Whenever there is enough forage base (probably 2 years) the WVDNR plans to continue the muskie stocking program that has been in place for decades.
They will restock smallmouth also if necessary.

There seems to be a group who are opposed to the muskie.
They state reasons such as... muskie have limited the smallmouth population, muskie are not native, and even suggesting a muskie was watching children swimming waiting for an oppurtune meal.
This type of information is false. The smallmouth poulation in Dunkard was good before the fish kill, muskie are native to the Ohio River drainage which the Monongahela and Dunkard are a part of, and I'm not even going to waste time trying to find evidence of human eating muskie.

On August 25th there will be a meeting in Morgantown where the DNR will announce the Dunkard Creek restoration plan.
If you would like to support their efforts to restore the muskie population in Dunkard Creek please consider attending the meeting,
or you can sign an online petition in favor.

Thanks for the consideration,

Mike



http://www.petitiononline.com/Dunkard1/petition.html

I signed it.

Mike

I signed too. Thanks for the heads up H2O wolf!

I signed it.

If I'm not mistaken, Dunkard Creek in PA was damaged as well. What's PA waiting for? I know that CONSOL paid hefty penalties for this and other AMD issues, I wonder where that money is going....

I was the 44th person to sign as of this morning. I took me less than 1 minute.

signed it. #47

signed it....#49

Signed. I get a little tired of seeing groups over zealously championing their pet species at the cost of others. Usually this sort of thing is limited to the fly flinger trout snobs who look down at other species anglers as uncivilized heathens. As sportsmen we need to all stick together. Also tedious is the never ending rant that muskies eat all the other game fish when the overwhelming scientific evidence proves otherwise.

Dunkard Creek was formerly a good muskie stream, the petition isn't asking for anything new. Muskies were there before and the petition's goal is to ensure they are there after.

Mike

signed. #57

Signed it also.

Signed #61

Does anyone have any updates for this topic??

I think I remember hearing about some gamefish showing up on Dunkard Creek recently. Bass possibly?

Red,

There was a short write-up in the chapter news section in the latest Muskies Inc magazine. It didn't have a lot of detail tho. I'll check it again when I get home but I'm thinkin others on this board would have additional detail.


Jay

Courtesy of "H2OWolf"....


http://www.wvdnr.gov/Fishing/PDFFile...%20Plan%20.pdf

Is anybody else surprised at the cost to restore the mussels as compared to restoring the muskies??

$400,000 to $10,000

I gotta get out of this contracting business and start raising mussels!

The muskie are relatively easy for them to produce. Mussels are much more complicated. They have to find a source (and they are afraid to deplete another river or stream of that species), find the right host, then cross their fingers and hope it works. Too many variables involved and will take many years where the muskies should just take off if water quality and bait are there.

Where is Pa on this??!!! Wv already received money and is beginning the restoration process. If you ask Pa they say it is an ongoing ivestigation??? yeah sure they could sit back and do nothing and the muskies that Wv stock will eventually come down river but just a shame how they have handled this situation thus far.

Signed it #126