In the early hours of the geologic time clock, spanning millions of years, the earth was covered with a gaseous atmosphere and warm shallow seas constantly lashed by storms from above and battered by countless exploding volcanoes from below. More millions of years passed during which the hardening surface convulsed and buckled from time to time, raising some land masses out of the seas, dropping others below the surface. These seas were rich with nutrients containing the chemistry of life, out of which the first formless cell colonies began to appear.
Eventually the cell colonies began to specialize and finally many of these early sea creatures acquired shell-like coverings. They were soft-bodied animals that carried their skeletons on the outside rather than the inside as we do. One large class of these creatures, belonging to the order Foraminifera, was especially important to future mankind generally and to fishermen in particular. They were extremely tiny creatures with shells perforated by many small holes through which they extended tiny flexible arms. The early seas swarmed with the little animals. They were short-lived and after death fell in a constant shower to the bottom of the sea, building up over millions of years to a depth of thousands of feet.
The earth’s crust continued to change — buckling, infolding, raising mountains that expelled the seas, burying the great layer of dead animals under a burden of rubble, sand, volcanic rocks, and other materials. Thus burdened and pressured, the entombed bodies were compacted to a hard rock that we describe today as limestone. A great deal of it all around the earth was formed in this way. Some of it was also formed by chemical precipitation as a kind of mud in the bottom of the sea that was eventually pressured and hardened into limestone. In some areas of the earth these processes were repeated several times so that several deep layers of limestone were formed.
The creation of limestone has never really stopped. In many parts of the oceans the little sea creatures are constantly building coral reefs and islands with their bodies, all of which are basically calcium carbonate, and could eventually end up as dense limestone or marble, which is limestone in a crystalline form.
Out of all this has come the most valuable and useful building material that the civilized world has ever known. In the limestone country of Pennsylvania you can see the many fine barns, homes, and magnificent churches built with cut limestone blocks. Limestone is burned to make cement, and by means of various processes it is used for medicines and the precious fertilizers needed to grow food for man and animals. It is no exaggeration to say that the entire civilized world is resting or riding on the backs of the tiny foraminifers, sea creatures so small that as many as 50,000 of them may be compacted in one cubic inch of limestone.
There are no statues erected to honor this little animal, no speeches to eulogize it, no poems to glorify it — all of which has been done for lesser and less-deserving creatures whose contributions to mankind do not begin to measure up to the enormous benefits that I have mentioned.
There is one more benefit that I must mention, one that is important to many of us as fishermen: namely, the existence of the wonderful limestone streams and rivers, different in significant ways from freestone rivers.
The birth of the limestoners took place some 600-million years ago after the limestone beds were laid and buried in the earth, the seas above them were expelled, and the present land masses were elevated. Rainfall, sinking through the porous earth, eventually found its way into fissures, cracks, or faults in the hard limestone and began to erode and enlarge these fissures. Pursuing the dip and strike of the rock beds, the rainwater formed numerous solution channels, many of them interconnecting, many of them enlarging enormously to become gigantic caverns such as Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and Carlsbad in New Mexico. This vast subterranean system of watercourses, the extent of which no man knows, is a great reservoir, the unfailing source of the surface limestone rivers.
The limestone streams as a general rule issue from faults or cracks at low elevations, and the water that you see at the source of a stream, erroneously called springs, is only the top of the great sunken reservoir, spilling over a little at the surface of the earth. Actually these surface rivers are brief exposures of hidden underground rivers pursuing their leisurely, solitary courses in the lowlands to join another river or, as often happens, to disappear and go back into the earth through one of the numerous sinkholes that exist in the limestone country. Sometimes the same river reappears through another fault or crack in the rocks many miles away.
A Note on Fishing Limestone and Freestone Streams
Because of the great quantities of natural food in the typical small limestone or spring creek, an angler’s fly that differs widely in size and coloration from the naturals is generally ignored by the trout. Some beginners on the limestone streams wonder how they stand a chance at all. The secret is in timing and precise presentation.
Fishing the limestone streams usually calls for casting to individual fish. An angler times the rise of the fish and then presents his fly so that it will drift without drag in front of the trout’s station at the exact moment when the fish is ready lo engulf another insect. Clear water and tiny imitations call for the use of ultrafine leaders. Heavy vegetation in the limestoners makes knotless leaders preferable.
In freestone streams fast, tricky currents of ten make it difficult to present a fly in such a way that it won’t be swept away from holding spots before the fish can see it. But an angler has the advantage of being able to catch fish on more impressionistic flies, and one pattern can often serve many purposes.
—Jerry Gibbs, former fishing editor
A freestone river is usually formed in high elevations, deriving its waters from melting snows and icefields and from numerous true springs or pockets of water that issue in trickles to join with other trickles and form larger waterways as they move downhill. They are far more dependent on new rainfall for volume than are the limestoners. That same dependency often results in periodic floods and raging torrents that denude freestone rivers of organic life and cause great damage to everything in their path. In times of low rainfall or drought, the freestoners become low and stagnant, with increasingly high temperatures that can destroy some fish and insect life. In winter they often form anchor ice, or stream-bottom ice, that traps and suffocates many forms of fish and insect life.
Thus we arrive at one of the really great differences between limestone and freestone streams, and that is the matter of stability. It is one of the two great virtues of the limestoners. It means specifically a constancy of volume, freedom from violent disruptions to flora and fauna (except in very rare instances), and maintenance of the proper temperatures, particularly for coldwater fish life. Limestoners issue from the caverns consistently at 47° to 56°. The great volume of water sustains the influence of these temperatures, thus delaying excessive and harmful heating of the water for many miles, especially if there are additional faults or cracks to permit the junction with other underground rivers. For the same reasons, the limestoners do not form ice in wintertime for a great distance below their outlets.
All of this is much more apparent today than it was 100 years ago when the eastern half of the U.S. was canopied by a vast forest into which the sun never penetrated. It is a truly strange experience to walk through a primeval forest — silent, cathedral-like, softly lighted, with a deep spongy turf that muffles every footfall. That deep spongy forest carpet was the real treasure of the freestoners. It was both a reservoir and a thermostat that held the rainfall in reserve, cooled it, and let it out slowly into the rivers, providing the only source of stability available.
That fine reservoir was destroyed by the pioneer and the lumberman who denuded the great. forests, exposing the forest floor to sun and wind, after which
it caught fire and burned over many thousands of square miles, leaving only the bare bones of the earth.
A freestone stream cannot survive civilization; a limestoner can. The second of the two great differences between limestone and freestone streams is fertility.
Limestone is composed principally of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is the dissolved calcium and sometimes magnesium that makes water “hard,” something not much appreciated by the housewife because soap won’t lather well in it. These constituents along with other nutrients are the fertilizers that stimulate the plant growth, which is the basis of the entire food chain from the microscopic animal and vegetable planktons up to the huge weedbeds frequently seen in the limestoners. The water plants provide food and cover and also produce oxygen, without which underwater life could not survive. These plants are especially important to the quiet meadow streams that do not tumble about and absorb oxygen from the air.
The plant community in the lime-stoners is often varied but is always typical of alkaline-loving species: watercress, the large family of potamogetons, chara, duckweed, elodea, and some others. Highly alkaline waters are easily identified by the presence of these plants. They fit very well into the entire limestone system. The constituents of limestone, eroded and carried to the surface waters from the bowels of the earth, are dissolved by the carbonic acid (H2CO3), which is created by carbon dioxide reacting with water, and form soluble carbonates and bicarbonates.
It is the peculiar ability of these particular alkaline-loving plants to convert bicarbonates into carbon dioxide during the process of photosynthesis, which takes place when living plants are exposed to sunlight. Oxygen is released as a byproduct of photosynthesis. Bacteria in the water utilize the oxygen to decompose dead plants and animals, reducing them to useful nutrients, the phosphates and nitrates, which are absorbed for growth by living plants along with more carbon dioxide respired by living bacteria and animals. The limestone streams actually benefited from the removal of forests on their banks in the early days. Deforestation let in more sunlight to trigger photosynthesis. Today, with the massive influx of pollutants causing excessive weed growth and excessive decomposition, it might be wise to replant trees along the banks to cut off the sunlight, thus limiting the weed growth.
The soft acid waters of the freestoners do not have this valuable carbonate system. These are primarily surface waters flowing around and over rocks of volcanic origin — the sandstones, quartzites, and granitic types that do not contain organic material. These waters are often tainted with humic or tannic acid leached out of hillsides by rainfall.
The question is sometimes raised about whether the fertility of freestoners can be increased. I think so.
It could be increased cheaply and efficiently by dumping truckloads of crushed limestone in the fast riffle areas and in the sterile, infertile waters by adding a bit of pollution — perhaps in the form of animal manure in perforated containers — in order to supply bacteria and decomposed vegetable matter. The judicious application of some dams or retarders in streams of steep gradient would help in the formation of silt beds to hold plant life, which is ordinarily very meager in freestoners.
This is not unreasonable when you realize that many freestoners become limestoners by the infusion of dissolved lime salts from pure limestone tributaries. A classic example of this is Pennsylvania’s famed Yellow Breeches Creek, which starts in the south mountains of the Blue Ridge chain as a freestoner, then drops into the Cumberland Valley, where it is joined by a number of pure limestoners that raise its alkalinity.
The richness of a limestoner with a high alkaline rating (pH of more than 7) will tax your credibility. Many years ago when I was actively investigating the potential of the limestone waters, I did some sampling by blocking off one-square-foot areas of weed, which I removed and sifted.
In every instance I found the typical hardwater animals in astonishing abundance, especially in the beds of callitriche and watercress. Always there were great numbers of sow bugs, beetles, scuds, snails, nymphs, and one or two larger food forms. Some of these samplings revealed a food supply of 5,000 pounds per acre (wet weight), and this did not include bottom organisms from the silt or mud. In each instance I got a lump of small insects plus at least one larger animal such as a crayfish or
minnow or sculpin, the whole of which usually weighed from 1½ to two ounces.
On the other hand, many freestoners flowing down steep gradients over hardpan won’t yield 10 pounds of fish food per acre.
Growth rate of fish in the alkaline waters can be phenomenal — as much as six inches a year — comparing well with the growth rate of hatchery fish. Scale readings of one 15 1/2-pound brown trout indicated that he was a little over eight years old. Atlantic salmon can get that big in about half that time, but a salmon has the enormous expanse of food-rich alkaline seas in which to roam and grow fat. That 151/2-pound brown was caught from a little limestoner that could be spanned from bank to bank by a good broad jumper. That kind of growth rate is not unusual in these small Pennsylvania limestones.
Many freestoners cannot grow a trout that in its entire lifetime will exceed six inches long or one-quarter pound in weight.
Awareness and knowledge of these great differences between limestone and freestone streams did not generally exist among fishermen until recent years. These distinctions existed only among limnologists and water biologists.
Twenty-five years ago the late Edward Ringwood Hewitt, famed fisherman, author, fish culturist, scientist, and a widely traveled person, wrote and published a review of my findings on limestone trout streams. His review included the following comment: “It is unfortunate that we have so few streams (limestone) of this type in the United States. I know of about a dozen in Pennsylvania and one in Maryland, one in northern Ohio and two in Idaho.”
This was a surprising statement from a man who in the late 1800’s had fished extensively in the far West, particularly Yellowstone Park, where limestoners are numerous. In the West they are called spring creeks and are now much sought out and heavily fished by thousands, especially in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Anyone who has traveled through Yellowstone Park must have seen the gray substance piled up around the blowholes of the geysers and hot springs. That material is mostly calcium carbonate — the foodstuff of the limestoners.
There are some fine alkaline waters in the Midwest, perhaps the best of which is the famous Au Sable system in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Wisconsin has them too. In Pennsylvania I have fished at least 20 of them. They can be found in all sections of the U.S. except the New England states and New York, where there is only one as far as I know.
I do not say that freestone streams cannot provide good fishing or grow big fish. They can, or I should say that they did at one time. Old records prove this, but that was back in a day when trout were not caught out so fast and had time to grow. Big freestone trout come from big rivers, not from little ones.
A big freestone river will not produce more food per acre than a small one, but it will produce more food by sheer weight because of its greater area. And even though the freestoners do not have the valuable carbonate system, they have a source of nutrients in the form of fallen leaves, sunken trees, and other organic items that decompose and provide the support for useful algae and plankton to start the food chain. Much of it, however, may be swept away by periodic floods, preventing a stable population of plant and animal life.
In Pennsylvania there are five counties in the north tier that contain at least 1,000 miles of what were once magnificent freestone trout rivers. We know how good they were because we have a fine record about these rivers in a rare and fascinating little book titled The Vanishing Trout, by Charles Lose, an educated and observant man who fished these waters when they were unspoiled. Just think of making a catch of 15 native brook trout, three of which together weighed more than nine pounds. Those were the glory days of the freestoners.
The brook trout is well adapted to acid waters and is believed to be the finest product of the freestoners by many Eastern fishermen who constitute a special cult that won’t acknowledge the excellence of any other kind of trout fishing. It does no good to tell them that the brook trout is not a true trout but rather a char. They would merely shrug and say that it was the bad luck of true trout not be char.
The affection that many Easterners have for the brook trout is remarkable. This affection goes beyond reason and is very difficult to explain. Some years ago I had a friend, now deceased, who was one of the most avid fishermen I have ever met. He sought and found every kind of worthwhile rod fishing on this earth. He was familiar with the best of Atlantic salmon fishing, the swordfishing at Acapulco, bonefishing in the South, the big rainbows of the Northwest, the big perch of the Nile, and a lot of other fishing about which I know nothing.
On one occasion when we were on a fishing trip together, we just sat and talked for a while, exchanging ideas and philosophies and reminiscing. During the conversation I asked him what his finest fishing experience was. He astonished me. Instead of describing some exotic adventure in a foreign land as I expected, he began to tell of a day’s fishing for wild brook trout that he’d had in a small freestone stream not many miles from our homes.
I have to confess that I too have a great affection for the American brook trout and the picturesque freestoners. The first trout I ever caught was a real northern “hemlock” trout taken on a wet Gray Hackle Red. I remember my awe and astonishment as I looked at the jewel-like beauty of that very handsome creature. Later, when I came to the limestone country, I caught many more brook trout than brown or rainbow trout. The limestoners contained brook trout in great quantity — big ones too — but I did not fish for them in an earlier time when, according to available records, they averaged two pounds in weight.
Even now, when my trout fishing is almost exclusively for brown and rainbow trout, I welcome any opportunity to fish for brook trout — not in stocked waters containing those pale, insipid-looking hatchery fish, but in some remote area as yet not completely spoiled by mankind. I know of a few such places.
I have some good memories of wonderful days with brook trout. On one occasion in the Far North I was fishing for Atlantic salmon on a famous river. The fishing was very poor, as salmon fishing often is, and while others groused and complained I set about to find some other kind of fishing in that area. I inquired here and there among the natives and eventually was directed to a backcountry road not far from my lodging where a small run of peaty-looking water flowed under a little bridge that spanned the road. It was not very impressive, but I left the road and walked back into the gloom of the heavily timbered area.
What a transformation I saw! The little stream ran over clean bright gravel — sometimes in little quiet pools, with an occasional shaft of sunlight playing on its surface; sometimes running down a gentle riffle, quarreling and talking to itself; sometimes dropping miniature waterfalls. It was quiet, pleasant walking on the untrampled spongy turf. Nowhere was there any sign of fishing pressure. I was glad that I had remembered to bring a small trout rod and some trout flies with me.
I had a glorious afternoon with those little brook trout. I caught so many that I lost count, but every one of them was an exciting event. Food is scarce in those acid peaty waters of the North. Anything that looks edible is the object of a violent slashing attack. I can imagine the thinking of one of those little fellows when a juicy-looking fly is coming his way. “Ha!” he thinks. “This is where I eat again this week.” The resultant strike by a little seven or eight-incher actually jars your hand.
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I remember in particular one monster that was all of 10 inches long. I saw him in a sun-dappled little pool with no other occupant in it. I had been fishing small wet flies, but now I switched to a dry because there was room here to make a backcast. I pitched a tiny Adams in front of him. He backed downstream, watching intently, fins fanning furiously. Then he struck, and that confined space, no bigger than a washtub, became the stage for a titanic struggle. I landed him, handled him as gently as possible, and released him. When I left he looked fine — a little dejected perhaps, but I think he enjoyed that experience as much as I did.
When I returned home from that distant and expensive fishing trip, did I bring back unforgettable memories of battling big fresh-run Atlantic salmon? Not so. The unforgettable memory was of a 10-inch brook trout and the lilliputian battle in that sun-dappled pool.
This story, “A Tale of Two Waters,” appeared in the April 1976 issue of Outdoor Life.
Read the full article here
