From what I understand fishing is essentially 'zilch' on Yellow Creek nowadays.
There are probably many interlocking and complicated reasons for the situation but here is one possible piece of the puzzle.
The trout conservation groups some years ago put up a fence along Yellow Creek to keep the cows out of the stream and improve the habitat. Great! It worked perfectly. No more cows and no more stream degradation and all the problems that come with large livestock smashing through small streams.
However, our old friend, the Law of Unintended Consequences came to extract his due.
That big, beautiful bovine-baffling barrier provided the perfect environment for our avian pals to gather for a picnic. All those fence posts and the long, straight wires between them just a few yards from the stream gave every insect eating bird a made-to-order perch to pick off any and all bugs that had the bad luck to get anywhere near the creek. It wasn't too many seasons before the insect population in Yellow Creek could no longer sustain itself and collapsed and that likely took the fish population down as collateral damage.
Well, that's the theory anyway. I guess it just goes to show that sometimes well-intentioned, single-solution conservation ain't so simple.
“Behind mountains, more mountains.” - Haitian proverb
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