Conference wahoo::fishing

    	I am no expert but I would think that the fishing would improve.
    The beavers have created a nice pool which should hold fish as long
    as the water doesn't get too hot. If the pool is doesn't get too much 
    pressure you should be able to maintain it without much stocking. You 
    did say that there already were brookies in the stream - right? It 
    sounds like you've got yourself a nice little trout farm there. You
    may want to post it to keep trappers from taking the beavers (I am not 
    in favor of posting land in general but just restricting trapping in 
    that one area doesn't seem out of line, especially if it is to
    preserve a good fishing hole). Once the beavers leave the dam will go 
    to ruin in short order.
    Paul                            
    

Ken,

I also have a brook next to my house that got dammed up by beavers about 5 
years ago.  The brook used to be stocked with trout years ago but F&G 
stopped because so much of the land around it was posted.  As a little 
brook, it never really had much in it except for dace and an ocassional 
kibbie or perch.  Now, it's flooded over about 5-6 acres of brush fields and 
has a maximum depth of about 7-8'.

Inside of two years my sons and I started catching a ***lot*** of pickeral
and the place is loaded with shiners up to 8-10" (great bass bait!).  Two
years ago I secretly stocked it with bass (ya, it's illegal, I know).  I put
15 bass in there, ranging from 1-3 lbs.  I figured that with the large
population of shiners that the bass might have an opportunity to grow to
enourmous sizes (wishful thinking, eh?).  That first year I managed to
re-catch a couple of them.  Hoping that they would survive the winter, I had
hoped for a nice spawn last year.  Although I never saw signs of beds, I did
see bass fry, but I never caught a bass last year.  In the meantime, the
pickeral were geting huge (16-20"), so we started to kill them off in hopes
of improving the chances of survival for any remaining bass. 

This year, I again did not catch any bass, but again I saw bass fry.  I
finally decided that the pond was too small and too shallow to support any
decent bass population due to other competition, so I let the pickeral live
just to give my sons some excitement.  Last week however, I finally caught a
bass!  Although it was only about 6" long, it did raise my hopes! 

Oh, there's also hornpout in there up to about 10" or so.

Aside from the fishing, we've noticed a tremendous increase in wildlife 
around the pond.  We now see the beavers, several types of cranes and 
herons, marsh hawks, red-tailed hawks, kingfishers (neat birds to watch!), 
and a number of other critters.  It's fun to go down and just float around 
quietly in my canoe to watch the animal life.  Kinda makes you appreciate 
what life's all about.

-HSJ-

YO,
      When I lived in the Midwest we used to LOOK for beaver dams. They
    hold fish and offer good surrounding structure. I always got nervous
    standing on em in the water tho, I kept expecting a beaver to take
    a chunk out of my leg.
                             NIGHTCRAWLER~~~~~~~~