West Portal Brook spawning gravel project Oct. 3rd
The chapter is only a few days from adding spawning gravels and monitoring 15 sites in West Portal Brook, a tributary of the Musconetcong River (Musky).
Volunteers will dig out a depression in the stream bottom near the tail outs of certain pools. These sites will be visited at least weekly through November and into early December for evidence of trout spawning. Where possible, species will be noted. This tributary has mostly wild brown trout, but it also has some native brook trout. Stay tuned for results and more pictures as we perform this project on Saturday, October 3rd at the Beatty dairy farm (BSB Holsteins) in Asbury, NJ.
This farm has seen the efforts of TU and many partners over about the last 17 years to fence cows out of the stream, replant the riparian buffers along the 1/3 mile stretch of the Musconetcong River as well as nearly one mile of the West Portal Brook tributary, and in-channel restoration of both the mainstem and the tributary (in November '14 and March '15, respectively).
