Thousands of fish salvaged from Jefferson County lake

FALLS CREEK - The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission rescued thousands of fish from a lake in Jefferson County Thursday.

PFBC has been draining Kyle Lake since September in order to repair the unsafe dam.

Before any work can be done, PFBC biologists had to capture and relocate the fish.

"What we're doing is collecting these fish here at the outflow of the lake and moving them down to Cloe Lake later today for good public angling down there," fisheries biologist Jason Detar said. "The fish are handling great, we've been saving a lot of fish and we look forward to providing those good fishing opportunities at Cloe Lake."

PFBC used a catch basin made from screens and racks to gather the fish in one place below the lake's outlet pipes. Detar said as the last acres of water drain from the lake, so do the fish.

"We try to congregate the fish in a fairly small area so that we can effectively net them and get them into the hatchery trucks as efficiently as possible," Detar said.

This fish were loaded into water tanks on hatchery trucks and hauled to Cloe Lake in Punxsutawney.

"We have cold clean water in our hatchery trucks, it's roughly the same temperature as the water here at Kyle Lake," Detar said. "We also have aerators and liquid oxygen that we can use to further maintain high water quality in the trucks."

Now that the fish salvage is complete, reconstruction of the dam is expected to begin this spring.

For a previous story, click here.

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