More than a year of planning, designing and permit-gathering, followed by hours of dirty, backbreaking work in freezing water.

Most people wouldn't expend that kind of effort for a few fish no longer than the distance from your wrist to the tip of your index finger.

Fortunately, a few do.

Morrison Run will never be known as one of America's great trout waters. It won't be mentioned in the same discussions as the Henry's Fork, the Madison or the Battenkill.

But Morrison Run is just too good to ignore. Meandering from the top of Mohawk to empty into the Allegheny River, Morrison Run has exceptionally good water and supports a small but stubborn population of native brook trout and a few "native" brown trout, the progeny of some intrepid ancestors who made their way up the little creek and spawned.

Standing on the side of the stream where it is narrow enough to jump across, Jim Lawson summed up why nearly a dozen volunteers were battling swarms of gnats and lugging logs and stones to be placed strategically in the stream last Saturday.

"We're not just doing this for sportsmen," he said. "This is where we live, and we need to take care of it."

Lawson is vice president of the Cornplanter Chapter of Trout Unlimited and the coordinator for the project. The chapter has adopted the stream for a habitat improvement project that has already taken more than a year and could take as much as three years.

Saturday's work was the beginning of the actual effort to improve the habitat for trout by installing carefully placed and designed structure to give the fish places to hide and hunt. The work involves about 1,000 feet of stream bed, which will receive 17 different structures. It could be expanded in the future.

The local Trout Unlimited chapter has been working closely with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, which has provided the technical expertise, some money for materials and help with obtaining the permits necessary from the state Department of Environmental Protection to work in the creek.

Mark Sausser, northwest and southwest stream habitat manager for the Fish Commission, oversaw the installation of two structures Saturday. And he was in the creek, shoulder-to-shoulder with the local volunteers.

Two basic types of structure are being placed at strategic points in the creek, modified overhead cover habitat and deflectors to create pools.

Sausser explained that it is not the water quality that limits the number and size of the brook trout in Morrison Run. Nor is it the supply of food - a survey of the creek done prior to the project showed healthy populations of caddis, mayfly and even some stone flies - but rather the terrain. The stream has significantly long stretches of "flat water," that is, long runs without overhead cover, deep pools or undercut banks that trout rely on. The volunteers are stepping in to give Mother Nature a little design help.

The first structure placed Saturday was located on a sharp bend in the creek. Logs were placed on the outside of the curve and backed up by stones. The logs were kept above the bottom, to give fish shelter and promote the creation of a deep run.

Next was a deflector, also produced by placing a series of logs in the creek at an angle to the flow. Eventually, the current will undercut the base gravel to produce another protected pool. Rocks are added to finish it off.

And so it will go downstream with bank protection, more deflectors and more overhead cover.

Sausser explained that the DEP permit for the stream work is written for three years, but if more time is needed it can be extended.

Before the first stone could be moved, however, there were months of planning and legwork.

"We had to track down the ownership of all of this land, to get permission from the landowners to go ahead," Lawson said. "It's a real patchwork."

"Much of it is owned by Collins Pine Co., and they have been extremely helpful," he said. "When we wanted to take down a tree, they marked it for cutting for us and never blinked an eye."

Gas and Oil Associates not only gave the OK to work through their territory, but helped out by cutting some old pipelines that were suspended over the creek.

The U.S. Forest Service was also instrumental in getting the project off the ground and continues to offer expertise and logistical support.

The project consumes hundreds of hours of volunteer work by members of the TU chapter, the Forest Service and others.

Noting the recent week-long effort to remove trash from the Allegheny River, Conewango and Brokenstraw Creeks, Lawson said, "It's good to see local groups being active in our local environment."

And when they broke for lunch, wet, tired and a bit chilly, swatting at clouds of gnats, the conversation turned to fishing, of trophy fish landed and lost. It was inevitable.