Jaws

[Chaz]

Back in November, the eggs were delivered for the Trout in the Classroom program participants. Soon after they arrived, the fry began to hatch. Little did I know at the time, but one of the fry was a predator.
All of the eggs were brook trout eggs, fertilized sometime in September. During my first visit after the eggs hatched there was one fry that stood out, it was just larger then all the rest. It soon became apparent why. My next visit I looked for the big brookie and was surprised to see that it was still much larger then the rest of the fry. There was a tall poking out of it's mouth. The kids called it jaws.
On my third visit jaws was a hefty 3 inches, this was early February. Last week Jaws was gone, released early into Perkiomen Creek near the school. When I asked what happened to jaws I was told, " we isolated jaws and one morning when we came into school jaws was happily resting in the tank with the other trout, with yet another tail poking out of its mouth. Jaws had jumped over the barrier because he was hungry, and promptly ate another trout.
I hope to catch Jaws sometime later this spring. I've now changed his name to Hannibal the Cannibal. My apologies to the victims of another Hannibal.

 

[afishinado]

Chaz wrote:
Back in November, the eggs were delivered for the Trout in the Classroom program participants. Soon after they arrived, the fry began to hatch. Little did I know at the time, but one of the fry was a predator.
All of the eggs were brook trout eggs, fertilized sometime in September. During my first visit after the eggs hatched there was one fry that stood out, it was just larger then all the rest. It soon became apparent why. My next visit I looked for the big brookie and was surprised to see that it was still much larger then the rest of the fry. There was a tall poking out of it's mouth. The kids called it jaws.
On my third visit jaws was a hefty 3 inches, this was early February. Last week Jaws was gone, released early into Perkiomen Creek near the school. When I asked what happened to jaws I was told, " we isolated jaws and one morning when we came into school jaws was happily resting in the tank with the other trout, with yet another tail poking out of its mouth. Jaws had jumped over the barrier because he was hungry, and promptly ate another trout.
I hope to catch Jaws sometime later this spring. I've now changed his name to Hannibal the Cannibal. My apologies to the victims of another Hannibal.

Very cool story, Chaz.

 

[pete41]

thumbs up,Chaz.

 

[Luke]

Awesome project raising up the future 'pool boss'. Thanks for participating with the kids in an informative project and for sharing this really funny story!

 

[LetortAngler]

Pretty cool story, thanks for sharing Chaz

P.s
Should of threw "Jaws" in big spring at the ditch

 

[JG63]

Some large Rock Bass in the Perk will even the score.

 

[pcray1231]

But brook trout don't eat other brook trout!!!!

 

[PennypackFlyer]

I can't believe it, Nope I don't believe that, that just happened.

A one liner from PCray!

 

[Chaz]

I know they like a well presented brown trout imitation too.

 

[Swattie87]

PennypackFlyer wrote:
I can't believe it, Nope I don't believe that, that just happened.

A one liner from PCray!

It’s been known to happen on the rarest of occasions.

In reference to pcray’s post and Chaz's OP, I had an interesting Brookie eating Brookie (or attempting to) experience this past weekend. I was fishing a culvert pool and on my first cast I foul hooked a dink in the gut from under the plunge fall. As I was pulling it in toward me, I saw a larger 9” range pool boss Brookie tailing it and chasing it. He followed it all the way to my feet and then grabbed the hooked Brookie crossways in his mouth. He let me lift him nearly clear of the water before he let go and bolted back into the plunge fall. I proceeded to catch a nice 8” Brookie (the one pictured in my Stockie Slam thread from the weekend) on a subsequent cast, so it’s possible this was the same ravenous fish, but I thought the one attempting to eat the foul hooked Brookie was a little bigger and I would have expected it to have been spooked. Neat experience nonetheless.

 

[FarmerDave]

I once caught a 6 inch brook trout on a jointed rebel minnow that must have been nearly 5 inches long. Why was I using a lure like that? Was fishing the Clarion River near Cooksburg and got tired of the little brook trout eating everything I threw so I figured I'd match the hatch as best I could and try to catch what might be feeding on them. My brook trout rebel was much smaller so I used the Brown trout lure.

That was back in the late 70s (I think) not long after they dumped about 3/4 million brookie fingerlings in there. It didn't matter where you went along that river, the small brook trout were there and more of a nuisance than the chubs and rock bass. Don't remember why they did that. May have been a hatchery problem someplace. The little buggers will try to eat anything they can get in their mouths around.

Unfortunately he got the entire treble in his mouth which was almost physically impossible. It likely died as a result. That's OK though. There were 749,999 more where it came from.