Stocked or Wild?

M

mikesl

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Sep 30, 2012
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Hi all

Caught these guys on the Little Lehigh in the Parkway today...
and one of them looks very much like a stocked Brown, but that confuses me a bit because I thought it was only stocked with rainbows. Appreciate your inputs.

Fish #1
Wild brown....
Sorry for poor photo... but even so, long and lean, nice fins, round dots, and good color.

ECibxkz.jpg



Fish #2
This has got to be a stockie... right?
NkJ01G2.jpg



Both were caught in the same shallow riffle. And before we go there, no gravel streambed was disturbed in the process. Did see at least one populated redd in the parkway, in the tailout of a shallow pool.

Is it to be expected that there are stocked browns in the LL?
 
mikesl wrote:
Hi all

Caught these guys on the Little Lehigh in the Parkway today...
and one of them looks very much like a stocked Brown, but that confuses me a bit because I thought it was only stocked with rainbows. Appreciate your inputs.

Fish #1
Wild brown....
Sorry for poor photo... but even so, long and lean, nice fins, round dots, and good color.


Fish #2
This has got to be a stockie... right?
NkJ01G2.jpg


Both were caught in the same shallow riffle. And before we go there, no gravel streambed was disturbed in the process. Did see at least one populated redd in the parkway, in the tailout of a shallow pool.

Is it to be expected that there are stocked browns in the LL?
 
Working on the posting of pics bear with me
 
Both looked stocked...
 
Browns are stocked and also you have a hatchery on stream. Escapees happen often during high water.


You have to lower case the IMG to img
 
Ya, makes sense.
The fall stocking supposedly consisted of rainbows only....
Why do they stock browns in such a stream with nice wild browns :/

As for the "wild fish" - I know the pic is no good, but lots of red in the tail and adipose fin, and has the look of all the wild browns i've caught.
 
the top one doesn't look like a stockie at all.
 
Agreed. The sparsity of the spots, condition of the fins, red strips in the tail, I can't tell from the picture if it has a blue orb behind the eye or not, but if I caught it, I'd assume it was wild.
 
FAIL in reading comprehension. The poster acknowledged the first fish as wild. Whoops.

 
Yep, these are just as expected. #1 is wild #2 is stocked
 
Unless you see a clipped anipose, I don't think the pics are big/clear enough to be sure. Nice pair, another fisherman who actually fishes,good job Lad.
 
1. Wild.
2. Stocked.

I'd put my level of certainty around 95%. :)
 
These are both good examples of what they are and would make a good tutorial about the differences between wild and stocked Browns. Fish 1 is wild, fish 2 is stocked. There are other things going on too, but the fins tell the tale on these two.
 
#1 is a brown. #2 is also a brown. Did you enjoy catching them? I will assume the answer is yes and speculation on origin is exactly that......speculation. if you must know, ask the fishes parents. My guess will be the exact opposite of the consensus and I can say that with 100% certainty :-D. Just enjoy time on the water. If you believe that you discovered a previously unknown wild population, contact PFBC to survey stream. Can we stop these threads or have a section dedicated to "stocked or wild?". That way the rest of us don't ha e to see them. Have a blessed day.

I will take a blured photo of a 10.5" fish and label the thread 10" or 11" and then wait for responses arguing the length. LMAO
 
kray, if you don't want to see them, don't click on the thread! It was appropriately titled.

I don't claim there to be a "pride" advantage of wild over stocked. I'm not saying he shouldn't be happy with the stocked fish. But I, for one, find the details of identifying fish heritage useful, and ultimately, good for everybody. The more we can understand fisheries, the better.

This is a pretty clear cut case, though. I realize that "indicators" aren't 100%. But there are a bunch of them, and this is one example where, for each fish, the wild vs. stocked indicators ALL fit in agreement.

Fish #1: Clean fins. light colored fins with good deliniation between light and dark on the anal fins, red adipose, sparse spot pattern, red spots, blue eye spot. = WILD

Fish #2: frayed fins, muddy looking fins with poor delineation between light and dark, no red anywhere, dense black spot pattern, no eye spot = stocked.
 
Both stockies, the colors are very faded on both the bottom fish clearly has split fins, the upper fish looks like it has split fins, but the pic is blurry. The LL gets stocked about 6 times a year, plus whatever the hatchery folks put in. That's why it's critical to get the stocking regime changed for the Lehigh Valley streams. They really don't need to be stocked at all, and shouldn't be.
For this stream it really doesn't matter whether they are wild or stocked, because if you can catch fish there, with all the pressure they are under from anglers, then you can catch fish anywhere.
 
I also agree that #1 is wild, #2 is stocked. Most of the PA stocked browns (or at least in my neck of the woods) have that look. The stockers remind me of digital camo because their spots tend to be more square and blurry rather than round and defined.
 
OK guys.... enlighten me. Which are stocked and which are wild???

 

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They're all bows. I suck with bows. Browns are the easiest, bows are the hardest. Also, the pics often don't show the whole fish.

But, if I'm gonna take a shot, I first need to know. Are these all PA fish? Hatchery fish from different states can be far different in appearance than PA fish.
 
All PA fish and before someone starts splitting hairs, of course they were all stocked (at some point) since bows aren't native to this area.
 
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