Limestone Streams and Brookies

[FarmerDave]

Chaz wrote:
There are 2 very good reasons when we find browns in a brook trout stream why the browns are always bigger, first the browns are aggressive when selecting feeding lies, they will always chase out the brookies from the best lies. This happens in freestone streams as well as limestone streams.
Second, even in streams where brookies appear to dominate they don't if it is a mixed population, because the browns force the brookies into less fertile water.

Ah chaz? Aren't those both the same point? i do agree with you, but it is the same point. However, Brook trout simply do not grow as fast or as large as browns.

Most of the huge brook trout (over a couple pounds) and brown trout (over 10 pounds) are lake or sea run fish. They just don't get as big in streams of PA.

Hey Tim M., knowing that you are not a small person (almost as big as me, but not quite ), I propose that you and I get together on a crowded trout stream and start acting like trout by being more agressive when selecting fishing spots. It sounds like a good time to me. What do you think? I wonder if anyone will propose special streams for people under 6 foot.:-D

 

[Wulff-Man]

Now you really sound like a republican

Back to the law of the jungle! Let's start wearing animal skins and living in caves too! (Hey, then maybe the brookies will be able to return. And no more global warming!) :-D

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear Dave,

That sounds like a good idea! :-D

Truthfully, there are some small streams that I fish and I generally do pretty well on them by dressing in green and tan and moving slowly.

I think the fish take me for a tree, because sometimes they come and hide in the shade I create. :-D

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[FarmerDave]

Good think you don't wear brown, or they might mistake you for a Sasquatch which would probably spook them.

Might scare off the fish, too.

 

[Chaz]

Well, dave in a way, but it was my post and I made the distinction, so they are 2 points not one. I was thinking of Slate Run as a matter of fact. On most days you'd go there and think this is 1 heck of a brookie stream, but the surveys suggest it is 4 to 1 brown to brookies. Yet on any given day unless to target big browns you ain't catchun them cause they ain't interested. Brookies on the other hand are always interested in a meal. But getting back to the second point, when brookies are forced into less fertile sections of streams they do grow slower, because there just isn't a lot of forage. On the other hand the average size of brookies in Slate Run back in the old days was 1 to 2 pounds, or about 16 inches with quite a few larger specimens. Even now the browns are as big as they once were, but there is another reason for that I think.