Excuse me, but I am a little slower than usual today. I suspect this is sarcasm but if it isn't, would you care to splain why it couldn't be lake run? But please don't give away any secrets. I was never a fan of spoon feeding, whether it be giving of receiving.
Thanks for the response. I believe you.
There are no waterfalls on that stream that would amount to a migration barrier. That would require a 5+ ft drop and I can't think of any drops higher than a foot on that stream.
Yup. They were smart in that they did not post the exact location, so even if someone here had Fishbrain premium, we wouldn’t be able to find out. Like sarce said, this stream has a ton of little brookies, so if this was a canibal, it makes sense how it got this big. Regardless, this is a one in atleast ten thousand catch.
Shoot, that was what I was talking about, around a foot. Can brookies actually jump over that? I thought it was only salmon who could do so. My bad
No worries! Yeah, that's nothing to a brookie. I highly recommend visiting any brookie stream in Shenandoah National Park - they have constant 4-5 ft drops and the brookies are above and below all of them. Prior to fishing there, I also thought they were more easily restricted.
Yep! I think 16 is still the cutoff.
Wonder what the creek looks like now 🤔Dear Fish Sticks,
The fish are there, you just got to know where to look and when to look for them.
Follow the hill rats after a rainstorm and then you'll know.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Yup, we really need to set our priorities straight. All the states you mentioned have nice watersheds but we continue to stock over them. Why??? It’s a WASTE OF FISH. Instead of stocking those adults in already great wild trout streams, they should stock juvenile fingerlings in improved streams to introduce or reintroduce trout. We should place more value on the FISH rather than FISHERMEN. Because after all, you can have fish without fishermen, but you can’t have fishermen without fish…Laying fish on ground after a nice long fight lined up next to net then getting out tape measure and getting fish to stop flopping against rocks and pine needles for a photo shoot might have killed that one, hope not.
Maryland has fish like that, so does WV, so does VA. Entire watersheds within these states are managed as catch and release for brook trout, open or mandated harvest of invasive trout, and no stocking.
Managing these larger downstream waterways that connect many smaller ones for brook trout allows them to become more genetically diverse, have access to more food/grow more, and to live up to 7 years/mid to upper teens in inches.
We could have that quality fish in PA
here is David Thorne from WV DNR on this recipe for success we refuse to adopt in PA.
“They need to be a large, contiguous and well connected native brook trout watershed,” said Thorne. “This is a watershed idea based on a lot of the research I and other people have conducted. Connectivity between the tributaries and main stems is how we see increased growth in fish. They have larger habitat, more food available, and can move to different habitats during different parts of their life cycle.”
DNR looks to enhance native brook trout waters - WV MetroNews
Plan being crafted is the next step in the evolution of trout management after work to improve habitat and water quality for many years begins to pay dividends in West Virginia.wvmetronews.com
I probably wouldn't technically call the stream in question "central" but it's not western, either, if that helps.
