Chances for a wild tiger trout?

[wildtrout2]

afishinado wrote:
My 2 is I think the 3 Frank posted + PCray's + Ryan's are all wild tigers. All the others looked like they were stocked.

Mine was caught on Jeans Run, I doubt it was stocked.
Don't mind mentioning the location, because if you have the determination and physical ability to get there you deserve the rewards.

 

[bigjohn58]

FrankTroutAngler wrote:

Out4Trout wrote:
One of my favorite fish I ever caught was this tiger in Mud Run. Although I have seen more wild browns this year than in the past for the most part the section I fish is dominated by brooks so I would believe the theory of a brookie dominated stream that also holds a few wild browns would be the correct scenario to produce a wild tiger.

This is the only wild one I have ever had the privilege of catching and if I never catch another one as long as I live, I will remember this one and be happy.

I plan on having a replica of this one made for my tying bench.

Not that it matters, but I have serious doubts that your tiger trout is a wild one. As I mentioned, I've caught 23 that were wild and none of them looked anything like yours. I've also probably caught 25 or more stocked tiger trout and yours looks much more like them.

I'm not saying I'm right; I'm just saying I have serious doubts.

Does anyone else think Out4Trout's wild tiger trout is not a wild one?

I didn't want to really say anything but to me that one doesn't look wild to me and I'm probably close to double digits in wild tigers.

 

[bigjohn58]

Here are a few of my wild ones...

 

[afishinado]

Frank,

Thanks for posting the pics of wild tiger trout.

Since you have caught a whole bunch of them, I would assume the pics you posted are typical of all the wild ones you have caught?>>>orange colored fins and yellow belly?

 

[tztrout]

I caught a stocked tiger in Hickory Run about 15 years ago. My kids had also caught them at Lake Frances just outside the park that same opening day.Probably from the same white truck!

 

[FrankTroutAngler]

afishinado wrote:
Frank,

Thanks for posting the pics of wild tiger trout.

Since you have caught a whole bunch of them, I would assume the pics you posted are typical of all the wild ones you have caught?>>>orange colored fins and yellow belly?

Yes. The wild tigers that I have caught all look pretty much like the three I posted here. Probably about half of the ones I've caught had minty-green vermicular markings like the tiger in my second photo. The lighter vermicular markings are minty-green in this second photo. If you catch a wild tiger with these minty-green markings you'll know it's a wild tiger long before you land it. The other two did not have the minty-green coloration.

 

[wildtrout2]

wildtrout2 wrote:

afishinado wrote:
My 2 is I think the 3 Frank posted + PCray's + Ryan's are all wild tigers. All the others looked like they were stocked.

Mine was caught on Jeans Run, I doubt it was stocked.
Don't mind mentioning the location, because if you have the determination and physical ability to get there you deserve the rewards.

I just found another pic of my tiger that I forgot I had. I measured the forceps (6") against the trout and it was a bit over 7", not 8" as I had mentioned.

afish, I can appreciate your skepticism as to weather this tiger is wild or not, because of it's atypical color pattern. I'm thinking it doesn't resemble the more colorful tigers posted because it came from a tannic, very shaded stream?
The four or five wild browns I've caught on Jeans were also quite dark in color, unlike the vivid colors of most other wild browns I've caught in Pa.

From what I've learned, they stock the Nesquehoning (near town) with
brooks, browns, and rainbows. Could a barely legal tiger trout have accidentally gotten mixed in, made it's way down to Jeans, and gone quite a ways upstream where I caught it? I guess this scenario is possible, but I'm a tough sell on that.

 

[afishinado]

wildtrout2 wrote:

wildtrout2 wrote:

afishinado wrote:
My 2 is I think the 3 Frank posted + PCray's + Ryan's are all wild tigers. All the others looked like they were stocked.

Mine was caught on Jeans Run, I doubt it was stocked.
Don't mind mentioning the location, because if you have the determination and physical ability to get there you deserve the rewards.

I just found another pic of my tiger that I forgot I had. I measured the forceps (6") against the trout and it was a bit over 7", not 8" as I had mentioned.

afish, I can appreciate your skepticism as to weather this tiger is wild or not, because of it's atypical color pattern. I'm thinking it doesn't resemble the more colorful tigers posted because it came from a tannic, very shaded stream?
The four or five wild browns I've caught on Jeans were also quite dark in color, unlike the vivid colors of most other wild browns I've caught in Pa.

From what I've learned, they stock the Nesquehoning (near town) with
brooks, browns, and rainbows. Could a barely legal tiger trout have accidentally gotten mixed in, made it's way down to Jeans, and gone quite a ways upstream where I caught it? I guess this scenario is possible, but I'm a tough sell on that.

No, I understand, WT.

This is not an exact science.

Plus photo / lighting often don't always represent well the actual colors or appearance.

I just wanted to reference Frank's pics which are the best benchmark since he has caught so many and fishes nearly all wild trout streams.

Fun stuff for wild trout geeks.....

 

[Out4Trout]

WT, Mine also was caught in a tannic and well shaded area of Mud Run and is up near the headwaters a long way from any stocking. Again, possible that it is stocked but Im also a hard sell because of the location. Mine looks a lot like yours in the pic you posted.

BTW, I dont really care either way and I enjoyed looking at what to me was a beautiful trout wild or not. I just dont think you can put a label on how they look when there could be so many variables in streams and locations.

 

[Prospector]

Here is the one I caught in June 2019 on Kettle. I assumed it was stocked and still do, but admittedly the door is open a little bit. I caught it in a hole that always holds brook trout. A very productive tributary to Kettle flows in about 60 yards upstream of where I caught this fish, so it easily could have come down. Another guy in our group caught 2 in Kettle in 2017. Once again, in a spot that always holds brookies and just about 50 yards downstream of a trib.

 

[wildtrout2]

Prospector wrote:
Here is the one I caught in June 2019 on Kettle. I assumed it was stocked and still do, but admittedly the door is open a little bit. I caught it in a hole that always holds brook trout. A very productive tributary to Kettle flows in about 60 yards upstream of where I caught this fish, so it easily could have come down. Another guy in our group caught 2 in Kettle in 2017. Once again, in a spot that always holds brookies and just about 50 yards downstream of a trib.

Prospector, is there any history of tiger trout being stocked in Kettle by the State?

 

[Prospector]

wildtrout2 wrote:

Prospector wrote:
Here is the one I caught in June 2019 on Kettle. I assumed it was stocked and still do, but admittedly the door is open a little bit. I caught it in a hole that always holds brook trout. A very productive tributary to Kettle flows in about 60 yards upstream of where I caught this fish, so it easily could have come down. Another guy in our group caught 2 in Kettle in 2017. Once again, in a spot that always holds brookies and just about 50 yards downstream of a trib.

Prospector, is there any history of tiger trout being stocked in Kettle by the State?

That's a good question and same one I posed today to the other guy in our group that caught the other 2 tigers. I know 4 locals that would have a handle on that and I will be trying to call them over the next week to pick their brain. An unreliable source once told me some were stocked in Kettle.

 

[ryansheehan]

wildtrout2 wrote:

ryansheehan wrote:
I caught mine on the upper section of the Gunpowder where I've never caught a brook trout. I know they exist further down in the feeders though.

Ryan, that's one of the pretteist wild triger trout I've seen.

Here's the one I caught in 2010. I think it was 8" if I recall. Kind of bland looking, but I'll probably never catch another.

Thanks, tigers are just so rare it's great to see everyone's pictures.

 

[bigjohn58]

wildtrout2 wrote:

Prospector wrote:
Here is the one I caught in June 2019 on Kettle. I assumed it was stocked and still do, but admittedly the door is open a little bit. I caught it in a hole that always holds brook trout. A very productive tributary to Kettle flows in about 60 yards upstream of where I caught this fish, so it easily could have come down. Another guy in our group caught 2 in Kettle in 2017. Once again, in a spot that always holds brookies and just about 50 yards downstream of a trib.

Prospector, is there any history of tiger trout being stocked in Kettle by the State?

I caught a tiger in the Proctor hole probably 10 years or more ago. I talked to people from the hatchery and they said it accidently got in the truck. It happens from time to time.

 

[larkmark]

I and others have caught tigers in Kettle and some were probably 14". I feel sure they were stocked.

 

[Mike]

The database says that within Area 6 (SE Pa) the Area 6 electrofishing crews processed a minimum of 40,860 wild ST and 53,262 wild BT from 1976 through 2018. That number is a minimum because the crews also spent time surveying many streams within and on the border of Juniata Co in 1981, the wild trout from which do not show up in this summary. The number would also be increased if the fish that my then central Pa crews handled from 1977-1979 when sampling exclusively in southcentral and northcentral Pa. were included. This is noteworthy because one of the tigers that I mention below came from a northcentral Pa survey.

In all of that sampling, only three wild tiger trout were captured from streams...Muncy Ck, Sullivan Co, Northkill Ck, Berks Co, and Green Branch, York Co. Two others (yearlings) were captured in in, of all places, Blue Marsh Reservoir. They probably came from Northkill Ck or Spring Ck, both tribs to Tulpehocken Ck or Blue Marsh. This suggests the rarity of these fish. I would add that only in the case of Northkill was the species composition primarily ST; the other two streams were primarily BT streams.

The only non-yearling was the fish captured in Green Branch.

 

[csoult]

I've never caught one, but seem to remember Shane B. catching one in BFC. I'm not sure where he was fishing though. I have caught brookies in BFC before.

 

[pcray1231]

So about 1 in every 30,000 wild trout is a tiger, maximum (at least based on that sample size).

 

[sarce]

I have never seen one personally in PA, but caught one in the far headwaters of a Northern MD stream a few years ago. It was 4" long at most. I have never caught a brown in that section, only brook trout, but browns occasionally show up in surveys in numbers in the single digits (so less than 1% of the population, and nonexistent some years).

I'd guess that I've caught somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 wild trout over the past 10 years (Wide range, I know) but I'd say only about a third were from streams with both brown and brook trout, so it may be more like a 1 in 1,000 chance if you eliminate streams where it's 100% impossible for a wild tiger to be produced. For example I fish a lot of suburban streams where brook trout were wiped out long ago, or streams in the same area that still have brook trout but flow into streams that have zero wild trout due to poor water quality. Those places shouldn't factor in to the odds of catching a wild tiger, because it is known that there's no chance.

EDIT: was able to find the picture from when I posted it a few years ago.

 

[k-bob]

I fish mostly in mostly brookie streams, only ever caught 1 tiger: same fish shown here by wt2 imho. I do remember reading a credible report of a wild tiger or two in a cranberry creek (monroe county) biologist report (it's mostly browns).