Fighting Browns!

[jreichel]

The other day I was fishing a small stream in Crawford Co. catching 4 to 6 inch Brookies on dries. When I came across a pool and saw two Brown trout about 10 to 12 inches long. They seemed to be fighting! They paid no mind to me, just swam up and down the pool circling each other and ramming into each other so hard I could hear it! Thud!!! Thud!!! Over and over again. I sat and watched for 10 min. They were still going at it when I left.

Has any one else seen anything like this before?

 

[tomgamber]

I had a friend who once said he accidentally walked in on his parents while they were "fighting" in this manner. It was embarrassing.

 

[JackM]

I have seen stocked trout do that when they are attempting to establish some elbow room during feeding. I never watched it for a long time, but I think they will do it until one of them gives up. Then, you have the pool boss.

 

[KenU]

This sounds like the kind of behavior Bob Bachman describes in his study of brown trout in Spruce Creek many years ago. He noted that wild browns established feeding lies and did not often compete with one another in the pool he was observing. It was very much like the pecking order in a henhouse. Each trout knew its place and stayed there. This kept them from wasting energy fighting over stream positions and allowed them to maximize feeding time. Whenever hatchery trout were introduced into the pool, the whole orderly system collapsed. Hatchery and wild trout commenced fighting with one another for feeding positions. In a few days a significant portion of the wild trout simply abandoned the pool and never returned.

 

[Wulff-Man]

This is interesting because I was fishing the Harvey section of Spruce Creek last week and saw something very similar. In a couple pools there were some large trout cruising around over large areas, sometimes chasing each other, and pretty much ignoring us, even bumping into us. Later a little upstream we heard loud splashes, like the kind of splash a dog makes when it jumps into the water. Turns out it was 2 trout in the 17 to 20 inch range fighting with each other in some shallow riffles. As we watched they drifted downstream a bit, side by side bumping into each other. This was in the upper end of the Harvey section. Maybe the area was being invaded by trout from the private stocked sections upstream.