First time Wild or Stockie question.

[mike_richardson]

Typically it is pretty easy to tell with brook trout a wild or stocked fish but this one has me scratching my head. I really wouldn't care normally but this would probably be my biggest native on fly equipment.

A little back story on the stream this came from. It gets stocked with brooks, browns, bows, and goldens. The typical size of the brookies that get stocked are 9-12", but I know that often some fish don't eat as much as others and such and are a bit smaller but not by much. This one was somewhere between 8-9" Judging by the fish's color I would say he was at a minimum last years stockie. I would assume he would have grown a little in the stream as there is a lot of life in the stream.

So what do you think?

I am going on Team Holdover, but I am pretty much 50/50 on this. THe only reason why I feel this way is its pectoral fins, and tail look a little rounded to me and not as "perfect" as you would suspect from a native, and the fact they the stocked brooks are typically bigger than this fish.

 

[troutbert]

Probably a stocked trout. Look at the pectoral fins.

Club hatchery brookies often look like this one. They often have better color than the ones raised in big PFBC hatcheries. But the fins are still a little off.

Also, it is rare to catch 9 inch native brookies in stocked streams. It happens, but it's unusual.

 

[Millsertime]

Is "LL" Little Lehigh? If so what section? Is that a worm in its mouth?

 

[pcray1231]

Based on where Mike is from and fishe's regularly, I highly doubt it's the Little Lehigh. That also looks like a pretty standard nymph pattern in it's mouth, to me.

Anyway, to answer the OP. I lean towards a stocker.

 

[Fishidiot]

troutbert wrote:
Probably a stocked trout. Look at the pectoral fins.
Club hatchery brookies often look like this one. They often have better color than the ones raised in big PFBC hatcheries. But the fins are still a little off.
Also, it is rare to catch 9 inch native brookies in stocked streams. It happens, but it's unusual.

This. ^
If you look at the upper photo, the pectoral fin on the left is stubby. It could be wild or a holdover, but as Tbert points out, club stocked fish can be pretty colorful.

There are often brookies just like this in The Run in Boiling Springs and visiting anglers often tell me they're wild. They're often disappointed to hear that the fish are club stocked. Even the PFBC brooks can color up like this after just a few months in the stream.

 

[Swattie87]

Stocker with near 100% certainty. Pectoral fins as noted, and check out the tail in the bottom pic.

 

[mike_richardson]

LL in the photo name stands for Lively Legz, as the Nymph pattern I used to catch it. I didn't want to sound redundant on how I like that material, or seem like I was pushing their product or something like that, . I doubt I will ever be able to fish the LL.

It was caught on the Little Conemaugh, but the run of the mill brookies that are stocked in this stream, (from a co-op nursery) aren't typically as colorful as this one. That is why I was thinking hold over. But that co-op typically cranks out brookies that are a lot bigger and thicker than this guy, so the smaller size threw me off as I would expect it to me quite bigger if it was last years stockie.

 

[pabrookie94]

I'd like to say stocked. Pectoral fins kind of give it away for me anyways. Over near Scranton by my girlfriends house I fished a stream which I can't remember the name of but the brooks had beautiful and I mean beautiful colors but I know with almost 100% certainty they were just hold overs.

 

[Fuller24]

I'm with stocked on this one, either way pretty brookie