Interesting Brook Trout Info from a Scientist

[sandflyx]

Surely they did. My biggest PA brookie was caught in the Lehigh River, right where a CWF tributary dumps into the river. The brookies certainly wander in and out of the tribs into warm water fisheries when water temps permit. Brown trout do now. Every year the shad netting in Lambertville, New Jersey scoops up a few brown trout in their late April and early May catches.

those browns are most likely sea runs out of phila salt water. used to catch them off the new hope wing dam in the fall with kenny schram while chasing smallies. they would run upwards of 10 pounds sometimes.

 

[Chaz]

The book Bodines is mostly about fishing Lycoming Creek before stocking give an excellent narrative of brook trout fishing. Many mentions of the size of the fish. An earlier book I’ve talks in one chapter about fishing Pine Creek in the summer and catching trout below Slate Run of five pounds.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

While most books Bodines and vanishing trout for example appear to indicate large wild brook trout existed prior to stocking into the 1930s, its worth noting the forests were already denuded, mass sediment transport and channel alterations had happened. As a result, trout were being stocked heavily all through the state by railcar and milk cans for decades at that point in time.

 

[Sylvaneous]

I agree that he is a splitter. And I also tend to agree with the lumpers.

IMHO, brook trout are all the same species. Different strains are found in various places, as you'd expect, but labeling them as different species seems like a stretch.

Taxonomy is a human persuit, and with the ablilities of modern DNA analysis, it goes into hyper-drive.
-It's not hard to accept that the brook trout here in NW PA have a lot of variation from a brook trout in freakkin' LONG ISLAND!! So I'm good with that, but a different name makes no sense to me. And the constant influx of hatchery brookies absorbs? subsumes? dilutes to insignificance? the native subspecies, or, based on DNA, the genetic signature of the original salmonoids. Gosh, it feels like you're doing 'woke-speak' when describing this stuff and trying to be accurate and nuanced.
DNA analysis of the evolution of the modern human in EurAsia is midnumbingly complex and cross-woven. It describes what happened, like what people from where in, usually central Asia, moved into Europe and integrated or replaced the local population. But you won't get any effective or actionable information about the current people of Europe, except maybe the amazing baskeball players from the former Yugoslavia. So despite all the Good Professor's pronouncements , it doesn't effect us fishermen at all.
The only thing is if there is some division like steelhead vs. rainbows. Cruisers or sea-runs vs. mountain brookies. There would be genetics that would make populations of these fish better for some situations than others.
Syl

 

[troutbert]

While most books Bodines and vanishing trout for example appear to indicate large wild brook trout existed prior to stocking into the 1930s, its worth noting the forests were already denuded, mass sediment transport and channel alterations had happened. As a result, trout were being stocked heavily all through the state by railcar and milk cans for decades at that point in time.

Bodines was published in 1883, so it was written about a period long before the 1930s.

Vanishing Trout was published in 1931. The author of Vanishing Trout was an elderly man, nearly blind, when he wrote the book. Also it takes time, usually a few years to go from starting a book to its publication. And many of the chapters in Vanishing Trout were taken from magazine articles he had written over the years.

So he was writing recollections of fishing in earlier years. His period of active fishing probably ran from about the 1880s to the early 1920s.

So, he was not writing about the 1930s either, but earlier years.

 

[troutbert]

And the constant influx of hatchery brookies absorbs? subsumes? dilutes to insignificance? the native subspecies, or, based on DNA, the genetic signature of the original salmonoids.

Most brook trout genetics studies have found just the opposite, that the hatchery brookies have had little influence.

I don't know why this author's view is so different than other researchers.

They'll have to fight it out.

 

[wildtrout2]

Gosh, it feels like you're doing 'woke-speak' when describing this stuff and trying to be accurate and nuanced.

A lot to be said for being accurate. I agree with TB, that brookies are all the same species with different strains in various areas.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

those browns are most likely sea runs out of phila salt water. used to catch them off the new hope wing dam in the fall with kenny schram while chasing smallies. they would run upwards of 10 pounds sometimes.

That's impressive.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Several folks asked about a published rebuttal to the proposal to split brook trout S. Fontinalis into multiple species. Link below

USGS Publications Warehouse

It was recently proposed that there are three new species of Salvelinus with microendemic distributions in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, USA. The three species of Salvelinus were hypothesized to be distinct from their congener Brook Trout S. fontinalis based on three...

pubs.usgs.gov

 

[Chaz]

Most brook trout genetics studies have found just the opposite, that the hatchery brookies have had little influence.

I don't know why this author's view is so different than other researchers.

They'll have to fight it out.

I agree. I don’t understand why this guys analysis is different than everyone else. Dr Benhke didn’t think so when comparing modern trout to museum specimens.
Keep in mind that evidence shoes that breeding hatchery brook trout is very difficult, hasn’t sown that hatchery brook survive even to the next spawning cycle.

 

[Chaz]

And another thing brook were extirpated from much of their pre ice range in Pa. There are estimates of how much of their range even held brookies. They repopulated after the ice age gradually and were the main predator in a large percentage of Pa watersheds. The are still brook trout streams all across southern Pa.

 

[Jessed]

The main issue is the further you dive into genetics, the more complex species classification becomes. Defining a species has no hard fast rule or specific criteria, you can come up with endless subspecies categorizations and no clear rule for delineation. You could go to every brook trout stream in the state and find genetic differences, even within populations. This is the case that comes up all the time with defining cutthroat subspecies

Here’s a cool video with in depth information on speciation from a great anthropologist.

 

[PennKev]

The book, The Vanishing Trout (Charles Lose), beautifully describes brook trout populations in Pa back in the early 1930's, that can only be dreamed of today. Big natives were common back then, and in good numbers.

Trout populations in the 1930's would already have been greatly impacted by logging, mining. And agriculture. However good and different it was at that time, it would have been even more before railroads made large scale resource extraction practical.

 

[wildtrout2]

Trout populations in the 1930's would already have been greatly impacted by logging, mining. And agriculture. However good and different it was at that time, it would have been even more before railroads made large scale resource extraction practical.

I agree. As TB eluded to previously, his experiences were probably pre 1900's, more like late 1800's. Yet, he still mentioned strong brookie populations, with plenty of good size natives. He did mention the effects of human activity starting to take a toll. Still, a very good read.

 

[troutbert]

One of the interesting things, from an environmental history perspective, in Vanishing Trout is his accounts of catching big brook trout in the mill pond of a sawmill on Loysalsock Creek.

I don't know what year that was, but since there was a large sawmill, there must have already been a lot of logging in the watershed. Yet they were catching big native brook in the Loyalsock. And that location is not way up in the headwaters, it's where the stream is quite large.

I've also seen several photos from back in the logging days of people fishing for trout in the plunge pools below logging splash dams.

 

[wildtrout2]

One of the interesting things, from an environmental history perspective, in Vanishing Trout is his accounts of catching big brook trout in the mill pond of a sawmill on Loysalsock Creek.

I don't know what year that was, but since there was a large sawmill, there must have already been a lot of logging in the watershed. Yet they were catching big native brook in the Loyalsock. And that location is not way up in the headwaters, it's where the stream is quite large.

I've also seen several photos from back in the logging days of people fishing for trout in the plunge pools below logging splash dams.