Morning browns

[wildtrout2]

I was looking through my records and I see every one of my biggest freestone wild brown trout were caught in the early morning. None after 8:30AM. These browns were 4@16", 2@17", 1@18", and 1@19" (my best). I'm thinking it has to be the fact these fish are coming off a night of not being disturbed for any reason and the fact that I'm the first person up through said stream that morning?
I do make it a point to get streamside early, it makes the whole difference in your quality of fishing. I drive too far to take chances.

I'm usually on my way out of a given stream by around 2:00PM or 3:00PM, so I'm not experiencing any evening activity to compare with my morning results. Thanks for any thoughts/insight.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Yes yes yes. It's why I show up at the Letort usually while it's still dark. Action is hottest from day break till about 1 hour after.
Browns don't like light or being fished over.

 

[Chaz]

Yeah especially during the winter, but it seems that the biggest browns are out starting around dusk through dawn.
I find I catch more big brookies at dusk too, but I can't say they are out all night.

 

[PocketWater]

I have a friend I fish with frequently and he never wants to get out on the water early stating that the bugs don't get moving until the sun is out and things warm up a little bit. Drives me crazy because like some of you, I like getting on the water before others pass through.

 

[McSneek]

My biggest wild brown trout - 19 3/4" was caught at 1:11pm on 10/14/12 in Penns Creek. If my recollection is good it was a sunny day. Quick check of some other picture worthy fish in my Iphone from Penns show two of about 18" caught at 1:25pm on 5/3/13 and 10:20am on 5/1/15.

There are no big brook trout in PA as evidenced by the Post Your 12" Brookie Thread. Just gemmies.

YMMV

 

[krayfish2]

I'm with McSneek. Think most of my bigger fish were between 8am - 2pm. Some good ones just at dusk too. If you can find undisturbed big fish, they will feed throughout the day at points during the season. Hard part is finding undisturbed fish.

 

[RLeep2]

All else being equal and with no major insect activity to skew things, an hour in the morning is worth two in the evening. Always..

 

[Andreas]

Seems morning and late afternoon are my most productive. At least in terms of fish size.

 

[kobalt335]

I normally fish in the evenings and have success at and right after sunset. Typically my bigger fish come right when the light is fading, but not quite dark.

 

[Chaz]

The biggest brown I ever caught was in the twilight of an evening at the LL, when all else failed it took a #8 royal wulff. It was 4 pounds and 20 inches.
I think it is somewhat dependent on the time of the year. During the summer many streams get warm enough that even browns don't feed during the evenings, so they wait until the early morning when the water is coolest to start feeding. They may always be looking for a good meal overnight and indeed see better in low light situations.

 

[salmonoid]

Conventional wisdom is that the hour before sunrise and the hour after sunset are prime time to catch larger fish. While I think there is some validity to that, my own experiences over the past four years has my fish being caught predominantly not in the 8:30AM-2:00PM timeslot.

Had to do some digging to figure out why (clearly there are some lurking variables here) but I came to a few conclusions:

1) Outside influences often dictate when I might start fishing. For instance, other than one afternoon when I met Sarce there, I have never gone to State College just to fish. So on a work day, all of my fishing time is always after I'm done with whatever meeting, conference or other event has me in town for the day, so any fish from that region (or any other region of the state, for that mater) is always going to be after 3:00 or 4:00 PM.

2) Many of the larger fish I've caught come from small streams, but are often caught a good distance from the mouth of the stream. I may start out at the mouth at 6AM (I like to be on a stream early too most of the time), but it may be many hours (i.e. mid-afternoon) until I reach stretches where I encounter some larger fish.

3) I night fish, so some of my fish come in the window of 9:00PM to 1:00AM.

So while I think there is validity to higher probability of browns being caught in early morning, I think the biggest thing is finding fish that are in the "undisturbed" phase. I've been fortunate to stumble on a few of those and that's probably why the majority of mine are in the afternoon. If you tend to only fish early morning, well, then your big fish will come from early morning! You'd have to take a wide sample of anglers who are fishing the same spots at all hours of the day to really come to a valid conclusion about when the best times to fish are.

I plotted up all the browns 15" or larger I've caught over the past four years and this is the distribution I come up with. I included the 15" fish because I consider them to be larger fish in the size of streams I tend to fish. Take them out of the mix and the results for me are really skewed to the afternoon and evening.

 

[pete41]

My biggest brown-nine pounds weighed was caught in the evening-post sundown but in 30 years chasing browns in Montana I found that its when water temp is closest to optimum for them be it mid day this time of year or middle of the night in summer--if you are fishing for spawners in the fall then early morning is clearly best ,before they drop into deeper water.

 

[streamerguy]

Some of my best browns were caught during the middle of the day with a high sun shining down on the water. But the stream flow and color was absolutely perfect each time(in my eyes......other people might have passed on those conditions), and they were also caught on weekdays, so it was likely I was the first person to fish over those fish. Heck, it's possible I was the only fisherman of the week at those places.

So......I say ya'll should just sleep in and take your good 'ol time getting to the creek ;-) ;-)

 

[PennKev]

wildtrout2 wrote:
I'm thinking it has to be the fact these fish are coming off a night of not being disturbed for any reason and the fact that I'm the first person up through said stream that morning?

That's as important of a factor as any IMO.

 

[PALongbow]

I have the opportunity to fish for large trout and can tell you that the first hour or so of day light in the morning is the best and when the big fish are most aggressive. Once that sun hits the water the large trout are harder to catch and more impacted by any kind of movement.

Ron

 

[pete41]

PALongbow wrote:
I have the opportunity to fish for large trout and can tell you that the first hour or so of day light in the morning is the best and when the big fish are most aggressive. Once that sun hits the water the large trout are harder to catch and more impacted by any kind of movement.

Ron

depends on time of year-when living in Montana in Jan. and Feb. I would hit the water around 10 am-waste of time before that-then it would be over around 2pm when runoff dropped the temp..

 

[Hook_Jaw]

Mine were all spread out depends on the weather. Regular conditions for me If Im fishing streamers Is early morning low light

 

[DaveS]

I think I have pretty much equal coverage throughout the day. My very largest fish were all taken late morning-mid day. Two on streamers, two on nymphs, one of which I just happen to find working a shallow flat for nymphs.(partly shaded, but still very bright sun) Best part of watching a big fish turn and take you nymph in thin water: When you hook 'em and they turn, they look like they're 3 feet long!

For full disclosure, its a rare day that I manage to get on the water very early.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

I love reading these threads. There is a ton of experience and knowledge here.

I'll dive in...

IMO, Pete is closest to the "truth": Chances for the biggest fish are when conditions are best. Unfortunately, that statement is less helpful that it seems because it’s too general. There are many important variables: fishing pressure, water temp, time of year, availability of food, water level, fish population density/competition, riparian cover/canopy, aquatic cover/structure, etc.

You would have to be obsessive to even try to account for all this!

Another problem is most/all of us do not keep clean (confounding variable-free) data. For example, salmonid's, who is clearly a scientific guy, showed a chart that’s really interesting until you ask what time of year each fish was caught. The changing length of day and the switch between standard and daylight savings time are pretty big confounding variables there.

My take, it’s cool to think about this stuff because it helps us be more “tactical” (ref. other thread), but the bottom line for me is to have fun! Part of the fun for me is thinking about this stuff, but there is a sharp drop off in fun when it becomes too much like work.

 

[PALongbow]

pete41 - I primarily fish here in PA and the first hour of daylight in the morning has been best for me throughout the year. Once the sun came up the fishing slowed dramatically especially with browns. You are correct water temps/conditions will sometimes dictate the activity level.

Brown trout are funny creatures and are very sensitive to any change. You would swear that my place on Fishing Creek is void of any browns and then all of a sudden they are feeding heavily and that is all you wil catch...both stockies and wild variety. Water temps, time of day and hatch activity has been few of the areas that seem to trigger brown trout feeding activity.

Ron