One of the ugliest fish I've ever caught..

[salmonoid]

A few weekends ago, I was out fishing on a STW that also holds wild browns (and produced one small, wild looking rainbow last year). I generally fish from the mouth upstream to where stockers start to show up and there are a couple of waterfalls in that stretch that make upstream migration difficult. The morning started out slow; I had a single hit in the first 45 minutes of fishing. As I was working my way up to the first larger waterfall, I thought I saw a fish shape hanging in the slightly off-color water in the tail. I cast at it a couple of times and it didn't move to take my offering, but it sure did seem like a fish. So I tied on a Squirmy Wormy. On the first cast, it moved and on the second cast, I hooked the fish. As I fought the fish, my first thought was it was a smallmouth, because it flashed bronze. I've caught some nice smallmouth in the lower stretches already. But as I got the fish out of the water, my second thought was it was a...salmon??!? I had a chance to finally use my newly acquired Pak Net and after netting the fish, my third thought was regardless of what salmonid species it was, it was fugly.

It was bronze and pale at the same time, the tail was partially rubbed off and both sides had sores on them. I snapped a few pictures and released it and it quickly returned to the same spot it was before. I kicked myself (mentally) because I forgot to measure it. I tossed my worm at the fish again and it didn't hesitate to take again and I hooked it, fought it for a second and it got off. About a minute later, it took a third time, I hooked it and landed it again and it taped at 20".

The question is - what is it?

 

[larkmark]

Sure is ugly. I would guess a starving, sick Brook Trout. I have caught some unusually colored and shaped fish from very dark sections of streams in deep ravines over the years. Nothing as weird as this one you got.

 

[Bamboozle]

Seeing as you caught it three times, what it is...

...is stupid!!

 

[silverfox]

Looks manmade. Has char features. Either a brook x brown concoction or a brook trout that was stocked in march and is slowly withering away because it lost it’s constant supply of purina trout chow.

 

[Swattie87]

salmonoid texted me this picture upon catching it a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure at the time, but looking at it again now, I’m pretty confident the species is Brook Trout. (Look at the pattern along the back, where it’s visible. Black mouth. White leading edge to fins.)

It does look to me similar to how dying post-spawn Salmon look. Almost literally rotting away. Hypothesis…Spawned out breeder Brookie that is going through a similar death process?

When helping stock the times I’ve done it, the fish in the worst shape and needing the most resuscitation are the big breeder Brookies. Maybe they’re half dead already?

 

[redietz]

Another possibility is a stocked tiger tout, like the ones seen in photos on these two pages:

Tiger Trout Master Angler

Taming the tiger trout

Some of the stocked ones have almost no markings of any sort.

 

[JimKennedy]

Another possibility: A brook trout that spawned out last season and is just withering away. Probably too weak to chase minnows, which a brookie that big would need to sustain itself. So hungry it eats whatever you toss at it, even if it's just been caught. From what I can see of the tail, and anal and ventral fins, it looks like it may well have been scraping along the gravel not too long ago (though not a whole lot because jaw makes me believe it is a male). Likely was a glorious fish in its prime. We all get uglier as we get older.

 

[FarmerDave]

Bamboozle wrote:
Seeing as you caught it three times, what it is...

...is stupid!!

I was going to say hungry, but that works.

 

[Dave_W]

It's a large stocked brook trout.

 

[LetortAngler]

Ya, looks to be a large stocked male Brook that’s nearing end of its life expectancy.. I’ve caught old looking, lethargic, sickly browns similar to this one on Spruce Creek before.

 

[HopBack]

If it’s where I think it is , there is a club that stocks ugly Brook trout for a special needs trout derby. I have caught some ugly ones post may time frame.

 

[Kevin82]

In my opinion with seeing the vermiculation between the dorsal and adipose fin, its a brook trout.

 

[Kevin82]

and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[moon1284]

Big stocked brook trout

 

[pcray1231]

Agreed. Stocked male brook trout that is in it's death throws.

 

[Mike]

I thought that if not harvested bigger fish will live forever. Hmm. (sarcasm)

 

[salmonoid]

I'm in agreement that it was a brook trout. However, there were no vermiculations or other markings on it. The one photo with the net has a small spot at the top that sure looks like brookie markings, but it's actually the sun and shadow shining through the net that created that appearance (which is also a good indication that brookies markings provide good camouflage, if some shadow and light create a similar pattern). Beside the shape of the fish generally looking like a brookie, the primary clue for me was the extremely small scale size. Rainbow or brown scales on a fish that size would have been at least twice as big as they are and these scales were tiny, like char scales are.

Hopback - you indeed may have identified the source of the fish, but I was fishing one STW stream down from that club stream. However, it's definitely conceivable that the fish dropped into the river for the winter and moved into a different tributary this spring. I'll drop you a PM to see if we're in the same vicinity.