Surprise in back yard creek

[Upstream]

There is a small creek in my back yard, one that you can jump across most of the time. This year, with all the rain, it maintained a good flow through the year, Never fell to it's usual summertime low levels. Recently, I noticed something I had never seen before. I have seen a couple of Trout. Two Palominos of at least 12 inches and a Rainbow that was probably 16 inches. I am assuming these are hatchery raised fish that escaped from some stocked source. Perhaps someone's private pond that overflowed into the creek. This creek ends up as a tributary of the Schuylkill river near Landingville, Schuylkill county. Not aware of any adult trout stockings in the tribs. Just wanted to share this and see if anyone else is seeing anything like this.

 

[Mike]

The Rainbow could be from past stockings of RT fingerlings in the Schuylkill, but given that there are Golden Rainbows as well, I doubt it. I have never heard of any Golden RT mixed in with the RT fingerlings that the Schuylkill receives. Your thought that someone in the area is stocking adults is the more likely explanation. Given the number of wild BT and ST streams along the Schuylkill, with at least one entering near Landingville having wild trout in its upper half, I would not be surprised to hear that some wild trout are in your stream as well at times, if only due to seasonal movements.

 

[FarmerDave]

Since it included a couple golden rainbow, I'd suspect one of your neighbors is a bucket biologist.

 

[steliejim]

I have caught goldens in the Schuylkill River, courtesy of upstream stockings from TU. My guess is one of those crazy goldens made it all the way down there and swam up a trib.


Or as stated, someone bucketed them in.

 

[Dave_W]

It's not unusual for stocked trout to migrate considerable distances and move up into small streams. I'm sure that, like me, many of you have seen or caught stocked trout in some unusual places or when targeting different species (perhaps a topic for a different thread).

I'm inclined to believe that the very long period of very high water levels in recent months may result in more fish movement than normal. As a result, I'd be less surprised to see stocked trout and other species in very small waterways and other areas that would normally be inaccessible or marginal. This includes waterways with low head dams or other obstacles or habitat limitations.

 

[MathFish]

So did you try to catch them? I think it would be pretty cool to catch trout in my back yard if I normally couldn’t do so and then found myself having the opportunity to do so.

 

[FarmerDave]

Dave_W wrote:
It's not unusual for stocked trout to migrate considerable distances and move up into small streams.

True, but for golden rainbows, not as much.

Both are possible, but IMO bucket biologist is way more likely.

They are more common than many think.

 

[Floggingtrout]

If this is the creek that flows out of Orwigsburg fishers dan rodeo is the culprit. It has been producing trout from the overflow in that creek for years

 

[Chaz]

There is a club that stocks in the area, they have a pond on Pine Creek there and they may have rainbows and golden trout or palomino trout.