The Run at Boiling Springs

[wildtrout24]

I fished the Run on Sunday morning, the strange catch was a three inch what appeared to be native brook trout. Any thoughts of how the little guy got there? My initial thoughts was perhaps trout in the classroom project. Does the run have naturally reproducing trout? I also landed three nice rainbows which were almost certainly stocked.

 

[Letort]

it is my understanding that the Breeches has native trout. i know I have certainly caught stream bred browns, not sure why brookies couldn't also survive.

 

[trike23]

They stocked quite a few brookies in the run. Some are quite beautiful for stocked trout.

 

[Dave_W]

It's certainly possible it was a wild brookie. I think this would be a rare likelyhood. To my knowledge, there have not been any stocking of TIC fish there either. There are a lot of small wild browns there but in over three decades of fishing the Run I have not seen a wild brook trout there, although, as mentioned, there are stocked brooks, but they're larger.

Are you sure it wasn't a small brown?

Nevertheless, it could certainly be a wild brookie. Heck, there was a wild tiger trout that showed up there recently so stranger things have happened.

 

[troutbert]

Possibly both the tiger trout and the brookie were stocked by a sportsmen club, such as the Yellow Breeches Anglers.

In general trout raised in small hatcheries are often look pretty good, with fins in good condition and nice color.

I stopped at the Yellow Breeches Anglers hatchery some years ago, and their trout looked pretty nice.

In hatcheries it's common for some of the small ones to get mixed in with the larger ones. So they get stocked inadvertently.

 

[wildtrout24]

It was certainly a brookie....it had the appearance of the many stunted small bookies you expect frome a mountain trickle of a stream. That was what surprised me so much. It could very well have slipped in with larger stocked fish, just appeared so much like a stream bred native.

 

[rrt]

It might've been the progeny of stocked brook trout. We have rainbows around here like that.

 

[troutbert]

Letort wrote:
it is my understanding that the Breeches has native trout. i know I have certainly caught stream bred browns, not sure why brookies couldn't also survive.

In PA a great many limestone streams have a wild brown trout population.

But only a small percentage of those have a population of native brook trout.

As to WHY that is the case, that's an interesting question.

 

[salmonoid]

troutbert wrote:

Letort wrote:
it is my understanding that the Breeches has native trout. i know I have certainly caught stream bred browns, not sure why brookies couldn't also survive.

In PA a great many limestone streams have a wild brown trout population.

But only a small percentage of those have a population of native brook trout.

As to WHY that is the case, that's an interesting question.

I think you mostly answered it.

In PA a great many limestone streams have a wild brown trout population.

 

[SteveG]

If not spawned from the Run and still a wild brookie, the possibility exists that it came from one of the tribs of the Breeches that have wild brookies.

 

[albud1962]

Several of the upstream tribs have wild brookies. With the higher water and somewhat cooler summer maybe a few moved downstream.

 

[Will]

Two years ago I caught a small brookie on the Breeches pretty far below Allenberry. It appeared to not be thriving, and wasn't big enough to be stocked, so I assume it moved a fair distance from a tributary.

 

[greenghost]

It has been my experience that brookies move around a lot more than people realize. Over the years I've caught brookies in lower Laurel Hill Creek (it warms into the 70s nearly every summer), in Penns Creek along Tunnel Road at the jam a couple years ago, once in Sandy Creek right below its junction with Little Sandy Creek, in Indian Creek in Westmoreland County a mile below the nearest cold water trib. Point being that if there are any cold water tribs, or even sections of spring influx, the potential is there to catch a "sparkly" as my daughter used to call them..