Tiger guys....have at it

[bigjohn58]

Zak wrote:
Forget the stupid stocked Tiger. Let's talk about BigJohns unreal massive wild tiger. If that thing is truly wild, and I think it is, that is the most incredible trout I've ever seen in my life. 1 in a billion fish right there. INCREDIBLE. 17"? Just unreal. I thought the 13.5" wild tiger I caught a few years ago was the biggest tiger ever caught lol (not really) but that thing is amazing.


Dang thing sure looks wild to me!

Thanks for the comments! I really enjoyed catching this tiger but then the more and more I kept thinking about it I wish it was a brown. This fish is sterol and can't help with the future of the stream. Where that was caught the stream relies totally on wild/native fish reproduction. Its a fish I won't ever forget BUT after catching a couple in various sizes I've kind of had enough. They certainly are neat looking though!

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

Stocked or wild?

 

[bigjohn58]

That looks like the stocked ones out in Utah. I always assumed if they didn't have the marbled look they were more than likely stocked. Is this true? Who knows...I have caught some similar to that one maybe not quite that big in that style mostly from stocked waters. Very pretty fish either way!

 

[WildTigerTrout]

I would post a photo of my two wild tigers but I don't know how. My Avatar is a wild tiger. It was 11" long. I caught him on a Harrison Steeves pattern I tied known as the "Crystal Butt Cricket".

 

[moon1284]

Sal was that caught in pa? A lot of brook trout I've caught in Maine have the red belly like your pic. No clue if it's stocked or wild.

 

[ryansheehan]

My one and only from the gunpowder.

 

[Gone4Day]

Looks like a marble trout. Vacation picture from Slovenia maybe?

 

[FarmerDave]

salvelinusfontinalis wrote:

Stocked or wild?

Shopped, and probably flossed.

 

[bigjohn58]

ryansheehan wrote:

My one and only from the gunpowder.

That is definitely a pretty one salvelinusfontinalis!

 

[krayfish2]

I've enjoyed reading the replies. So, if most wild tigers appear in smaller / fairly remote freestones. Many of these creeks have populations of smaller fish due to limited carrying capacity (limited forage and/or limited flow). It's likely they would only be able to produce tigers of similar size, correct?

Take the same situation and make it 50 times the size. Increase the forage Base by 1000%. The resident browns average 16" with lots and lots of fish reaching 4, 5 or even 6 pounds. Almost every feeder holds wild brook trout and some areas may have pockets of resident populations of brooks. Based on stories of freakish hybrid growth and aggressiveness, is it not conceivable for these to pop up from time to time?

Just a question / playing devil's advocate.

 

[bigjohn58]

krayfish2 wrote:
I've enjoyed reading the replies. So, if most wild tigers appear in smaller / fairly remote freestones. Many of these creeks have populations of smaller fish due to limited carrying capacity (limited forage and/or limited flow). It's likely they would only be able to produce tigers of similar size, correct?

Take the same situation and make it 50 times the size. Increase the forage Base by 1000%. The resident browns average 16" with lots and lots of fish reaching 4, 5 or even 6 pounds. Almost every feeder holds wild brook trout and some areas may have pockets of resident populations of brooks. Based on stories of freakish hybrid growth and aggressiveness, is it not conceivable for these to pop up from time to time?

Just a question / playing devil's advocate.

I personally think anything is possible. There's no way of telling any of this. Fish can travel a long ways. There is really not a lot known about wild tiger trout because of how rare they are.

 

[Dave_W]

krayfish2 wrote:
Based on stories of freakish hybrid growth and aggressiveness, is it not conceivable for these to pop up from time to time?

Just a question / playing devil's advocate.

Sure, it's certainly conceivable.
A big Del Riv tiger could certainly have had wild origins in a trib and just grew to massive size in the main stem just like other trout do.

They can be fairly long lived. I chased a tiger in a small limestone stream for several years before I finally managed to catch him (thought he was a brown, didn't know he was a tiger until he was in the net). This fish was 21" and had been in that pool for a long time.

While I still think the origin of fish like these is much more likely from a trib stocked with tigers, it's certainly fun to ponder the realistic possibility that fish like these could be wild.

 

[wildtrout2]

ryansheehan wrote:

My one and only from the gunpowder.

Ryan, that's a pretty wild tiger trout. Mine didn't have the nice color like yours though. I'm wondering if it's because of the dark environment that I caught mine in? There's a ton of overhanging rhody on this stream.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

My fish was caught in a limestone stream in SEPA with absolutely no wild brook trout anywhere in the drainage (tribs or otherwise). It does have wild browns.
It's colors are striking and the fins are perfect. It was obviously in the stream a long time and the steady diet of shrimp and cress bugs got it it's striking colors. Still stocked.

There is virtually no way to tell about the Delaware tigers being stocked or wild just by looking at a picture. A wild tiger in the Delaware River certainly could reach those sizes.

 

[FarmerDave]

Who is stocking tiger trout. Clubs? Fish Commission hasn't stocked them for years, if not decades.

Sal, how do you know that the limestone you are talking about has absolutely not brook trout in it, or its tributaries? If answering that means identifying location, please don't bother.

Are brook trout stocked in the watershed?

By the way, that thing is quite the freak of nature.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I know because Iam very familiar with it, the fish and boat does not stock brook trout in this Watershed. Way downstream, past impassible dams is a sportsman club that does, but there is virtually no way for these fish to get up to where this one was. Someone could put brookies in there and I suppose the one in a million chance of a stock brook trout/ wild brown trout fry could survive but it is way more plausible that it was stocked.
Above the area I caught this fish is in fact a fishing club.

 

[bigjohn58]

FarmerDave wrote:
Who is stocking tiger trout. Clubs? Fish Commission hasn't stocked them for years, if not decades.

Sal, how do you know that the limestone you are talking about has absolutely not brook trout in it, or its tributaries? If answering that means identifying location, please don't bother.

Are brook trout stocked in the watershed?

By the way, that thing is quite the freak of nature.

That's not true. The Bellefonte hatchery has had tiger trout recently. I watched them stock a few from that hatchery. Tylersville hatchery also had some tigers probably 6 or so years ago. The Fish Commission just doesn't advertise them.

 

[sarce]

The fish in the OP has a totally mangled dorsal fin so it's stocked IMO. But I agree with others that there could certainly be wild tigers in that system that would have the same potential to grow large like the browns and rainbows.

Size should not be used as an indicator of stocked and wild. You can have tiny stocked fish and huge wild fish. I never understood that argument "it's big so it must be stocked". Well, if the stream isn't stocked and the big fish in question doesn't have any other signs of being stocked...congrats, it's a big wild fish!

I think bigjohn's second tiger is wild and a freaking awesome fish.

 

[FarmerDave]

bigjohn58 wrote:

FarmerDave wrote:
Who is stocking tiger trout. Clubs? Fish Commission hasn't stocked them for years, if not decades.

Sal, how do you know that the limestone you are talking about has absolutely not brook trout in it, or its tributaries? If answering that means identifying location, please don't bother.

Are brook trout stocked in the watershed?

By the way, that thing is quite the freak of nature.

That's not true. The Bellefonte hatchery has had tiger trout recently. I watched them stock a few from that hatchery. Tylersville hatchery also had some tigers probably 6 or so years ago. The Fish Commission just doesn't advertise them.

Hmmm. I did not know this. Thanks.

 

[wildtrout2]

Looking more closely, bigjohn's big tiger certainly looks a lot like the one I caught, but a much larger version. Perhaps it is wild, but as mentioned, trout can wind up in some strange locations on streams that aren't supposed to be stocked.

Several years ago, on one of the most remote "unstocked" Class A streams that I fish, I caught a 22" rainbow. It went home for dinner. This stream is strictly wild browns, except in the middle section, where I've caught a couple very small natives. It seems like the tiger trout sparks the imagination more than most other trout.