pcray1231 wrote:
Pcray... You say you don't find many trout in Penns over the 16-18" bracket and in my limited experience I somewhat agree. You also say these fish are 3 years old... Where do you suppose they go as they age. All the literature I read on Browns states that they are a long lived fish and can reach 10+ years... You'd think there would be more fish in the 20+ inch category given the number of 16 to 17"ers present. I have my theories, but would like to hear more from those who have more knowledge of Penns Browns than me.
Always wondered the same.
First, due to natural mortality, it's normal for there to be fewer and fewer in each year class. So even if there were not anything "special" going on about Penns, the number of 4 year olds would be a fraction of the number of 3 year olds, which are a fraction of the number of 2 year olds, which are a fraction of the number of 1 year olds. So, the older they get, the rarer they are.
And despite my seeming inability to catch them, there ARE 20+ inchers in Penns.
But it does seem like there should be a few more than there are.
Part of it may be that I don't catch many 20+ because I'm not TRYING to catch 20+ inchers. I catch 16-18 inchers while fishing normally. Nymphs, dry flies, etc. If I do use streamers they tend to run small. I'm not out there tossing big articulated streamers to represent small suckers and fallfish and stuff like that that the big browns would mostly eat. I'm not fishing late at night which is when the big browns tend to eat. So there's some self selection going on. I catch what bigger fish can commonly be caught while fishing for higher numbers of little fish.
But also, while a brown trout in captivity CAN reach 10 years, I think in wild environments anything over 5 is extremely rare, especially in places where they grow big. Life in nature is difficult. As they get bigger they need more food to sustain themselves. They also need more oxygen, larger sources of cover, etc. Natural events that prevent feeding for a period of time, or temporarily increase temperature, etc., do happen in nature, and they impact larger fish more severely than they do smaller fish.
And lastly, Penns has a lot of food. But it's mostly bugs. Not that there isn't baitfish. But in terms of bug life it's extremely rich which leads to fast growth rates when compared to more pedestrian streams. In terms of baitfish life it's more normal. Which means that fish will hold onto the bug diet longer before becoming piscavores, and big fish eating bugs don't grow real fast. When they do make the switch, they still don't grow real fast because Penns isn't anything special for them anymore.
i.e. by the time they reach 3 years and 16-18 inches, every additional year might only add an inch or so of length. Which makes it hard to surpass that magic 20" mark, and if they do, they don't do it by all that much.
Those are just my thoughts. But yeah, I'm shooting from the hip.
