Unknown Massive Migratory Brown Trout?

[wcosner2]

Hi everybody,

I recently discovered a stream in PA that is not listed as a wild trout stream. I ventured there on a cold day back in December and hooked into the biggest wild brown trout of my life. A hen longer than two feet and I am sure there are a few more like it at this location. All in all, I have caught about 10 browns over 3 different outings to this same location - all of them have been over 10 inches.

This has left me very confused. This stream has to get into the high 70s in the summer or maybe even the low 80s with how low it is in the drainage and how much slow/stagnant water there is in the watershed above it. The section that I caught these fish in is very turbulent and that may help keep oxygen levels high enough compared to the rest of the stream where water is mostly slow-moving and there is very little trout habitat. The fact that I caught no adolescent browns there makes it seem like these fish are potentially a migratory population. There is one wild trout stream below where I caught these fish and one above as well but both of them are small and do not have large populations of wild fish to the best of my knowledge. I would assume they would do very little to buffer the warm summer temps.

If these trout are migratory, I am not sure where they would be migrating from and if they are living year around in this system it must be by the slimmest of margins but from my research, I know a population has been there for at least the last 10-15 years.

What do you all think about this weird population?

 

[lestrout]

Yo wco - that's most bodacious! Brown trouts can wander a long way. I ran into a biologist on the Beaverkill with a huge antenna. He was radio-tracking browns and told me they routinely travel up and down dozens of miles over a seaon. In Argentina there are huge sea-run browns. The biggest brown (8 lbs) I ever caught was on the Salmon River while I was steelheading. I saw a hatchery truck dumping dozens, maybe hundreds of similar hogs at Altmar - these had come out of Lake Ontario in the fall and were invading the hatchery up there, chasing salmon eggs, so they were evicting them. The Salmon River warms up in the summer and is mainly a smallie river then.

The Schuylkill and Susqy have huge browns that find spring seeps at the bottoms of those huge shale slabs and they sit way down there eating crayfish and such. You sometimes see them coming up the tribs looking for spawning gravel. By then the water has cooled off to more hospitable conditions.

 

[pcray1231]

Without knowing the exact spot, its difficult to say, and no not asking you to divulge.

A richer stream with a low population, or no reproducing population at all but a connection to one, is indeed a prime spot to find bigger fish.. The few that are there have a rich food chain all to themselves. And a generally slow stream but with a sudden drop in one section is often a place where the underlying geology changes, and thus a good spot to find some springs which may oversummer them there. Willing to bet wet wading through there in July and your feet will find a few cool spots.

Just my thoughts. You found a gem. Congrats.

Yes wild fish routinely travel too, especially when food rich but marginal water is the norm.

 

[ryansheehan]

There are some previous conversations on here that have discussed at pretty great lengths the migratory browns. Someone on here has a wealth of knowledge but I can't think of their screen name. If you do a search of the site you might find the old conversations. People who find these specific spots are obviously tight lipped but the info is out there.

 

[Kevin82]

Could it be they were there for spawning? Did you notice any redds?
I know of a local stream that sounds kinda similar, Ive caught some really nice browns from it, including a personal best of 26 1/2". Very few people fish this stream after the first week of trout season.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Browns are hardy fish and will find the best location to hang out. It mush have abundant food for that size fish to be there. East Canada creek in New York has smallies and browns in the same holes I thought it was marginal water. . I fished it when I thought that the water was to warm for them and caught nice fish. There probably was a spring with colder water provided a cooling effect. That spot is one of those secrets you keep for yourself.

 

[sarce]

That is an incredible brown and a very interesting back story. I would be hesitant to assume the large fish will not move into the two smaller known wild trout tributaries for refuge if the bigger water you are catching them in warms up beyond their tolerance.

This past July, I was exploring a random small stream north of the coal region with a good friend, we were searching for big brook trout. This 10-15 ft wide stream flows into a large waterway impacted by acid mine drainage. We assumed it was too acidic for brown trout.

In this small tributary, we did not find the large brook trout we sought, but we did find both brown and brook trout living there. We did not see anything over 12" until we came to one nice pool with a huge tree root system along one bank. In this pool were 3 brown trout between 18-24", absolutely dwarfing anything else we had seen. We did not hook any of them. My friend went back a few weeks later and those fish were nowhere to be found.

We did more research on the larger acidic water downstream and discovered the pH in the area of this trib actually is within the range browns can tolerate, but only just barely. So we believe those 3 unbelievably large fish we saw were residents of the larger stream 9-10 months of the year.

To conclude this rambling anecdote, do not overlook small tributaries that connect to a place where you find big fish, or a place with the food and habitat ingredients for big fish. They may seem small but they can be an important piece of the system that is producing large fish. Particularly if they are not heavily fished and have a couple chest deep pools with good cover.

 

[wcosner2]

You all make some very good points. I did notice a substantial spring pouring out of the ground and into the stream so I am sure there is a good amount of groundwater coming in that I may not know about. I do know that even the smallest amount of cold water can sustain trout and have seen stocked fish travel miles in the Delaware just to find a cold stream coming in.

The stream north only has wild trout in the headwaters which are more than 5 miles from the main stem and there are also a great number of streams that are not listed as wild trout that likely contribute warm water. I suppose these fish could come from the wild trout stream below even though it is a pretty small stream. I can't really imagine that large fish in that small stream given its marginal habitat and the urban impacts present. I might have to go back in the summer just to take some temp readings and see how high they are.

 

[wcosner2]

Could it be they were there for spawning? Did you notice any redds?
I know of a local stream that sounds kinda similar, Ive caught some really nice browns from it, including a personal best of 26 1/2". Very few people fish this stream after the first week of trout season.

While I did not notice any redds, I am sure that they must be spawning here. I made sure to avoid any spawning habitat as I waded and stuck to the edges of the stream.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Very impressive fish! As long as there isn't a major dam, waterfall or other significant passage barrier, I am not surprised to see browntrout anywhere. I have seen brown trout in the Susquehanna near the state line, all throughout the West Branch Susquehanna etc. Certainly some of these ocurrences are seasonal, many are correllated to tributary mouths.

Are these fish truly migrating for spawning or survival purposes or are they moving to take advantage of optimal conditions as they find them? Do individual fish travel the same routes each year, is this movement passed down? Lots of questions and not necessarily a lot of scientific answers.

 

[Bruno]

Fish swim - that is what they do.

 

[rrt]

Yes, fish do swim. But, there might just be a bottom spring that holds the fish there. Take the temp above and below where you caught the trout; that might tell you something.

 

[Brown71]

Wcosner, first of all congrats on a great fish! Second, congrats on finding a gem of stream.

I fish almost exclusively in fall/winter for big browns. Your findings are very consistent with what i have found over 20+ years of doing this. I have posted different tidbits on here many times, some folks believe, some don't LOL. I primarily spinfish, but the same idea goes for fly or spin anglers.

The bottom line is, brown trout are WAY more tolerant to warm, polluted type water than most want to believe, and MARGINAL water, with low density trout populations often give up the most truly big trout that you will ever catch. Dont get me wrong, PA has some unbelievable, well known, high trout population waterways that also have lots of big fish. But alot of these less known places, far from being on any wild trout list are the true gems, especially if you are into the big fish, and i mean the really big fish.

The migratory nature of large browns in late summer up through fall/winter can put them into places they wouldnt normally be also. I know of several low quality waterways, with small populations of reproducing browns, that are very hard to find during the spring/summer. But come fall, they show up where youd expect them to be, and are possible to catch. Id suspect your fish are doing something like this, or maybe even live in the slow, "froggy" water in the stream you are fishing at other times of the year.

Ive told this story on here before, but one of my largest browns ever, near 31", over 11 pounds, came from a pretty crappy stream that flows into a much bigger pretty crappy stream LOL. The type of water that people driving by see you fishing and laugh or assume your fishing for suckers/chubs.

Its a labor of love, but if you put time in, once you establish a place like you have, there will be more bigs to come for you. Lastly, I would keep a tight lip of course on your spot, theres alot of jerks out there, fly and spin fisherman. I know 2 other guys that share a similair interest in chasing big browns like i do, and the one thing in common with all of us is keeping quiet on locations, etc.

 

[wcosner2]

Wcosner, first of all congrats on a great fish! Second, congrats on finding a gem of stream.

I fish almost exclusively in fall/winter for big browns. Your findings are very consistent with what i have found over 20+ years of doing this. I have posted different tidbits on here many times, some folks believe, some don't LOL. I primarily spinfish, but the same idea goes for fly or spin anglers.

The bottom line is, brown trout are WAY more tolerant to warm, polluted type water than most want to believe, and MARGINAL water, with low density trout populations often give up the most truly big trout that you will ever catch. Dont get me wrong, PA has some unbelievable, well known, high trout population waterways that also have lots of big fish. But alot of these less known places, far from being on any wild trout list are the true gems, especially if you are into the big fish, and i mean the really big fish.

The migratory nature of large browns in late summer up through fall/winter can put them into places they wouldnt normally be also. I know of several low quality waterways, with small populations of reproducing browns, that are very hard to find during the spring/summer. But come fall, they show up where youd expect them to be, and are possible to catch. Id suspect your fish are doing something like this, or maybe even live in the slow, "froggy" water in the stream you are fishing at other times of the year.

Ive told this story on here before, but one of my largest browns ever, near 31", over 11 pounds, came from a pretty crappy stream that flows into a much bigger pretty crappy stream LOL. The type of water that people driving by see you fishing and laugh or assume your fishing for suckers/chubs.

Its a labor of love, but if you put time in, once you establish a place like you have, there will be more bigs to come for you. Lastly, I would keep a tight lip of course on your spot, theres alot of jerks out there, fly and spin fisherman. I know 2 other guys that share a similair interest in chasing big browns like i do, and the one thing in common with all of us is keeping quiet on locations, etc.

Thank you! And yeah I saw one other guy fishing the entire time I was there. People definitely fish this stream heavily for bass and other fish in the summer but I am sure very few have ever caught a trout here.

I am usually fishing tiny headwater streams for brook trout but after finding this population and hearing about your experiences I will definitely have to keep exploring more marginal water for trout in the colder months.

 

[Brown71]

Coolness man!!! Best of luck to ya!!

 

[silverfox]

Similar situation near me. Two years ago I temped the river in the upper 80's during the heat of summer. I'd love to RFID tag some and find out exactly where they're going during the summer, but I have a pretty good idea. In this case, I'm about 80% sure they're going to groundwater upwellings IN the river. Probably a mix of moving great distances for some and others hugging thermal refuge within the river in nearby upwellings.

Just as a reminder, salmonids can and do move great distances (123 miles for one fish in the following study) over fairly short time periods. Even the stocked ones: https://www.fishandboat.com/Fish/Fisheries/TroutPlan/Documents/trout_movement.pdf

An interesting site from MT TU: https://montanatu.org/troutmigration/

Redbands; https://www.beaverinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/MontanaTroutMovement.pdf

I know I've posted it before, but Shannon White's research in the Loyalsock turned up some interesting results (max distance traveled by an individual was 13km/8 miles. https://doi.org/10.1111/fwb.13637

MD DNR: https://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/Documents/Telemetry_Study.pdf

Anecdotally, A friend caught a brown (with very distinguishing physical characteristics) a few years ago in a tributary to a larger river and caught the same fish the following weekend in another tributary some 20+ river miles away (down one tributary, up a large river, and up another tributary). Spawning related.

Neither here nor there, but all of this reinforces the issue with managing the Commonwealth's waters by "sections". Time of year, species, baseflow conditions and even angling pressure play a role in salmonid movement.

 

[wgmiller]

Migratory brown trout are absolutely a thing in Pennsylvania. As mentioned above, they often move between larger river systems and smaller feeder tribs at different times of the year. All one need do is look at a river like the Susquehanna to figure out where such fish may move to and from. There are somewhat regular reports of very large brown trout being caught in the Susquehanna River. It's safe to say that for at least a few months out of the year the Susky can safely harbor these larger fish, and in some cases, maybe even provide a harboring place with enough cold water. The forage base in the Susky is rather extensive (crayfish, baitfish, hellgramites, etc.) which certainly allows these fish to grow rather large. When the waters start to warm, they make their "run" to cooler locations.

There are people who know of this and know how, when, and where to find these fish. For obvious reasons, if you have unlocked a piece of this puzzle, it's best to keep that hand "close to the vest" as these fish are special in their own way.

 

[Brown71]

Previous post is right on. There are people who consistently locate/catch these fish.

Last sentence about keeping your findings to yourself is key!!! Keep quiet on actual locales!!!

 

[Stenonema]

There are some previous conversations on here that have discussed at pretty great lengths the migratory browns. Someone on here has a wealth of knowledge but I can't think of their screen name. If you do a search of the site you might find the old conversations. People who find these specific spots are obviously tight lipped but the info is out there.

Years ago I used this page to gauge the level of understanding on this topic from the angling community. I confirmed my suspicion.. It was not received well here. Late in 2020 myself and the few who joined the fight petitioned for change with the PFBC. You can view how the members of this forum received that petition with a simple search. Congratulations on your discovery of these special trout. Trout like those you discovered are now protected by catch and release regulations across the state from september to the opener where priorly it was three a day over seven inches. I pray that you don't experience the loss of what you found there. Conservationists are born from that sense of loss.
Last year wild trout received the protection of catch and release regulations across the state on all waters downstream of designated stocked sections of stream for over six months of the year. Trout like the ones you discovered were the target of that protection.

 

[pcray1231]

The downstream verbiage is gone now. FYI