That’s awesome! Do you think that the orange in the brookie is due to diet, or just unique to that watershed. We should still be about a month away from pre spawn colors right?
Only reason I ask is I know a creek where the males are colored up year round.
I’ve been told it’s a crayfish diet.
I’ve been told it’s low summer water temperature.
I’ve been told it is males that didn’t spawn the previous fall.
Just curious what you guys think causes this in the months other than October?
Hi 5foot,
I can only speculate, but I believe the orange color on the brookies I catch in this stream is mostly from genetics (and possibly somewhat from diet). On the day I caught this trout I caught seven brookies out of 114 that had a substantial amount of orange coloration. If it was caused by diet maybe more of them would be orange?
I believe the trout are colored-up like this year-round in this stream since I typically catch an orange one or two regardless of when I'm fishing. (I don't fish here in the winter.) I don't doubt that more color is added for the spawning season, though.
This may surprise some of you, but I believe the orange-colored brookie in the photo is a female. It has no hook-jaw. Further evidence that it might be a female is that probably thirty years ago I kept an orange-colored 7" native brookie on this stream due to deep hooking (hey, unfortunately it happens). It was full of eggs. Of course, maybe that one was just a male that identified as a female.
😉
I don't recall ever seeing a crayfish in this stream, though it is quite possible some are there. I doubt there are many, though.
I don't think the water temperature has anything to do with the orange coloration. (You probably don't, either)
I also don't think it has anything to do with males that didn't spawn the previous autumn. (You probably don't, either.)
