Wild Trout vs. Stocked

[troutbert]

It's interesting how these discussions have changed on the paflyfish board since the early days of the website. Back then there was far greater skepticism about the extent of wild trout populations in PA.

 

[pcray1231]

Steve,

My shot. All of them could go either way for me, so its just a shot, nothin more. All very pretty fish.

1. Wild
2. Fingerling
3. Fingerling
4. Fingerling
5. Wild
6. Wild
7. Unsure, but boy is that pretty. Great butter color!
8. The underwater one. Wild, more confident of this one than the others.

 

[stevehalupka]

cray,

I labeled exactly as you have...

sender is right, without genetics, it's impossible to determine. I will say, on the stream these fish came from, i'd rather catch the fingerlings as they put up a hell of a fight.

the local chapter has a pipe dream to turn this place into the next little j... quite frankly, I don't want to see that happen. Last year, we had a very difficult year and there were never many anglers out. I never had to wait to fish any section of the stream and was catching very large fish, all 15 or bigger.

This year, a lot of the smaller lings from years prior are in the 12-15 range, making the fishing easier, however, I witnessed a lot of creeling from idiots who have no respect for what is going on here, which is why I'm against making the place more known/accessible.

 

[stevehalupka]

http://www.troutnut.com/topic/3205/Stocked-trout-vs-wild-trout-appearance

an interesting thread over at troutnut... cray, check out the blue on that brown a few posts down!

 

[Chaz]

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you guys about without genetics you don't know for sure. If you take into account where you are fishing, and if it is a stocked stream the stocking rate, you can pretty much nail it every time.
I'd say the first brown is wild the next three are stocked and the last four are wild, but you cannot see all the fins of the fish so all bets are off.

 

[pcray1231]

Well, I think genetics CAN BE an indicator like the others, I never said you could be "sure", meaning like the others, it's not airtight. Just another indicator.

And that one is more difficult than the others. It requires knowing the stream and its wild stock well, it requires knowing the PFBC strain well, and it requires a substantial difference between the two (which isn't always the case).

Most of us said 90 or 95%. If that accounts for "pretty much every time" then we're in agreement. The issues are streams that have both stocked and wild fish in the same water, where the stocked fish (fingerling or adult) can live for at least more than a year. There are MANY such streams. But even given all of those circumstances, you can more often than not still hazard an awfully good guess.

By the way, I fished that one stream with the big brookies again recently, and got a few. One was definitely a fresh stocker, and 2 were smallish and definitely wild. But the others were like those ones before. That's an example of where I'm not sure. There are both stocked fish and wild fish in the same water. Then there are the large colored up ones. Fins were perfectly formed, but they were opaque and the black/white line wasn't sharp. I still lean stocked holdovers. I was pretty confident of that till I talked to you and Mike at the FF show, which put some doubt in my mind, and that doubt does still exist. But seeing them again I can't bring myself to get on board with it. Wish I woulda had the camera along.

 

[stevehalupka]

so chaz,

is this fish wild or stocked? comes from class a waters.

 

[stevehalupka]

i also can put to rest the most wild brooks don't exceed 10 inches. I fish a water that has been named here and catch at least 5 or more wild brooks over 10 inches everytime I go, not to mention large browns up to 15.

it's NEARLY impossible w.o genetics... truly

 

[Squaretail]

Chaz wrote:

you can pretty much nail it every time.

pretty much

Two key words in almost any sentence they are included in. What that tells me is that we are "pretty much" in agreement, not disagreement.

 

[PocketWater]

Was fishing a small mountain stream this past weekend that was flowing at 62 degrees, averaged about 8 feet across, and caught quite a few natives that were easily distinguished as natives. One of my first catches of the day, however, was this bruiser. He was in a small pool that was maybe 5' across, 8' long, and a foot deep.

Initially I would of said he was a native, but after some investigating this morning, found that the lower stretches of this stream are indeed stocked, which baffles my mind as there were young of the year brookies all over the place in this stream.

This guy was very colorful with a very dark top side, but a rich orange bottom side, had a small kype started, colorful and sharp reddish orange fins with white edges, but he didn't have many of the red dots with blue halos at all. I'm having difficulty discerning if he was a native, or a stocked trout. Like I said, I caught a couple others in the 8 or 9 inch range, but this guy hit 12", and is the first brookie I caught that big, which I was initially excited about, but now, unsure.

 

[Maurice]

I would say stocked. Its a good looking fish but usually a brookie of that size range has a head larger than the body. This fish has shoulders meaning its been well fed where its body overdhadowed its head.

In a small stream infertile stream like u describe its usually the opposite if a fish reaches 12"

 

[PocketWater]

If that truly is the case, it's disappointing. I was blue lining, found an 'unclassified' stream, worked it, then find out the PAFBC stock it? Young of year natives all through it and they stock it?

 

[troutbert]

I agree that it's a hatchery brookie.

The PFBC lists all the streams they stock on their website and regs booklet, so you can easily check.

But many native brookie streams are stocked by coop hatcheries. And there is no published list of those.

The coop hatchery fish usually have better fins and color than the fish from the big PFBC hatcheries, so it can be a little harder to tell that they are hatchery trout.

But regarding stocking in streams with native brook trout. It is still VERY common in PA. Hundreds of streams.

 

[pcray1231]

I'm guessing stocked. I'm basing it on the white/black on the anal fin. Hard to see perfectly in this pic but it doesn't look like a perfect, straight line.

Color is decent, but that's normal in holdovers. Lack of red spots leads you towards stocked again, but it's far from reliable. Same goes for body shape and size. Can't see the fin condition in the pic.

Very common for fish stocked in the bottom end of a stream to run upstream in summertime for the cooler water temperatures found there.

 

[steveo27]

I dont wanna make a new thread, so I figured Id throw this up in here instead.

How the hell do you tell wild rainbows from stocked/hold over fish? Brooks and browns are fairly easy to distinguish between stocked and wild. I havent caught/seen enough wild rainbows to really be able to distinguish them from colored up stocked ones.

Ive only caught a few rainbows that I know for a fact were wild - 3-5" in length w/ very distinguishable parr marks. But this past summer, Ive caught a few 'bows in some spots where they shouldnt be.

The most recent 2 were this past weekend. These fish were caught in Elk Co. in a small class A brook trout stream. The closest stocked water is about 6 miles away, and the lower end of the stream I was fishing is pretty polluted/stained orange.


Both fish were in very good shape. Fins were an opaque pink and showed no damage. The tails were practically see through. And the spots were crisp and not washed out. Both fish were right around 8" in length.

One pic of said fish -

Im assuming both are just colored up hold overs that made their way up to where I was fishing because of the lack of parr marks

 

[ryansheehan]

I definitely think bows are the toughest to tell too. I look at the shape of the tail and adipose of that fish and think it's stocked. The other thing that catches my eye is the pink band is not solid, it starts and stops. Interested in others opinion.

 

[pcray1231]

Pink band doesn't tell you much on a bow. Many wild fish are almost without a red band at all. It can vary greatly from stream to stream.

Agree that bows are the toughest, probably mostly due to our inexperience with them.

The good fin edges, transparantish fins, and body shape seems to be a decent indicator for all 3 species, although not fully reliable. I seem to have noticed that on most wild bows I've caught, the spot pattern wraps around down towards the belly moreso than it seems to on stockies. Well below the lateral line almost onto the belly. That fits with your fish above. But that might vary stream to stream, and might be different for co-op hatcheries and such too.

 

[steveo27]

Hmm.

Thanks for the tip Pat.

 

[NewSal]

Regardless that's a mighty fine looking fish

 

[troutbert]

steveo27 wrote:
I dont wanna make a new thread, so I figured Id throw this up in here instead.

How the hell do you tell wild rainbows from stocked/hold over fish? Brooks and browns are fairly easy to distinguish between stocked and wild. I havent caught/seen enough wild rainbows to really be able to distinguish them from colored up stocked ones.

Ive only caught a few rainbows that I know for a fact were wild - 3-5" in length w/ very distinguishable parr marks. But this past summer, Ive caught a few 'bows in some spots where they shouldnt be.

The most recent 2 were this past weekend. These fish were caught in Elk Co. in a small class A brook trout stream. The closest stocked water is about 6 miles away, and the lower end of the stream I was fishing is pretty polluted/stained orange.


Both fish were in very good shape. Fins were an opaque pink and showed no damage. The tails were practically see through. And the spots were crisp and not washed out. Both fish were right around 8" in length.

One pic of said fish -

Im assuming both are just colored up hold overs that made their way up to where I was fishing because of the lack of parr marks

If the stream had a wild rainbow population you probably would have caught some sublegal size fish.

Think of a native brookie stream. You generally catch a bunch of sub-legal (< 7 inches) brookies, not just adult brookies.

My guess is that they were club hatchery trout, which often look closer to wild trout (better fins and color) than trout from the large PFBC hatcheries.

Stocking by club hatcheries in Class A streams is, unfortunately, very common.