Ggrove
New member
Please let me preface this thread by mentioning that I am pretty new to the sport, and have never observed spawning trout.
That being said, I was just out on one of my home streams and observed pretty unusual behavior from the browns. Please note that it is very difficult for any fish to survive the summer months in this stream, as it gets very low and warm. The stream is going to be stocked next week, so I figured I would go out and get myself familiarized with the creek again. To my surprise, I hooked into a few on a dry fly hatch. What I noticed was that these trout were incredibly dark and sluggish. I will provide a few pics. They were similar to spawning salmon in the way they were acting, so I decided to stop fishing and just observe. I walked about a mile of the creek, and there were no redds. Trout were frequently paired up, but were rising on olives. Any fish in this stream would be stocked, and I don't know if they are able to reproduce. What I figured was that these fish were recently put in by a third party and that caused the dark colorations and sluggishness, but what throws me off is that they were going through the motions of spawning. If they were stocked, it had to of been in the past month, and I cant imagine any stocked fish would get familiarized and begin spawning in that time frame. The trout also were not very aware of their surroundings, as I watched a heron walk right onto one and slurp it down. Any ideas as to what was going on??
Edit: all the trout I observed were like this, not just a few.
That being said, I was just out on one of my home streams and observed pretty unusual behavior from the browns. Please note that it is very difficult for any fish to survive the summer months in this stream, as it gets very low and warm. The stream is going to be stocked next week, so I figured I would go out and get myself familiarized with the creek again. To my surprise, I hooked into a few on a dry fly hatch. What I noticed was that these trout were incredibly dark and sluggish. I will provide a few pics. They were similar to spawning salmon in the way they were acting, so I decided to stop fishing and just observe. I walked about a mile of the creek, and there were no redds. Trout were frequently paired up, but were rising on olives. Any fish in this stream would be stocked, and I don't know if they are able to reproduce. What I figured was that these fish were recently put in by a third party and that caused the dark colorations and sluggishness, but what throws me off is that they were going through the motions of spawning. If they were stocked, it had to of been in the past month, and I cant imagine any stocked fish would get familiarized and begin spawning in that time frame. The trout also were not very aware of their surroundings, as I watched a heron walk right onto one and slurp it down. Any ideas as to what was going on??
Edit: all the trout I observed were like this, not just a few.