Native Brookies
 

Thought I would share, these little beauties were caught and released in Tioga County, PA using tiny earthworms and barbless hooks. And I got a nice bag of wild leeks (ramps) for some soup. I’m assuming this fits under a foto Friday thread!

Love those ramps! Good in salads and in cooking if you want a light onion flavor.

I would catch those little brookies in the little boreal streams in the VT hills when I was a kid. Not knowing any better when I was 10 years old I would cut a sharp stick and cook them over a little fire. Sweetest fish in the world!





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Prettiest trout in the water!! We fish for them once in a while in a Wyoming Co private stream with tiny dry flies.

As for ramps, we like to make a dip with them. Nix besser!!

We catch them in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. Or should say fish for them.

Brookies are gorgeous no matter how big they are. Very nice!

In VT in 1964 when I was 16.


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Look like Asaph brookies.

Most all the "trout" I've caught over the years were brookies . And a large portion were caught very close to President Hoovers old camp in the Shennedoah National Park .

I was fishing the Potomac river yesterday where I live in western Maryland and came across a feeder stream while fishing the big river and threw out a quick cast. Wham-a nice 10 inch native Brookie. I'd personally rather catch one native fish to ten stocked trout. We have several streams around here that are full of native Brookies and the state has finally started to protect them with a no-kill clause.

Per Lee Wulff - "A trout is too valuable commodity to be used only once" . Catch and release!

I'm with you John 100 percent!





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I very rarely ever keep a fish anymore. They really are too valuable to catch only once.

These three pictures were taken on the West Branch of the Penobscot sometime in the mid-90’s. Little brookies during the day are cute but frustrating but about dusk when the spinner fall happens it is fast and furious as the last picture shows. Yes, she was delicious. And I think she was the last landlock I ever killed.

She took a size 16 Hendrickson spent-wing with chestnut dubbed body and spent CDC wings on a barbless hook.

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I agree with you. I have lived in western Maryland- starting my fourth year now and estimate that I have caught between 600 to 800 trout. I have released all of them except one. I kept a stocked rainbow trout that was way over 20 inches in Bear creek that was a old brooder the hatchery threw out. I almost wish I would have thrown him back too. I have seen several of the streams around here that have almost been ruined because of over harvesting. It was not uncommon in the cassleman river a few years ago to catch 20 inch Browns. Now your lucky to even catch a Brown as People couldn't bring themselves to throw them back. The Potomac River that holds most of the records has also went downhill and relies on stocked trout. Even though I caught over 20 trout the last couple of days-the brookie was the only native fish of the bunch. With plastic casts available now that look real-there is no reason to keep native fish.

I, along with Jay Gardner and Dave Tatman are lucky enough to be able to fish what is arguably the finest all natural- no stocking piece of water east of the Mississippi - The Holy Waters of the Au Sable. No released fish in here for over 50 years. If you want to kill fish, they are stocked downstream below a dam, so no upward migration

Here's where I go to decompress and it's 15 min. from home. I routinely run into anglers from the midwest and places other than MD and PA.

https://www.fishtalkmag.com/blog/wil...unpowder-river

https://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/P...gunpowder.aspx

We have a couple of streams like that around here-most notably the lower Savage River(below the Dam) Its not stocked except for maybe some fingerling Browns. If you catch anything besides a Brown or Brookie they want you to keep it. Every once in awhile a stocked Rainbow will make it upstream from where the Savage runs into the Potomac. When you catch one of the wild browns or brookies in the Savage-you have to take a moment to admire the beautiful colors that you don't see on the stocked fish. Im sure you fellows feel the same way about the wild fish you catch in the Au Sable and other streams in your part of the country.

Tha blue haloes around the vermillion spots, the varigated wormlike markings on its back, the white and black lined pink/orange fins all make salvelinus fontinalis the crown jewel of wild boreal streams and ponds that I just can’t seem to get enough of...





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Your right about that Dean! Wild fish have a color that just can't be duplicated on stock trout. I really got ruined fishing out west when I fished some streams in the back country(16 to 20 miles in) of Yellowstone and Jackson Hole. Mostly caught wild cutts and brookies. The color of these wild fish(really liked the spots and red gash on the cutts) is unbelieveable. Also couldn't believe that some of these small streams that you could walk across could produce fish over 20 inches. Places like this are getting hard to find anymore in our country.

I was blown away by the beauty of the colors and the spots on the leopard rainbows of the Talachulitna River in Alaska!!





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Never have seen or heard of a leopard rainbow but I was watching a fishing show once where they were catching Rainbows (6 to 12 lbs) in one of the national parks(I think Denali) The rainbows were following salmon and gorging themselves on their eggs. These trout had some of the best color I have ever seen on a fish-The blood red stripe in the middle really set them off. I always wanted to fish Alaska but only got as far as Montana. That river you show in your pictures looks like a beautiful place to fish. One thing about Trout is they live in beautiful places-thats probably why I enjoy fishing for them more than any other species.

The "leopard" rainbow is just a nickname for that native species of rainbow. Their spots are numerous and large - not at all like the generic rainbow stockers we see in the lower 48.

We saw the big bows on the Kvichak River gorging them selves on the salmon eggs and as we were cleaning the sockeyes we caught at the river's edge and tossing the entrails and eggs into the water there was a feeding frenzy below us.

I copied these pics from the Internet just for illustrative purposes of the leopard bows.


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That looks alot like the ones I saw in the fishing show. Man those fish are beautiful-about like finding a mint Parker with original case colors. Did you try to catch any of these rainbows while fishing for the salmon? I know in the show I was watching they used a small sack of eggs and made short cast with their fly rods to catch them in about 2 feet of water. Also Went to the fish market yesterday(called the Trout House) and got some wild salmon fillets to grill outside today.

Oh man ded we grill some fine sockeye filets! Skin side down and when the veins of fat turn white and start to expand they’re done - not a second longer.

We used hot pink chenille egg flies and double egg flies with a little white marabou between the eggs. These were known as sperm & egg flies. We caught several rainbows this way and the purple egg-sucking leech with the pink egg at the nose caught some trout but just as many big arctic grayling.

You should go before you can’t.





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From John Voelker's "Testament of a fisherman".

I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; be*cause of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don’t want to waste the trip; because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there; because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant—and not nearly so much fun.

From the land of native brookies, 49F air temperature in Mid-July, northern Maine roadside pool, many, many more swim wild and free. Moose tracks line the bank

Pretty tasty. Combine them with fiddleheads, medallions of cattail roots and wild mushrooms of your choice.





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