Native trout still grace our mountains, but need care to thrive
Saturday marked the much-anticipated opening of trout season on area lakes and streams. Unfortunately, Friday’s rains rendered most creeks muddy and high, not favorable conditions, so there should be plenty of trout left for fishing later through the spring.
Most of those trout, of course, were stocked for our enjoyment by the Fish and Boat Commission. But it’s important for anglers to remember that not all trout began life in a hatchery. Our mountain streams, especially the more remote ones, still harbor wild brook trout, as native to their home water as the hemlocks and laurel that grace its banks.
I like to think about native brook trout this way: as Alaska has its salmon and Florida its bonefish and tarpon, Pennsylvania has its brook trout. Proclaimed as the most beautiful of freshwater fish, the brook trout is also Pennsylvania’s official state fish.
When I was a kid, my dad, my sister and I sometimes hiked a steep overgrown logging road deep in local mountains to fish for wild brook trout in a small, but beautiful stream that tumbled over big boulders and rested in deep green pools before its next downstream plunge. If we were stealthy, wore drab clothing and hunkered low along the stream bank, then lobbed a worm or wet fly into a pool, we’d soon feel a brookie’s insistent tug.
Those trout were not big; a 9-incher was uncommonly large, but they were breathtaking. Their dark green backs were the color of shadows under the hemlocks, graced by wavy olive-green arcs. Their sides were ivory-white, speckled with red, blue, black and gold. But, it was their undersides that were most captivating, flaming orange blending to blood red at the base of the fins. These were fish to marvel at, and we released every one we caught. We sensed that these little wild trout belonged in their mountain home more than in our skillet.
Brook trout are the only salmonid species native to inland rivers and streams of the eastern United States. Their original range extended from Newfoundland, west and south across eastern Canada, New England and the Great Lakes Basin, with a narrow prong probing south for a thousand miles along the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Georgia.
Throughout their range, brook trout live in cold, clean headwater streams, smaller rivers and remote cold lakes. Once abundant throughout that vast expanse, brook trout have declined or even disappeared in many watersheds due to poor water quality resulting from man’s activities. The Chestnut Ridge Chapter of Trout Unlimited, headquartered in Uniontown, operates several stream restoration projects that are helping wild brook trout to return to the region’s streams. Visit www.chestnutridgetu.org for more information.
Brook trout spawn in the fall. Like other salmonid species, the female excavates a shallow depression in the gravelly stream bottom with her body. Her eggs (anywhere from 100 to 5,000) lodge in crevices within the gravel, where they are fertilized by a male trout’s sperm and hatch from 60-100 days later. Brook trout take on their most brilliant fiery red and orange colors during the autumn spawn.
Brook trout are not difficult to catch — if they don’t see you. In their small stream habitats, they are constantly vulnerable to mink, otters, raccoons, bears, and birds of many kinds. As a result, any movement along the stream, or shadow over the water, sends them streaking for cover beneath rocks or logs. In brook trout fishing, a stealthy approach is just as important as the right bait and tackle.
Consider pinching down the barb on hooks when fishing streams holding wild brook trout, so the fish can be released unharmed. It’s also best to wet your hand before holding and unhooking a trout. A dry hand can wipe away the trout’s protective slime, leaving it susceptible to infection by harmful fungus.
The best approach is to conceal yourself among the streamside rocks or vegetation, and drift the fly or bait through a fast run that enters a deep pool. If a brookie is stationed there, and hasn’t seen you, it will often strike on the first cast.
Many states and Canadian provinces are now working together with organizations like Trout Unlimited to restore naturally reproducing brook trout populations throughout their original range. The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture is a cooperative effort by 17 states and provinces to identify, protect and restore wild brook trout habitat. To learn more about the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture visit www.easternbrooktrout.org.
Brook trout are a symbol of the original wild heritage of our mountain streams. Enjoy this remnant of wilderness whenever you can, and learn what we can all do to hasten its return to more of our rivers and streams.