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Brook Trout
- Thread starter limbhanger
- Start date
limbhanger
Senior Member
Very nice Fishndoc.
That's a nice'un, been in there long enough to start coloring up. Resica, a lot of the little tiny creeks around here are full of beautiful little wild browns, too-one of the reasons that the specks are having a rough time.
Resica
Senior Member
I agree, the browns and wild bows( though fairly few and far between up here) aren't doing the brookies any favors. All those wild fish are beautiful though.
chiefsquirrel83
Banned
they do not stock brooks in Frogtown...verified today...
Resica
Senior Member
Stocked trout can and will disperse a long way. Have fins , will travel.
I fish some creeks that haven't been stocked at all in thirty years, but the descendants of the stockers are still in there.
Exactly.... If you catch a "native" rainbow or brown anywhere in north Georgia, it was stocked into that stream at one point or another. The only "native" trout to Georgia is a brook trout, which technically isn't a trout at all. It is a type of Char.
http://fish.dnr.cornell.edu/nyfish/Salmonidae/brook_trout.html
Resica
Senior Member
There are no native bows or browns in Ga. or Pa., wild maybe but not native.
Resica
Senior Member
Plenty of streams up here that aren't stocked that hold trout other than brookies. Just have to put the feet on the ground. Plenty of streams that hold large trout that haven't been stocked in years or have never been stocked.
olcowman
Hillbilly Philosopher
Heck I'll throw out a couple of easy ones... Tellicoe in Tennessee. Park above the ranger station and start walking upstream. Walk till you can't walk no more then go a little further. As far as I can tell them up there are the real thing. And... if you want to stay in GA, follow the Hooch thru Helen and straight up the mountain towards its head. Lots of feeder streams and the Hooch itself has good populations of natives when you get past where all the yahoos fish.
Both these are all day trips at the very least and cover some rough ground. But if you are really after some native brooks these are a couple I would give a shot.
Both these are all day trips at the very least and cover some rough ground. But if you are really after some native brooks these are a couple I would give a shot.
fishinbub
Senior Member
There are no creeks that get "official" stockings of brookies except the Tooga and Savanah (from SC) but there are some thrown in here and there. There are no known brookie populations in Lumpkin(doesn't mean they aren't there, but they are VERY small and in the EXTREME headwaters if they are there), so the odds of wild brookies in Frogtown or Chestatee are almost 0. It's not like they could have drifted down from a feeder (since that is rare on a stream with multiple brookie filled feeders, much less two in a day in a watershed not known to have brookies) There is a lot of private land on Frogtown, so odds are they were stocked privately. I've caught stocker brookies in Dicks (same watershed), and don't underestimate how far they will travel...
Tightliner
Senior Member
YEP.
If there is not a barrier fall and virgin timber, they are probably not indigenous. Southern App specs simply cant compete with introduced species. If brookies are caught in a "mixed bag" of fish, they were probably stocked or decendants of stocked Northern sub-species.
Later......................................
fishinbub
Senior Member
I think you'd be surprised by how resilient those natives are. I've caught wild brookies in places they weren't supposed to be, and there are a few streams where you can catch a mixed bag that includes true native brookies. But, the Chestatee is not one of those places...
There is no need to go to NC/Tenn. Plenty of good native brookie fishing in Ga. Look for 2k+ elevation and a barrier falls. HINT lots of elevation change on a topo map means the odds of a "barrier falls" are very good. Alot of times a stream will go through rapid elevation change, then flatten out up high where the brookies are...
I know a few little creeks where I catch specks mixed with little wild browns or rainbows, but seems like there are less specks every year in those creeks, and they keep getting further upstream all the time.
limbhanger
Senior Member
Wish I could go back in time and relive the many hours i fished behind my father. I know for a fact, that I was blessed to have fished some of the best Native trout streams in Virginia. I remember my father telling me that one day brookies would be be gone due to poor forestry and land management. My father, was half Cherokee Indian, native fishing I believe came natural for him.
Nitram4891
Flop Thief
Caught a few wild rainbows this weekend but no brookies. Those little rainbows sure were beautiful though.
chiefsquirrel83
Banned
went further up Frogtown and finally caught some real Brookies last weekend none of those green pork fed ones in the pic....largest one was about 6 1/2 inches....it was COLD!!!!
GP Burdell
Member
I'll echo that. I've found a few small ones that appear to be natives way up in the hills of the Hooch watershed. Had to hike a long way and at one point rappel down a cliff to access the stream but they were fun to catch on dry flies. Can't say if they really were natives because I didn't run genetic tests but they sure didn't look like any rainbow or brook that I've ever seen.
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