Great Day

[trizkid]

just another reason its my fav stream...i have some pics of these stream borns...ill have to find em and post.

well heres on my buddy caught an snapped a quick pic of....

still seems to be huge when pulled up but if you right click and select new tab it should resize for ya.

[kdan]

Yes, stream born. The Current does have some wild trout-it's just not the majority of the population. A population of wild rainbow trout is one requirement for a stretch of stream to be declared Blue Ribbon.

This quote is from Missouri Trout Hunter.com , about the Blue Ribbon stretch of the Current.

"This portion of the river holds a very nice brown trout population, as well as rainbows, a few of which are stream-bred."

Also, from Missouri Trout Hunter about the Blue Ribbon stretch of the Current

"The Current River has always had a few stream-bred rainbows present in the river, accounting for pretty much every rainbow trout you catch that's smaller than 10 inches or so."

Well, spank my gran-ma. This subject has been beat to death in this forum. With the less than one percent success rate of spawning I don't buy into the stream bred wild trout, no doubt there is a few though. That is neither here nor there, YOU had a great day on the Current and I am envious. Excuse me if I sound argumentive, that is not my intent. Who is this Missouri Trout Hunter guy by the way? Is he a biologist? or work for MDC? Or just an avid trout fisher?

[Greg]

Well, spank my gran-ma. This subject has been beat to death in this forum. With the less than one percent success rate of spawning I don't buy into the stream bred wild trout, no doubt there is a few though. That is neither here nor there, YOU had a great day on the Current and I am envious. Excuse me if I sound argumentive, that is not my intent. Who is this Missouri Trout Hunter guy by the way? Is he a biologist? or work for MDC? Or just an avid trout fisher?

He's mostly a fishing guide. He's also a taxidermist and has this website:

http://www.ozarkanglers.com/forums/

Greg

[jdmidwest]

Well, spank my gran-ma. This subject has been beat to death in this forum. With the less than one percent success rate of spawning I don't buy into the stream bred wild trout, no doubt there is a few though. That is neither here nor there, YOU had a great day on the Current and I am envious. Excuse me if I sound argumentive, that is not my intent. Who is this Missouri Trout Hunter guy by the way? Is he a biologist? or work for MDC? Or just an avid trout fisher?

Why would it be so hard to believe a trout can be stream born in Missouri Streams? The habitat is there, water quality and temps, and fish of spawning size producing eggs and milt. The only negatives are predation by native fish and fisherman stomping the redds and fishing the spawners.

It could have been a rainbow that got mixed in with the annual stocking of browns on that stretch, washed out of the park, dropped by a heron or bird of prey.

[ozark trout fisher]

Well, spank my gran-ma. This subject has been beat to death in this forum. With the less than one percent success rate of spawning I don't buy into the stream bred wild trout, no doubt there is a few though. That is neither here nor there, YOU had a great day on the Current and I am envious. Excuse me if I sound argumentive, that is not my intent. Who is this Missouri Trout Hunter guy by the way? Is he a biologist? or work for MDC? Or just an avid trout fisher?

I got ya'. But there are enough unstocked streams in Missouri (Mill Creek, Blue Spring Creek, Crane Creek etc) that hold healthy populations of trout that I'm not sure there can be much debate that rainbow trout can spawn very succesfully in Missouri. Granted the Current doesn't hold that many wild fish- I would guess because of competition with stockers and fisherman wading through the redds- but the habitat does certainly seem to be there on the Current. Good water temps at spawning time, good spawning habitat, etc.

Now browns are a different story. There may be a few streambred browns in our spring-fed streams, but they are rare at best. It seems that the water temperatures at brown trout spawning time are not cool enough to keep the eggs alive.

MO Trout Hunter (AKA Walt Fulps) is a fishing guide on the Meramec River, but I believe he has also done some guiding on the Current and other Missouri streams.

I think it would be actually pretty interesting to see what would happen to the Current if they stopped stocking it. I'm not at all saying they should actually do that, but it would be pretty interesting. I'd guess without competition from all the stockers, there could be a very good wild rainbow population between the headwaters and say, Ashley Creek. Just an interesting thought, and I could easily be wrong. But the habitat does seem to be there.

[Guest]

deleted

[ColdWaterFshr]

I have caught quite a few wild fish in the current, up to about 15 inches or so. They really start to show up around Ashley creek and below. I could be wrong, but I don't think that they stock a lot of rainbow trout in the blue ribbon stretch, relying on escaping rainbows from montauk to populate the river. The wild fish are pretty easy to identify, stockers are ussually washed out silver bullets, or very heavily spotted and they all have worn down fins and noses. Wild fish have long pointy white tipped pectoral and anal fins and are absolutely beautiful. Some take on a brownish coloration with large round spots with a deep red stripe. I catch lots of

I've caught quite a few very small and wild looking rainbows down there too. And I remember exchanging e-mails with the biologist a few years back and he swore that there is no wild/stream-born activity going on.

So I got a couple theories.

1) Montauk floods occasionally and the raceways lose some of their fry or smaller fish that aren't stocker sized yet. These fish grow up in the river and quickly become wild and wild looking. Stream born? No, not really, but close.

2) Stocking of rainbows upstream of Akers - is it possible some smaller fish are intermixed with the bigger fish when stocking is done? I don't know, but I could see that happening.

[Gavin]

Dont know the reason why, but there are a ton of rainbows between Baptist & Parker this year...and its not usually so. They werent there last winter, or this spring....so it makes me think that they came from someplace else...its the only logical conclusion..be that the park, moved up from below Cedar Grove, or they were stocked.

I'd think that brown trout numbers are down this year. I'm not noticing an abundance of 12-14" fish from this years stocking, but there are a good number of plus sized browns in the river. Its been a great big fish year, IMO. Cheers.

[eric1978]

When I fished at Baptist last Wednesday, I walked back down from Tan Vat up on the bank to get a bird's eye view of the stream. I didn't spot many fish, but I saw about a 14" rainbow hovering over and protecting a what was pretty obviously a redd...whether or not its eggs will successfully make it to fry and beyond I suppose is debatable, but it was clearly spawning activity.

[ColdWaterFshr]

When I fished at Baptist last Wednesday, I walked back down from Tan Vat up on the bank to get a bird's eye view of the stream. I didn't spot many fish, but I saw about a 14" rainbow hovering over and protecting a what was pretty obviously a redd...whether or not its eggs will successfully make it to fry and beyond I suppose is debatable, but it was clearly spawning activity.

Yeah, they're always going to go through the motions, I just don't think they have much, if any success. I've seen a number of browns doing the same thing.