My First Nfow Brown

[Buzz]

Beautiful fish.

[mic]

Great fish TC...when r you going to take me along.

[Flysmallie]

better than any brown I've caught out of NFoW...that would be a big ol' donut for me.

At least you caught a trout there. That was a long tough day, but I still had a lot of fun.

[Trout Commander]

Not big, not wild, but definitely pretty and better than any brown I've caught out of NFoW...that would be a big ol' donut for me. Nice job Jason. Love the red spots.

Thanks!

Not wild? What makes you say that? It had white tipped fins and none were clipped either (even though you can't really tell from the crappy pic). I also have it on good info from a reliable source that they do not stock browns that small and if they did, the last time fish were socked was long enough ago the fish would've been quite a bit larger.

[eric1978]

Thanks!

Not wild? What makes you say that? It had white tipped fins and none were clipped either (even though you can't really tell from the crappy pic). I also have it on good info from a reliable source that they do not stock browns that small and if they did, the last time fish were socked was long enough ago the fish would've been quite a bit larger.

Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there are any stream-born browns in NFoW. I think I heard they stocked a bunch of little ones around Patrick(?) earlier in the year. I wouldn't worry about it, though...I'm sure it felt just as good to catch it and it was a nice specimen.

[Brian Wise]

Actually....we do have 'some' natural reproduction in the browns. Enough so that the MDC had started putting a 8" and smaller category on the surveys for the browns. VERY few but we do catch some every year. Actually the first brown trout I ever caught was literally 3". Remember it like it was yesterday, caught in on the most horrible wooly bugger that I tied.

If the fins were clean on the other side of the fish I would lean toward wild.

[Justin Spencer]

This fall was the first year they stocked small 6" browns due to a bad hatchery year so that may have been a stocker. It also could have been wild as I have no doubt that the winter before this one when we had good water all winter the browns had some survival of their spawn. Last spring I caught quite a few 3-4" fat little browns and watched them grow just like the YOY rainbows (this in a year they said that 8" fish were the smallest they stocked). I think a successful brown spawn is the exception but if things are right it can occur. Look forward to seeing these fish in the next few years to see if I can tell a difference between them and the stockers.

[Brian Wise]

I personally think it SUCKS they had to mess with the stocking schedule last year.....I really liked the 2 year old fish they stocked over these 6" fish which are basically brown trout food.

[Trout Commander]

Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there are any stream-born browns in NFoW. I think I heard they stocked a bunch of little ones around Patrick(?) earlier in the year. I wouldn't worry about it, though...I'm sure it felt just as good to catch it and it was a nice specimen.

Right right there aren't supposed to be any. This is sooooo cliche but the picture really doesn't do it justice. I may be way out in left field out here but it looked to me that the fish had faint parr marks left. Like I said I may be way off and browns might not even have them for all I know? But it sure looked like that one did. I wish I would have gotten better pictures but didn't want to hold onto the fish for too long and I was shooting half blind with the camera on my phone because the screen was washed out from the sun. That's why my shadow is in half of the picture, I was fighting the sun. I took three rapid fire shots and luckily one was decent.

I showed it to Amy and she thought it was wild compared to the definite stockers she has seen. I sent it along to Wise in an email exchange also and he said he thought it was legit if the fins on the other side were intact as well, which they were.

Thanks for your comments though Eric. That's why I posted a picture of such a big fish . To see if everyone thought it was wild or not though.

[Trout Commander]

Looks like I was a little slow on the trigger with that last post, but yeah what they said.