Brown trout spawn

[trythisonemv]

So this is a 'kicking and already kicked horse' but why do browns spawn in the white in ark but they cant spawn naturally in mo?

[laker67]

I think that mo browns do spawn when you have several miles of spawning riffles and other suitable spawning water. That being said, Arkansas white river below bull shoals has several miles with the influx of other tail race water to help maintain a good water temperature. The norfork and little red tail races offer a few miles of good spawning water in addition . It might have something to do with the different strains of brown trout between mo and ark. Good question. Maybe some of the fishery people will chime in.

[snagged in outlet 3]

I think they do in Taney.  They go up the ladder at outlet 3 and the hatchery guys help the process.   Is that correct, Rick?

[tjm]

Someone in the past said they go through all the motions in Taney but the water temps and flow are too variable for the eggs to hatch. 

edit; twas Phil-

  

On 8/31/2019 at 2:26 PM, Phil Lilley said:

Our brown trout do make a run to the dam area in the fall to spawn, although they are not actually successful creating any young trout.  They go through the actions and lay eggs but because of water flow and temperature, none hatch. 

 

Where are they in Mo. that water conditions would be conducive to a successful spawn?

[trythisonemv]

One would think the niangua and northfirk would be acceptable

[ness]

From a 2008 article by Spence Turner that I scraped off The Columbia Tribune website a while back:

"Brown trout had a checkered history in Missouri’s trout program. The Neosho federal hatchery stocked brown trout first in 1892 in streams near Neosho. These fish came from Northville Federal Hatchery in Michigan, one of three hatcheries in the country to receive brown trout eggs from the Rhine River in Germany and Loch Leven in Scotland.

As near as I could determine from the hatchery logs and Missouri Fish Commission reports, those early stockings were unsuccessful. The stocked browns didn’t live long or reproduce like the early rainbow stockings. Brown trout stocking was discontinued in the 1930s until the 1960s.

Brown trout came back into Missouri’s trout program in 1967, when MDC received brown trout eggs from the federal hatchery in Decorah, Iowa. Those browns were the same strain as first stocked from Neosho. MDC hatched the eggs at Montauk Hatchery and stocked the small browns in the Current, North Fork of the White and Meramec rivers. Anglers caught a few large browns in both the Current River and North Fork of White River. Success was limited. Anglers caught only a few large browns.

The eggs proved difficult to hatch. Fry and fingerlings experienced high hatchery mortality. Brood stock experienced a chronic disease. Once stocked, the small browns quickly disappeared – likely food for smallmouth bass and other predators. Those few survivors grew large.

That’s when your humble reporter, at the time a young biologist, fresh out of graduate school, supporting a wife and three young hatchlings, received his first assignment: to evaluate the brown trout releases and what happened to them.

Along with evaluating those first brown trout stockings, hatchery managers destroyed the Montauk brood stock. MDC began looking for a disease-free brown trout replacement. Finding disease-free browns proved difficult. Our search ended at a Utah hatchery on a tributary stream to Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Sheep Creek. The hatchery used wild browns, migrating each year from Flaming Gorge Reservoir to the hatchery as brood stock.

We hatched the Flaming Gorge brown trout eggs at Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery in Branson and established a brood stock for future stockings. However, along the way something neat happened. Mature browns stocked in Lake Taneycomo from the wild Flaming Gorge strain, began migrating each fall upstream, back to the hatchery, not only creating one of the best brown trout fisheries in the nation, but also providing a source of brown trout eggs for the hatchery. It was a win-win for the angling public and Missouri’s hatchery system.

These brown trout were wilder than the original browns from Michigan and Iowa hatcheries and were heavier for a given body length. They lived longer after stocking and grew larger than the first browns.

We still had a problem with high egg mortality in the hatchery and understanding why Missouri browns didn’t spawn successfully in our spring branches. We learned that if they were protected from early harvest by anglers, they grew large and spawned, but unsuccessfully, in our spring branches.

I discovered our spring branches flowing from the ground at 58 degrees were too warm during October and November when browns spawned.

A blinding flash of the obvious: Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery had the capability to regulate water temperatures during brown trout egg incubation. Hatchery managers reduced water temperatures to less than 53 degrees. Egg survival increased to almost 100 percent. This allowed hatchery and fisheries managers to stock brown trout in many more trout streams in Missouri, establishing a trophy trout fishery."

[laker67]

1 hour ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

I think they do in Taney.  They go up the ladder at outlet 3 and the hatchery guys help the process.   Is that correct, Rick?

I can't deny that Pete.

[tjm]

Thanks Ness, I had read that before but had no idea where. They need colder water than our streams have. 

[Al Agnew]

8 hours ago, tjm said:

Thanks Ness, I had read that before but had no idea where. They need colder water than our streams have. 

Colder water at the time they spawn.  I should have realized that.  In Montana they spawn in October, and by then the rivers are down in the low 50s and high 40s.  They also spawn in the spring creeks out there, but those springs come out of the ground at about 50 degrees.

 

[fishinwrench]

That assumption would indicate that the triggering factor for spawning movements is the length of the day, rather than other more important things that would change as you moved N. S. E. or W.   Otherwise brown trout in this region would just spawn a bit later, right?  

Why would LMB in Louisiana and Georgia spawn earlier than LMB in Missouri ?  (Same species, not talking FL. bass)

White bass in southern Mo. begin spawning runs 2-3 weeks before the whites begin moving in mid-Mo.  So it is not " length of day", it is obviously weather/water condions.  Again....same species/just different places.

Here I go doubting the Scientists again, probably gonna get slammed.  🙄