Big brook trout caught and released

[Quillback]

Memorable catch rivals record-book brookie • Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (agfc.com)

[ness]

That's a great story all around!

 

[Gavin]

There have been some 3-4 lb brookies caught in MO, but MDC no longer maintains a record for them. There was at one time.

[fishinwrench]

I forget what the Mo. Brook trout record was, but Cricket topped it while on a white bass trip with me here on Gravois creek.   

It was an escapee from Troutdale ranch, and pics were shared here.....Lord knows where they are now.  That was quite a few years ago. 😅

[tjm]

I wasn't even aware that Mo ever had stocked brook trout. Were they stocked in many places or just a few? when?

[fishinwrench]

2 hours ago, tjm said:

I wasn't even aware that Mo ever had stocked brook trout. Were they stocked in many places or just a few? when?

Most recently?  

Meramec Spring, to allegedly control some parasite deemed detrimental to the stocked Rainbows.   

Troutdale started raising them strictly for the purpose of selling to restaurants.   They still are raising them..... but sales are down to the point that it's hardly worth it. They continue only for the purpose of loyalty......cuz that's the way us Gravois folks roll. 😉 

In the 70's-80's there was a rich dude in the very backend of Alcorn Hollow (Camden county) that reared Brookies and peppered them into little springs around the area just for kicks. Burnt mill spring on the Little Niangua river, Mimosa spring in Bollinger cr., and HaHaTonka to name a few. A wicked drought in the early 90's pretty much wiped them out I think, but they were sustaining themselves pretty good until then.  That same drought was when I realized the famous Crane creek tale was a crock of BS.

[Gavin]

I saw the picture here, and Cricket is good person to call if you want to sell or buy real estate around Lebanon/LOZ,

[tjm]

Looking back at places I used to catch native brookies, it's hard to imagine a drought killed an established population. They can thrive in a stream a hand width wide or deep. 

I just looked at the USGS site and they only show a failed introduction in 1879. I guess the MDC must have failed to report those stockings and records.

And talking about Crane, what ever happened to the DNA study they were doing there?

We know the railroad story is made up to sell newspapers, because the railroad didn't go there until (IIRC) 1905. However early fish stockings were often done with wagons and pack trains so the early (188?)  stocking is possible, but it's also possible that it was not the last stocking there, and  it's just as possible that some trout did survive your drought, either in the James or in a cave spring or in an isolated pot hole fed by spring that sinks after only few yards.  I guess that drought didn't hit this area that hard, my springs flowed all through the '90s and the creek never went dry.

[fishinwrench]

18 hours ago, tjm said:

it's just as possible that some trout did survive your drought, either in the James or in a cave spring or in an isolated pot hole fed by spring that sinks after only few yards.

And rebounded completely within 4-5 years, with some reaching 18-22" ?    Ok 🙄  

If they could have made it through that long hot/dry spell then there'd be wild trout galore in every spring fed stream in the Ozarks TODAY.   

I remember that period well because I was working outside in it every single day, and living in a trailer with no A/C. It was like hell on earth.....No green grass anywhere, cracks in the soil big enough to lose tools and your truck keys in, ect. And when it finally DID RAIN it came down as MUD because of all the dust in the atmosphere.  You couldn't drive in the "rain" because your wipers were just smearing mud.   

Honestly I still have scars from sun damage and dehydration acquired during that period.