B.D.
Well-Known Member
If you look at the long-term history of the river, you'll see that growth rates are better and you get more fish moving into the large size classes in dry years.
Not sure what you mean by a ring stuck around the fish's belly - you mean like the fish picked up a piece of plastic trash? If so, that's pretty awful.
It's not unusual at all to see smaller trout integrate themselves into the schools of shad. I see it all the time - rainbows and browns alike. The shad dislodge sowbugs, blackfly larvae, and other benthic inverebrates as they forage, and the trout are there to eat them. I doubt this was predatory behavior toward the shad - at 14", even the browns are eating a lot of bugs rather than baitfish, and gizzard shad certainly aren't on the menu yet. From what I've seen, brown trout seem to be somewhere around 16" when they go through the profound behavioral changes that make them start acting a lot different than rainbows as they move on a track toward a piscivorous diet. Two inches doesn't sound like much, but a 14" brown and a 16" brown are very different fish.
A 6 lb. brown will track a shad school around not much differently than a striper will - and not much different than a lion hanging off the edge of an antelope herd. But when they get to that size you certainly don't see the prey species letting the predator fish hang out and swim in sync with the school any more.
bd
Not sure what you mean by a ring stuck around the fish's belly - you mean like the fish picked up a piece of plastic trash? If so, that's pretty awful.
It's not unusual at all to see smaller trout integrate themselves into the schools of shad. I see it all the time - rainbows and browns alike. The shad dislodge sowbugs, blackfly larvae, and other benthic inverebrates as they forage, and the trout are there to eat them. I doubt this was predatory behavior toward the shad - at 14", even the browns are eating a lot of bugs rather than baitfish, and gizzard shad certainly aren't on the menu yet. From what I've seen, brown trout seem to be somewhere around 16" when they go through the profound behavioral changes that make them start acting a lot different than rainbows as they move on a track toward a piscivorous diet. Two inches doesn't sound like much, but a 14" brown and a 16" brown are very different fish.
A 6 lb. brown will track a shad school around not much differently than a striper will - and not much different than a lion hanging off the edge of an antelope herd. But when they get to that size you certainly don't see the prey species letting the predator fish hang out and swim in sync with the school any more.
bd
