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My local trout stream is stocked mostly with rainbows. From time to time they do bring in brown trout. My question is I have never caught one while nymphing. Every brown I have caught has been with a dry fly on the surface. Is this normal or just coincedence?
I see that as a coincidence. Browns will take nymphs just as readily... actually more readily as it is well over 50% of their diet... as dries.
I figured as much. I have been an oddball my whole like no since in changing now. :D
Slinger: You mention that the browns you are catching are stockers. I have caught many many browns in my lifetime most of which were not stocked. 95 percent of the ones I have caught were on either wets, nymphs or streamers. I wonder if those newly stocked browns are more programmed to eating floating food than a wild fish?
Tim Anderson
Every brown I have ever taken has been on sub-surface flys. I had a 4lb brown nail a size 14 leech pattern this early summer before the heat in a lake. 3lb tippet and a 20 min battle only to have a break off. 10 min latter and my fishin buddy hooked what looked to be the same fish in the same spot. Same pattern differnt color and after a 10 min battle it basically jumped into the net.
Every brown I've hooked has tried to head straight down VS rainbows who run all over the place.
Browns feed up top just as hard as they do Under the surface. Having guided for many years I would say it is more a matter of how many Browns are in a given stream. I have had days on the Madison that we caught a lot of browns on top and I have had days that we took a lot of rainbows underwater. If your stream is stocked with less Browns than Rainbows then the odds are you will take more Rainbows on top or bottom. It is just the way your stream is.
Rivers out here are not stocked at all so it is up to the fish which one is going to take a fly and if that fly is on top or under the surface. By the way I have had days when Cutthroats were the main fish and all on top. See what I mean. ;) Ron
The brown trout which were originally stocked in the Yellowstone River were from Scotland, called Loch Lavens, and were chosen because they rose to a dry fly more readily. German browns, like those stocked in Michigan originally were not as likely to rise to a dry.
Some of the Montana natives still call them Lochs or Loch Lavens.
That said, get them where and when you can! Wonderful fish.
Hi All,
Is it not important to take the nature of the entomology of a stream/river into account too? Surely this plays a large part towards the characteristics exhibited by the trout inhabiting them? Perhaps this applies more to non-stocked fisheries though.