Flyfishing The World

[DShock]

Right now I am watching Joe Humphreys, with Guide, fishing in Arkansas for big browns.
They are fishing mostly at night.(day scouting)
Does anyone out there know WHAT these browns eat to get so big. This is not big water their fishing.
Thanks,
Doug

[DShock]

Forgot to mention Joe is fishing the Little Red River and using sculpin flies.
Doug

[Buddy Sanders]

Doug,

Big browns eat other fish. Little browns, sculpins, young of whichever other types of trout may be present. They will also eat crayfish, snakes, lizards, mice, little birds, and anything else they can catch and swallow.

Occaasionaly they will even eat bugs.

Good Luck!

Buddy

[J Castwell]

Ask Leonard,,, he guides at night for those big Browns. That IS his job.

[DShock]

There are 20 pound browns in central OR and I know they eat chubs, but that is in a big lake.
The Little Red River doesn't look any bigger than a creek.
I suspect the big fish migrate or cover a lot of territory.
I will ask Leonard.
Doug

[92Esquire]

The Itinerant Angler podcast has an episode where they are talking to that guide about that very show. They discuss just why the browns there get so huge. From what I recall, the water chemistry happens to be just right to support a huge variety of aquatic life that apparently agrees with the concept of big brown trout.

[crcaddis]

A big brown is usually a fish eater. Look under any trout dock on the White, Norfork, or Lake Taneycomo and youll see them chomping on fish guts. Cheers.

[Warm Water Fly Fisher]

DShock,

I too saw this. The water is a special reg. catch and release only. Therefore the fish can live longer and grow bigger than normal. Like he said about the world record 40 lb. brown that was caught in there, it was 17 years old.

WWFF

[SilverMallard]

Whatever they want to.

Our waters are full of sowbugs, scuds, and baitfish. The dams suck through and kill tons of gizzard and threadfin shad when water temps are cold or during periods of extremely high power generation. These shad cannot survive in water below 41 degrees F. And the water gets down to that point in the winter in the lakes near the dams. So the fish go limp and get sucked through the turbines. This is what we in the Ozarks call a "shad kill." That's fishing time unless it's a huge shad kill. If it's too big, the fish gorge themselves and stop eating for several days and there's too much live bait in the water for artificials to compete with.

Finally, we stock HUGE #s of 8-14" Rainbows (depends on where as to size in that range) in our tailwaters. And the large Browns love them.

[DShock]

It sounds like the browns have a never ending BUFFET!
Doug P.S. They don't even have to go to VEGAS!