What is considered a large brown trout?
What is considered a large brook trout?
I don’t mean huge…I mean large.
A trout that will put a decent bend in your rod and a smile on your face?
Well, I wish I was close enough to a good stretch of water to fish it daily!
For the waters I fish most often, a 12" to 14" brown is considered large.
For a brookie, I would say 10", with a 12 incher being an ole grandaddy.
Bob
I don’t fish daily but what I consider my home waters:
17" brown, 13" brookie
-Jeff
Back when I fished for browns the few people I fished with never took a picture of a fish until it was 18 inches… but I always thought 16 inches was a pretty decent brown.
Not really any trout streams near here and no browns. Smaller streams that I used to fish as a kid are now all in the public watershed but used to have brookies up to 14" now all those streams are closed to fishing. Which leaves me the big lake with a notable rainbow at 5lbs, a large one is over 10lbs, and a monster 20 plus. If you target the big ones, with patience and a large boat ( the lake is dangerous ) you can get at least 10 fish over 10 lbs per year and at least one over 15lbs. If you concentrate on smaller fish you can get at least 10 in the 12-14 inch range per day with usually one or more over 4 lbs.
12" Brook Trout, 12" Rainbow Trout, and any size Brown Trout. I can usually see Brook and Rainbow trout where I fish, I think I caught 1 Brown trout the whole time I’ve been going.
Jim
The only river I fish regularly for brown trout is the South Fork of the Snake. On that river, I consider a brown in the 20"-23" range a large one. I’ve had a good number of 23" browns on that river.
Routine browns in the South Fork run in the mid to upper teens ( 14"-19" ). There are some that are huge - one friend of mine took a 28" brown on the South Fork a while back, and one of his friends landed one that went just over 31" a couple months later.
On the Henry’s Fork, which I fish occasionally, and mostly in the fall with streamers for browns, the same numbers would apply to large, routine, huge, except the routine might start a bit smaller than 14".
The biggest Henry’s Fork brown I’ve landed went right at 22". I did have on a huge one - estimated it in the mid to upper 20"s - but he broke me off. A friend of a friend recently took a brown on the Henry’s Fork that went over 30".
Don’t fish too many streams around here with brookies. The couple that come to mind have pretty small fish in them. On those streams, large brookies would be in the 9"-10" range. I have had a couple huge brookies in those creeks - 13"-14".
John
P.S. All the browns I catch on either the South Fork or the Henry’s Fork put a bend in the rod and a smile on my face. Any small stream trout will bend the rods I fish on those creeks, and certainly any brookie will bring a smile.
We’ve no Brookie water in or near SW Ohio. I’ve got to put on my traveling shoes and head to West Virginia or back home to Pennsylvania to get in to Brook Trout. Even then in these high mountain streams a really good fish will only be 10" - 12", with the average being much smaller.
I’ve got a great place for fishing for Browns within about an hour. A good Brown at this local will be over 20".
When the great flood of 2009 subsides, and I get back across the trib and start fishing the river, a large brown starts at about 18 inches. It takes one in the 23-24 range for me to get the camera out any more.
Brooks are in other waters, but anything from a foot up is pretty big for around here.
My favorite spring creek gives up some real beastie Browns anywhere from 17" to my largest there of 27-inches, with consistent fish in the 20-inch range. They are very spooky, extremely leader shy, but they will be sure to put a good bend in your rod and a smile on your face. A bit tougher to land since they seem to know if they head for the weeds along the bottom that they will get off and I will end up with a bunch of salad on the end of my line.
Plenty of Brookie water around, but one must travel a bit further to get there. Birch Creek is one of my favorites for some pretty Brook Trout, small but feisty, and there can also be some pretty good ones (12" to 16") on the Big Lost, but they are few and far between.
Here are a few pics from recent outings.
There you have it.
Tight Lines,
Kelly
Depends really on what local waters I’m fishing…but basically I’d say on the local streams I frequent that a 12 to 14 inch brookie is considered large, while a 18 to 24 inch brown is considered more than a good size…most brookies in 8 to 10 inch range (or even smaller)…browns are more likely 10 to 14 inch range (or smaller)…in the one location I love to fish, there used to be more brookies that were consistently larger but even though catch and release water only there are too many folks that show up with worms and treble hooks (even though it’s only single, artificial, and barbless area, and posted as such) and take fish home; it’s a case of the few ruining it for the many; even though any respectable angler would report such action and do (I’ve pointed out to a few fishermen that such practises are not permitted on these waters and had a few state they just wanted a nice fish to take home to eat; so I suggested going to one of the public fishing areas with stocked ponds), it’s still going on…and there’s not enough COs (conservation officers or game wardens) to patrol that water as once there were…when there was more enforcement there were better fish…and there could again
The Bear River is about 10 minutes from my house. It’s a wild fishery and not an outstanding one at that. But there are rainbows and brook trout in there.
They’re small. but like any fish, they’re fun when you catch them.
They do make you work for it though. On Friday night I couldn’t find a fish anywhere in that river. But just about sunset when it was almost too dark to see they started jumping and hitting a very light mayfly hatch. There were more bats than fish out there but I kept trying.
I pushed my cast a bit to fast and cracked the whip on my back cast snapping off my fly. It was almost too dark to tie on a new one. I had to use one of my fly threaders (the first time I’ve ever used it) and finally got a small pale cream colored mayfly pattern tied on.
The fish was jumping about 40 feet out from me. The river was really flowing hard and the level was up about 2 feet over normal so I wanted to try to put my fly about 50 feet out and let it quickly drift towards the fish. I had about 3 cast that were almost in the right place and I tried one more good strong hero cast to get it out there. I caught my fly on a bush on my back cast and broke off the tippet right at my leader.
By this time it was way too dark to re-rig. I guess I could have held the flashlight in my mouth while I tied up a new tippet and fly, but I’d been out for a couple hours and it was starting to get cold. (I know, June in the Sierras should be summer. But it was darn chilly)
So I went hope without a catch, but I still had a great time. It’s a river that tends to focus my casting mistakes and my “sneaking up on them” mistakes. The river and the fish are teaching me how to be a better fly fisherman for sure. I just have to pay attention to what they’re telling me.
Large brown here is 18"
Large brook is over 6" 