Square Tails

[shoelessjoe]

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery...
~ C. McCarthy

 

[Ad Astra]

Man! What a pretty fish!

Trout is so tasty, too.

Thanks.



AA

 

[shoelessjoe]

Man! What a pretty fish!

Trout is so tasty, too.

They really are gorgeous. Whenever I catch a pre/early-spawn buck my first thought is always that when it comes to looks, saltwater fish have nothing over trout ... & especially those brookies, goldens & greenback cutts.

 

[EB Newfarm]

I agree- my favorite for their looks and their eagerness for a dry fly.
Nice pictures, shoeless joe, both the fish and the cane.

 

[shoelessjoe]

View attachment 1234884
I agree- my favorite for their looks and their eagerness for a dry fly.
Nice pictures, shoeless joe, both the fish and the cane.

Thank you, EB. That’s a fine photo of one gorgeous brookie ... those fall bucks really do make a spectacle of themselves!

And speaking of spectacles, here are some (borrowed ) photos of a Japanese Yamame or Cherry trout (salmonid); an Italian Brownie & lastly, my favorite, a naturally occuring, home-grown Colorado River-Greenback-hybrid Cutthroat:

 

[EB Newfarm]

 

[shavefan]

Gorgeous. Fish, scenery, equipment, photography. Gorgeous.

 

[EB Newfarm]

 

[EB Newfarm]

 

[oldbluelight]

View attachment 1234884
I agree- my favorite for their looks and their eagerness for a dry fly.
Nice pictures, shoeless joe, both the fish and the cane.

Chances are excellent you caught that 'spec' below the New River drainage. All those red dots make him a Southern strain brookie.

 

[EB Newfarm]

oldblueligdht,
I always look at that picture and cringe, I was pretty new to fly fishing and did not think about how I might be hurting the brookie by laying it on the rock for the photo. I have not been taking as many pictures this summer, trying not to stress out the fish. I don't know the strains of brook trout, although that one was caught within an hour or so from the Canadian border.
This early season was a good one for brookies, they were big, plentiful, and healthy in my favorite river.

 

[oldbluelight]

I was guessing at the location on the basis of red spot count. There's a bit of folk wisdom that southern strain brook trout, those found in the Appalachian Mountains below the New River drainage in Virginia have a higher number of red spots than the northern brookies. I was always a little skeptical of that but genetic research by biologists in Tennessee and Georgia seemed to confirm it. There is a genetic difference between the original native population that remained in the South following the retreat of glaciation some 12,000 years ago and the domesticated strains of northern brook trout that had been adapted to hatchery rearing and were used for restocking. After genetic analysis characterized the populations of streams in Tennessee as Northern, from restocking, Southern, native since the retreat of the glaciers, and mixed from interbreeding between the two strains some preliminary research indicated that red spot count was a clue to genetics and the red spot count on that one looked like a typical Southern strain so I took a guess. I now guess I was wrong. Regardless, that's a sweet little spec. Congratulations on having a river full of them. Here they're confined to first and second order streams high up in the mountains.

 

[EB Newfarm]

That is interesting, I did not know the difference. I did some reading up on the topic and am surprised at the variations. Pretty cool- they are such a amazing fish!