Hamilton Reef
08-04-2007, 10:31 AM
Thanks to beaver DAMage, brown trout taking place of brookies
http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/statewide/index.ssf?/base/sports-1/118591441999640.xml&coll=1
08/04/07 By Bob Gwizdz
FALMOUTH -- We'd waded along for a couple of hundred yards with nothing to show for it when we came to a spot where the river channel made a 90-degree bend and the velocity picked up considerably.
I fired a spinner into the riffle and was rewarded with a hook-up. The fish came immediately to the surface and spit the bait back at me. And though I didn't get a good visual on it, something about it -- its heft, perhaps -- told me it was a brown trout.
"It was a brookie," said John Bakos, my partner on this small stream trout safari. "I've never caught a brown trout this far up."
We were pretty far up the stream, which is one of the cardinal rules of brook trout fishing. Brookies, our state fish and one of the most beautiful creatures of God's whole creation, are far less temperature tolerant than browns or rainbows. Brook trout like it cold and most main stream rivers in our state get too warm by mid summer to hold those critters in their comfort zone.
For summer brook trout, you almost can't get too far up a creek, where the springs keep it cold.
So the next bend up, Bakos caught a brook trout and, in the next bend, another -- small specimens that might have measured the requisite eight inches. But, Bakos said, he had better fish in mind, anyway.
And at the next little run, something latched on to Bakos' spinner that put a little better bend in his pole. It was -- drum roll, please -- a brown trout. And Bakos just kept repeating, "I'll be darned" the whole time I was taking photos.
But over the next couple of hundred yards, we could both see the picture clearly: There were a series of beaver dams -- four of them -- each impounding the water, slowing it, warming it. Explained everything.
Beaver dams and brook trout go together like Diet Coke and pecan pie. They don't.
When a beaver dams up an area, it can offer good fishing right off the bat. The water deepens and the fish have room to spread out in the impoundment. But by the second year, the impounded water starts warming beyond the critter's preferred range. Then it becomes a dead zone, silting in, covering the gravel.
For that reason, fisheries biologists are known to spend time eliminating beavers and their building projects from cold-water streams.
It had been two years since Bakos and I last hit this stream, apparently enough time for the beavers' dirty work to have cast its curse on the brook trout.
After we passed the construction zone, things picked up. We started catching more brook trout, sometimes two or three to a run. And though many of them were small -- as small stream trout are wont to be -- there was a good mix of 10-inchers in there as well.
To Bakos, the key was using the spinners he swears by.
Bakos uses Panther-Martins, spinners that have a through-the-blade construction. Most spinners are attached to the shaft of the bait with a clevis. But Bakos says through-the-blade spinners begin attracting fish immediately.
"I believe that when you throw that spinner, it begins flashing right away, as opposed to the other style that you have to start retrieving before it starts flashing," he said. "A lot of times, the trout will hit it before you even crank the bail over."
Bakos, who grew up fishing for brook trout with his father and grandfather, said they both preferred through-the-blade spinners to the clevis models.
"My dad used to make them," he said. "Kind of hard for me to change."
Although his mentors dabbled in nightcrawlers as well, Bakos has no use for live bait. There are more non-target species (such as chubs) in the river now than there used to be, he said, and those little creatures will latch onto a worm before the trout ever have a chance. Using spinners keeps his lure in productive water longer than live bait does, he says.
We worked our way up to a spot where a large dam would force us out onto private property. I fished the pool immediately below it and hooked into our best fish of the morning. Wouldn't you know it, it was a brown.
Brown trout are worthy targets, for sure. And we had nothing to complain about -- we'd caught about 25 trout -- all but two brookies, the best of which was an honest 12 inches.
But unless a trapper gets after the beavers in that stream -- and somebody makes the effort to dismantle those dams -- we're likely to see more browns in the future. And another good brook trout stream will have gone the way of the buggy whip.
http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/statewide/index.ssf?/base/sports-1/118591441999640.xml&coll=1
08/04/07 By Bob Gwizdz
FALMOUTH -- We'd waded along for a couple of hundred yards with nothing to show for it when we came to a spot where the river channel made a 90-degree bend and the velocity picked up considerably.
I fired a spinner into the riffle and was rewarded with a hook-up. The fish came immediately to the surface and spit the bait back at me. And though I didn't get a good visual on it, something about it -- its heft, perhaps -- told me it was a brown trout.
"It was a brookie," said John Bakos, my partner on this small stream trout safari. "I've never caught a brown trout this far up."
We were pretty far up the stream, which is one of the cardinal rules of brook trout fishing. Brookies, our state fish and one of the most beautiful creatures of God's whole creation, are far less temperature tolerant than browns or rainbows. Brook trout like it cold and most main stream rivers in our state get too warm by mid summer to hold those critters in their comfort zone.
For summer brook trout, you almost can't get too far up a creek, where the springs keep it cold.
So the next bend up, Bakos caught a brook trout and, in the next bend, another -- small specimens that might have measured the requisite eight inches. But, Bakos said, he had better fish in mind, anyway.
And at the next little run, something latched on to Bakos' spinner that put a little better bend in his pole. It was -- drum roll, please -- a brown trout. And Bakos just kept repeating, "I'll be darned" the whole time I was taking photos.
But over the next couple of hundred yards, we could both see the picture clearly: There were a series of beaver dams -- four of them -- each impounding the water, slowing it, warming it. Explained everything.
Beaver dams and brook trout go together like Diet Coke and pecan pie. They don't.
When a beaver dams up an area, it can offer good fishing right off the bat. The water deepens and the fish have room to spread out in the impoundment. But by the second year, the impounded water starts warming beyond the critter's preferred range. Then it becomes a dead zone, silting in, covering the gravel.
For that reason, fisheries biologists are known to spend time eliminating beavers and their building projects from cold-water streams.
It had been two years since Bakos and I last hit this stream, apparently enough time for the beavers' dirty work to have cast its curse on the brook trout.
After we passed the construction zone, things picked up. We started catching more brook trout, sometimes two or three to a run. And though many of them were small -- as small stream trout are wont to be -- there was a good mix of 10-inchers in there as well.
To Bakos, the key was using the spinners he swears by.
Bakos uses Panther-Martins, spinners that have a through-the-blade construction. Most spinners are attached to the shaft of the bait with a clevis. But Bakos says through-the-blade spinners begin attracting fish immediately.
"I believe that when you throw that spinner, it begins flashing right away, as opposed to the other style that you have to start retrieving before it starts flashing," he said. "A lot of times, the trout will hit it before you even crank the bail over."
Bakos, who grew up fishing for brook trout with his father and grandfather, said they both preferred through-the-blade spinners to the clevis models.
"My dad used to make them," he said. "Kind of hard for me to change."
Although his mentors dabbled in nightcrawlers as well, Bakos has no use for live bait. There are more non-target species (such as chubs) in the river now than there used to be, he said, and those little creatures will latch onto a worm before the trout ever have a chance. Using spinners keeps his lure in productive water longer than live bait does, he says.
We worked our way up to a spot where a large dam would force us out onto private property. I fished the pool immediately below it and hooked into our best fish of the morning. Wouldn't you know it, it was a brown.
Brown trout are worthy targets, for sure. And we had nothing to complain about -- we'd caught about 25 trout -- all but two brookies, the best of which was an honest 12 inches.
But unless a trapper gets after the beavers in that stream -- and somebody makes the effort to dismantle those dams -- we're likely to see more browns in the future. And another good brook trout stream will have gone the way of the buggy whip.