Species confusion

[troutguy 0]

It is without a doubt a Brown. You can Google several good identification guides that help determine which trout you have caught.

 

 

 

Brooks and Browns can be interbred in a hatchery, They do not in the wild. For a great article

 

www.wvdnr.gov/wildlife/magazine/archive/05Winter/brookies.pdf

[Dcap240 0]

Troutguy, if they can be crossbred in a hatchery why couldn't it happen in the wild? I do not agree, although it is very very rare it can and does happen in the wild.

[Dcap240 0]

Tiger trout can be produced reliably in hatcheries. This is done by fertilizing brown trout eggs with brook trout milt and heat shocking them, which causes creation of an extra set of chromosomes and increases survival from 5% to 85%.

 

Wisconsin currently has no stocking program for tigers, but the hybrids show up naturally in the state's small streams. Given that water quality is the best it has been in 20 years, the brook trout population has boomed in recent years. Thus, more wayward male brook trout have been found around brown trout redds, perhaps accounting for the hybrids.

 

Michigan tends to have a number of tiger trout in its streams, due to its high population of brook trout. Catching them consistently would not be possible.

 

http://www.mininggazette.com/page/content.detail/id/529286/Tiger-trout---myth-or-fact--Biological-bits.html?nav=5008

[netabrookie 0]

Wow Markbob, your question seemed to open up a whole can of information...Why google something when you can read it on here almost word for word? If it was up to me and I could create a time machine I would travel back to the late 1800's when a brown, either kind, was still in Europe, a bow was still in the west and the brookie's were all on the eastern side before it was all mixed up for the sake of the sportsman. Now we have brookie's out west that are considered invasive species and browns in the east that are considered the same by a lot of folks and now mixtures of both swimming around places that are not their natural habitat because they shouldn't even exist in the first place. I understand the cut's are threatened by the brookie's and the brookie's, here in the east, are ate by the browns and the poor little bows are hatched out by the millions so that the "trout" anglers can have table fare everywhere and catch decent fish that like to jump. Sorry Markbob, I didn't mean to rant and rave, but a simple question usually deserves a simple answer but things tend to get out of hand occasionally.....

[Dcap240 0]

I don't see what is so " out of hand". If you read back Markbob was the one who asked if browns and brooks can crossbreed. The short answer is yes, maybe only in the hatchery, maybe not. But if someone wants to discuss it, why not? And I'm sorry I copied and pasted my post and probably should've quoted where it came from. Yes the fish in the picture is a brown, I'm not debating that. I'm only questioning the link that troutguy posted and the fact that I believe that the species can crossbreed in the wild even if it is only a one in a million chance. The articles says that there habitat and spawning time doesn't overlap and that is mostly but not totally true and there are exceptions. Most years the brookies are done spawning by the time the browns start but some years it overlaps a little. One of the class A tribs to the lehigh river I fish just this past fall had brown trout starting to spawn right near the mouth of the trib while the brookies where just finishing their spawn 50 feet away in the last pool of the same trib. In that same creek is where I caught what I believe to be a wild tiger years before and the only reason I really believe it was wild is because it was only a 5-6inch fish with no clipped fins and I have never heard of the PFBC stocking tigers that small. If it was a keeper sized fish I probably would have never questioned it. Also another forum I am a member of there are lots of claims and pics of wild tigers and quite a few of them look very legit.

[Markbob 0]

I'm enjoying the responses, nothing is out of hand. I never expected that this thread would get so long or garner so much attention but its been pretty interesting. Browns just confuse me some times because there seems to be quite a variation in their color patterns. I dont know if they are different species of browns or just reflective of their hatcheries or home waters but there seems to be much more diversity in the appearance of browns than any of the other "common" trout/char species we have in the country. Since I don't live near a trout stream (I'm in SE GA), I don't get an opportunity to see any trout or char in person very often.

[netabrookie 0]

Well, I guess the phrase "out of hand" is too harsh of a statement in today's politically correct society, so I will rephrase my statement and my apology to Markbob and say that things tended to veer from the original topic a bit. Markbob, if I ever go southeast from where I live, to fish, then I will more than likely be asking you about some warm water fish because they can be a little confusing to me. I didn't set out to sound cranky, but after reading what I wrote, I think it was a touch on the grumpy side. I can offer excuses like my cat is in the mood for her boyfriend, the wind howled all weekend and I couldn't fish and I am having to train a young guy at work that has the intelligence of a pecan but that still doesn't excuse an old fart for being short with folks. So....if I have offended and stepped on toes then I will say that I am sorry and anyone can come back with anything because I am wearing steel toed shoes.

[Markbob 0]

Bah, no worries. I live on the coast and had to learn about some of our less known fish on other forums. I had no idea what a lizard fish was the first time I caught one. Same with oyster toads, sea robbins and several other species. Sea robbins taste like flounder by the way, very good. I also fish warm waters a bit but mostly ponds around here. The nice thing about the regs and such for our warm water critters is that the bream is most diverse group of fish lumped under one bag and possession limit but you don't have to be able to identify a red brest from a sunfish or bluegill etc. I just always look forward to the opportunity to fish cold water when I get a chance, typically wouldn't worry about keeping a coldwater fish except that it seems that most of our trout fisheries in GA are put and take anyhow so I wanted clear up my confusion about this fish. I would probably keep a stocked brown with out any guilt but I would probably not want to keep a native brookie. Since I now know what to look for in these brookie look alike browns, I know that next time I have the opportunity, I can eat my grilled brown and his crispy tail guilt free.

[boynabubble 0]

Hey all,

I'm gonna add to the discussion of hybridization between brook and brown trout in the wild, it's a very interesting topic!

I am convinced that brook and brown trout can and do hybridize in the wild under certain circumstances. Both have similar spawning requirements, both spawn in the same places and both spawn in the fall. So the question is, there are lots of streams that contain both brook and brown trout, so why do people rarely see tiger trout where they aren't stocked? Here's the kicker.....cross breeding has a higher chance of happening if a population of one or both species is very low or the populations are very high. Low populations limit the number of available spawning partners and high populations increase the number of run-ins between browns and brooks.

In a healthy stream with good populations, trout stick with their own species, but the urge to spawn is so strong that in absence of suitable spawning partners, a brook or brown will 'make due' with what is available.... a brookie might not ideally choose to spawn with a brown, but hey....it's better than nothing.

Kind of like a single guy at the bar during last call, Bertha might not be his first choice, but by this point, he'll take what he can get.



Here's a pic of a friend of mine who caught a tiger trout on a stream in the Black Hills that runs through an old mining town. Because of pollution from mining runoff, it is a Federal Superfund site. There is however, a good population of brown trout in the section below town and very few brook trout.....a person might only catch one or two all year. My friend works with a former fisheries biologist and after showing him the photo, was told that tiger trout are not stocked in that creek and only stocked in one lake in the Black Hills about an hour away. In fact, streams in the Northern Hills haven't been stocked since the '70s, and since tiger trout are sterile, this fish would have to be the result of interbreeding between wild fish.

The same behavior has been seen in sunfish species in farm ponds which regularly interbreed and produce hybrids and the same reason that it is nearly impossible to find pure Yellowstone Cutthroats that don't contain some rainbow trout genes.

[Markbob 0]

Interesting. Beautiful fish too.

[Old Hat 0]

Interbreeding or bucket biologist. Just saying. An hour is not far away, especially if it is on the way home. People plant what they like, where they like. One of the struggles of fisheries management.

 

We have lost many wonderful trophy trout fisheries to invasive plantings in Oregon.

 

I agree though Boynabubble. I think it is possible for the interbreeding, especially in stressed environments.

[mikechell 0]

Hey all,

 

I'm gonna add to the discussion of hybridization between brook and brown trout in the wild, it's a very interesting topic!

 

I am convinced that brook and brown trout can and do hybridize in the wild under certain circumstances. Both have similar spawning requirements, both spawn in the same places and both spawn in the fall. So the question is, there are lots of streams that contain both brook and brown trout, so why do people rarely see tiger trout where they aren't stocked? Here's the kicker.....cross breeding has a higher chance of happening if a population of one or both species is very low or the populations are very high. Low populations limit the number of available spawning partners and high populations increase the number of run-ins between browns and brooks.

 

In a healthy stream with good populations, trout stick with their own species, but the urge to spawn is so strong that in absence of suitable spawning partners, a brook or brown will 'make due' with what is available.... a brookie might not ideally choose to spawn with a brown, but hey....it's better than nothing.

 

Kind of like a single guy at the bar during last call, Bertha might not be his first choice, but by this point, he'll take what he can get.

 

The same behavior has been seen in sunfish species in farm ponds which regularly interbreed and produce hybrids and the same reason that it is nearly impossible to find pure Yellowstone Cutthroats that don't contain some rainbow trout genes.

You write this as if fish copulate. It is very possible, since the sperm drifts all over the place, that hybridization is not an act of "desperation" ... but one of chance. If a brookie is dropping eggs just downstream of a pair of browns ... there's a good chance one or more of the brook trout eggs will be fertilized by the brown sperm. It probably happens much more than not, but:

1) not all of the eggs will produce a viable embryo, and

2) the young produced probably look more like food to an adult, thus don't make it out of "childhood"

[boynabubble 0]

mikechell,

 

They do in fact pair up, and the male releases milt directly onto the eggs. So it is intentional fertilization, not a mass spawning as in some species such as white bass. Nests are not necessarily closely located to one another, especially if populations are low, so the chances of random brown trout milt drifting downstream and coming into contact with brook trout eggs is possible, but not as likely as intentional fertilization of eggs by the male.

 

A local bucket biologist is always a possibility (always mucking things up), but knowing both the lake in which they are stocked and the tiny stream in which this fish was caught, I wouldn't think that anyone would go through the trouble....but stranger things have happened. Pike are present in several Black Hills lakes without ever being officially stocked by game and fish thanks to bucket biologists.

 

Here are a couple of studies which document wild tiger trout and interbreeding between brown and brook trout if anyone is interested. Sorry, I couldn't find the full articles, but the abstracts sum them up.

 

Do native brown trout and non-native brook trout interact reproductively?

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-008-0370-3

 

Reproductive interactions between sympatric brook and brown trout in a small Minnesota stream.

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/f95-787?journalCode=cjfas#.UvGynfldVIE

 

The second study makes an interesting observation.....according to the study, brown trout may sometimes take over and spawn on a redd that was already made by a male brook trout. This may account for some cases of wild tiger trout production without intentional interbreeding....if brook trout eggs have been laid but not fertilized, they could be inadvertently fertilized by a male brown that has pushed the brookies out of the redd.

[troutguy 0]

Just to clear up some misinformation and keep this going. Most tigers are hatchery raised. It is possible but highly improbable that it occurs in the wild, but it does occur.

 

Tiger Trout can only occur one way, a female Brown Trout and a Male Brook Trout. It can not go the other way because a male Brown Trout has sperm that is too big for a Brook Trout's egg.

 

The two species of trout have different numbers of chromosomes, that adds to the difficulty of survival and conception. The survival rate of trout from egg to fry in general is pretty low even without involving two different species.

 

Tiger Trout are loved by fishing clubs because of their uniqueness. I have heard it claimed that no two fish are alike in pattern (never saw scientific basis for that claim). Back in the late 1960's and early1970's I used to help a gentleman, Floyd Wayman of the Turner Brook Trout Hatchery in NY. They seemed to be his favorite trout. I later went to SUNY Cobleskill and received a degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Science. I never worked in the field. I grew up around hatcheries and trout. I had four uncles that worked in the DeBruce Fish Hatchery for the NYS DEC. I was and still am enamored by trout. I always thought I too would work in a hatchery.

 

Floyd Wayman was a great trout raiser, but he also was a magician.Notin the sense of party tricks, but tricking Mother Nature. As I remember he used to manipulate the water temperature to get the eggs to take better. There was a lot of luck and skill to consistently getting Tigers to stockable size. He watched those fry like they were his own children. Tigers were often stolen by people who broke in at night, hence the shotgun at the backdoor.

 

Interesting articles Boynabubble. Also interesting is that there are certain areas and states that anecdotally claim more Tigers are caught and reported. Some people in Michigan claim that they have the most naturally occurring Tigers in their state, but there are so stream surveys that I could find.

 

Markbob, thanks for a trip down memory lane and a long lasting post.

 

Perhaps someone should start a poll on this topic. Oh wait that is the other controversial thread.

[Markbob 0]

I never really thought about the process of fish matting in a stream before but it sounds a bit nasty. One trout just minding his own business, sippin' nymphs when all of a sudden he gets slapped in the face by an errant gob of "milt" from his buddy upstream.

I started the thread with an honest question. The replies have been interesting and resulted in the posting of several beautiful trout pictures. I don't currently live in trout territory so I just find it all fascinating. I do know now though that I want to catch a tiger and get the necessary measurements and photos to have a mount made. too pretty.