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BrkTrt
12-31-2009, 11:24 AM
They say this species of trout can only be found in a few watersheds in Maine.

I have fished many streams, lakes and ponds in Maine over the course of 25 plus years and have never seen one.

A while back while fishing a stream that feeds a beaver pond in Northwest CT, I hooked this trout.



A Blueback Trout?




http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p235/brookie47/crpbrk-1.jpg






- Brk Trt

rossa
12-31-2009, 11:58 AM
Lovely, is the blue back the same as the sunapee?

adam
12-31-2009, 12:00 PM
Looks like a brook trout to me.

BrkTrt
12-31-2009, 12:03 PM
Lovely, is the blue back the same as the sunapee?


They are similar I'm told.



- Brk Trt

greendrake
12-31-2009, 12:12 PM
I could be wrong but I have always read that the blueback was a genetic mutation of the rainbow trout,much like the golden or palomino.
Adam is right,that is definately a brookie in your photo,albeit one that I've never seen the likes of.I'm sure if you contacted a fisheries biologist from Conn. and shared that pic with them,they very likely could shed some light on the subject.
Will

terry
12-31-2009, 12:44 PM
I am going with blue back brookie. One of my favorite things about brook trout is how much the color varies from fish to fish. That’s a beautiful specimen. Thanks for sharing.

I have read about true bluebacks in one of James Prosek's books, "Early Love and Brook Trout". It seems he had some trouble finding one as well. They are actually a char, which makes them closer to a brookie than a rainbow. I don't think there is a true trout native to the northeast, only char.

rossa
12-31-2009, 01:16 PM
I could be wrong but I have always read that the blueback was a genetic mutation of the rainbow trout,much like the golden or palomino.
Adam is right,that is definately a brookie in your photo,albeit one that I've never seen the likes of.I'm sure if you contacted a fisheries biologist from Conn. and shared that pic with them,they very likely could shed some light on the subject.
Will

Blue trout which are a genetic mutation of rainbows are very popular in stocked waters in the UK.
http://www.flyforums.co.uk/fishing-phot ... out-9.html (http://www.flyforums.co.uk/fishing-photos/44048-pictures-rainbow-trout-9.html)

BrkTrt
12-31-2009, 04:15 PM
These fish were native to Franklin and Oxford county in western Maine,

From Scribners Monthly, Maine 1877,


There is still a fourth variety called by the natives the,"blueback trout, the Salmo Oquossa, { so named becauseit is peculiar to these waters} which is also used to furnish food to the monarchs of the lake.

They come in an immense army, actually filling the streams here and there with a dense struggling mass which the natives capture by the bushel and by the barrel in nets buckets and pails even scooping them out by hand and throwing them on the bank.

They are salted and preserved like mackerel. These blueback trout have never been found more than nine inches in length, nor less than six inches.

In flavor they are quite as rich and delicate when cooked as the brook trout. After spawning they retire to the lake just as suddenly as they appeared in the stream. They do not deminish in multitude year after year.



- Brk Trt

CM_Stewart
01-01-2010, 09:21 AM
That's a brookie. Blueback trout (also called Sunapee trout) are landlocked arctic charr and thus closely related to brook trout but not all that close to rainbows. http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactShee ... ciesID=936 (http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?speciesID=936)

The brook trout that made Maine famous were from Rangeley Lake, where they commonly exceeded 8 pounds and reached that size by feeding on blueback trout. Then atlantic salmon were introduced, and they completely wiped out the bluebacks. Smelt were introduced to provide a replacement for the bluebacks, and they ate brook trout eggs. The huge brook trout of Rangeley are gone, probably forever. There are still brookies in Rangeley, but they're not huge anymore. http://www.amazon.com/Brook-Trout-Revis ... 605&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Brook-Trout-Revised-Nick-Karas/dp/1585747335/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262355605&sr=1-1)

Sean
01-01-2010, 10:24 AM
cool....looks like i need to take a trip to maine. :shh: don't tell my girlfriend :D

JB in SC
01-01-2010, 01:31 PM
Seems I recall reading about similarly colored Maine Brookies in one of Jim Babb's books. Very cool looking regardless..

LMarshall
01-04-2010, 02:31 PM
Brk Trt:

That is a really beautiful fish. The variations in color always amaze me. Was that fish from the Conn. River drainage? I've caught brookies in central MA within the Conn. River drainage that exhibited similar coloration; a dark gray-blue back with gold specks, par marks, a light gold tint to the sides, and no green whatsoever. I haven't seen fish like this anywhere else; possibly a surviving native sub-species or phenotype? I Have no idea.

BrkTrt
01-04-2010, 03:01 PM
Actually I guess it would be considered the Housatonic River drainage.

I too have never seen such coloration.

I sent out an inquiry to CT DEP to see what their take is on it.




- Brk Trt

Alpinefly
01-04-2010, 03:55 PM
A Sunapee would have a much lighter spotting !!! This has the Brookie spotting and Sunapee spotting along with a lot of the true Sunapee colors !!! Prolly crossbred between the two !!!!!! Beautiful trout !!!

LMarshall
01-04-2010, 04:52 PM
A Sunapee would have a much lighter spotting !!! This has the Brookie spotting and Sunapee spotting along with a lot of the true Sunapee colors !!! Prolly crossbred between the two !!!!!! Beautiful trout !!!

I wouldn't get too excited... From what I've read the Sunapee Trout was never found outside Lake Sunapee, until it was stocked in a few alpine lakes in Idaho. I think the Blueback Trout persists in a pond that is part of Bangor's water supply (ironically enough also due to stocking if I'm not mistaken, gotta love the bucket biologist..), but is extinct from the Rangely lakes. There's another extinct species of charr (the Silver Trout) that inhabited Dublin Lake in southern NH and another pond in VT, but again I don't think this fish was ever found anywhere else.

It's more likely that some individuals in the stream where Brk Trt caught this fish carry a recessive gene that causes the blue coloration. If a lot more fish like this are found in that stream there could be something genetically unique about that particular population.

I understand that native populations of brook trout were wiped out from most watersheds within the historic native range at one time or another due to anthropogenic environmental change, implying the possibility of a significant loss of genetic diversity within the species. Nowadays most wild populations were propagated at some point from hatchery raised fish. So I wonder if some of the uniquely colored brookies represent relict populations of native fish that somehow survived the last 400 years or so of dramatic environmental change? In the central MA stream I mentioned earlier, all the individuals I've caught so far exhibit an apparently unique coloration compared to other fish I've caught in New England, but without genetic testing there's really no way to know if that's a significant observation.

LMarshall
01-04-2010, 05:18 PM
Here's a photo I took this summer of a fish from that central MA stream:

Alpinefly
01-04-2010, 07:14 PM
This would seem to be one of those Dr. Behnke questions as to both the genetics and geographical distribution !!!! The argument could go many different waysand the only way to prove is DNA testing as Mashall stated !!!

terry
01-04-2010, 08:42 PM
I sent out an inquiry to CT DEP to see what their take is on it.- Brk Trt

Let us know if you get a response

BrkTrt
01-04-2010, 08:48 PM
I recieved an email response that the info I submited was forwarded to a fisheries biologist for review.


Will let you know of the results.




- Brk Trt

LMarshall
01-05-2010, 11:27 AM
I've been browsing through Nick Karas' Brook Trout on google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=j35ZD6 ... q=&f=false (http://books.google.com/books?id=j35ZD6OS2JgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=brook+trout&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

This is a comprehensive and well researched work, so take a look, the answers to some of the questions in this topic are probably in there ;)

rossa
01-05-2010, 02:21 PM
I've been browsing through Nick Karas' Brook Trout on google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=j35ZD6 ... q=&f=false (http://books.google.com/books?id=j35ZD6OS2JgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=brook+trout&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

This is a comprehensive and well researched work, so take a look, the answers to some of the questions in this topic are probably in there ;)

Great link, had a quick glance at some chapters and was very interesting.

terry
01-06-2010, 08:15 PM
I own and have read thru some of the Nick Karas book. There is a lot of info on brookies in there. Its a good book. I hope to read all of it soon.

greyfox
01-08-2010, 06:52 PM
I caught an identical brookie on the wb Neversink, it really stood out to me cause of the 100's I have gotten there, they were always olive in color

BrkTrt
01-18-2010, 02:56 PM
I recieved a response to a request to identify the trout in the photo.

Recieved from a CT Fisheries biologist.


There is quite a range in the natural coloration of the wild brook trout.

This is due to age, sex, diet, sexual maturity, time of year, substrate color, and tannic vs clear water.

The fish in the photo appears to be on the bluish end of the normal range of coloration.



So I guess its a brookie and not a blueback.



- Brk Trt

terry
01-18-2010, 04:45 PM
Thats what I expected. Still a beautiful trout though. Thanks for the follow up.

Eric.S
01-18-2010, 09:19 PM
Interestingly enough, brook trout of that coloration are fairly normal for the small streams of NJ. Here is an very dark specimen I got on a stream that is only 2 feet wide mostly but has a lot of depth. You cant fish a nymph really here, the cover is so tight all you can really do is swing streamers downstream and skate dries, you have to use the current to your advantage and be creative with your presentation.
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r193/troutwiz/IMG_0998.jpg

terry
01-19-2010, 06:51 AM
All these pictures of brookies are really getting my heart going. I can't wait for the April 1st opener. We should have a sticky made of favorite small stream trout photos.

Chef
01-19-2010, 09:27 AM
:D

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l78/ChefsVenom/SweetXCreekBrookie.jpg
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l78/ChefsVenom/BustedBrooklynDodger.jpg
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l78/ChefsVenom/BrooklynDodger.jpg

terry
01-19-2010, 03:55 PM
Thanks chef, nice pics.

BrkTrt
03-01-2010, 07:27 PM
There is a good article on this mysterious little char in the March edition of Fly Rod and Reel.




Brk Trt

Apache Trout
03-10-2010, 09:18 PM
Everyone should read that outstanding article.
Beautiful fish my friend.
A.T.

hootie
03-26-2010, 03:35 PM
That female Blueback on page 28 of the Fly Rod and Reel article looks a little bit like a Great White Shark. :)