This brown trout is clearly wild—beautiful, feisty, and fun to catch—but it lives in a river where it competes with native brook trout. Photo: Phil Monahan
Fly fishers have long created a hierarchy of trout in the U.S., based on nature. At the top of the pyramid are native species, caught in the waters they’ve inhabited for millennia; next are wild trout, born in the river through natural propagation; and at the bottom are stockers, fished reared in hatchery and planted for anglers to catch. But over the past 140 years, many of those stocked populations have become wild, and many of those wild populations compete with natives.
Writing in Sports Illustrated, Jasper Taback, discusses the issues raised by this dilemma, as well as some possible solutions:
When brown trout were introduced to the United States in the late 1800s, the goal was to provide more sport-fishing opportunities. It worked – brown trout have spread throughout the country, boosting recreational fishing opportunities along the way.
Unfortunately, their spread, along with the stocking of rainbow trout in non-native waters, has contributed to the decline of our native trout populations. The damage has been done – non-native trout are here, and in a big way. So now what?
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