![]() ![]() ![]() In the Adirondacks only 3% of the known brook trout waters remain inhabited by these fish. Throw in a little acid rain and other environmental factors and things get bad very quickly for brook trout. ![]() It’s been an unfortunately common story throughout the brook trout’s historic range in the east - not just state-run stocking programs but introductions of invasive species by “bucket biologists” are a huge problem in many places, maybe most famously in the Adirondacks. Karas again mentions the detrimental effect of stocked brook trout on native populations. In a recent Trout Unlimited interview Mr. However, those brook trout populations at the highest elevations are probably little changed genetically from the original stock.” And for better or worse (mostly worse), what’s left for us to catch is almost all in the higher elevations - Shenandoah National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Alleghenies, etc. He writes, “Virginia’s waters have been stocked with domesticated brook trout for so many years that the integrity of the wild strain has probably been compromised. Nick Karas, in his seminal work Brook Trout (seminal for those interested in the species, anyway) mentions how programs in Virginia to stock brookies may have impacted the populations I once thought were purely native. I just did a Google search and found a couple references to Virginia stocking both rainbows and brook trout in the Robinson and Rose Rivers near Syria, Virginia ( see here too). The places I’ve fished that are stocked by the state are typically rainbows as far as I know (Big Stoney Creek, Passage Creek, the Jackson River, etc.). I’ve sort of assumed that most of the trout stocked are rainbow trout, with some browns. It occurred to me that I don’t know much about the trout stocking program in the state. ![]()
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