Brown trout, like this 25-incher from the Rio Chama, thrive and reproduce naturally in many of New Mexico’s rivers and streams. Photo by George MorseBy GEORGE MORSE
Sports and Outdoors
Los Alamos Daily Post
After nearly 50 years of angling in New Mexico, I have seen a lot of changes in the fishing regulations concerning the number of fish an angler could keep (the daily limit). The first year I moved here (1968) the daily limit was a very liberal 12 fish-per-day for trout.
A few years later, there was an interesting change in the bag limit. It was raised to 14 trout-per-day, but only eight of them could be rainbow trout. An angler could keep up to 14 brown trout if they so desired.
The reasoning was that it cost money to raise and stock rainbow trout, while brown trout were reproducing naturally in the streams and lakes. By allowing anglers to catch so many brown trout, the reasoning was it would reduce pressure on the stocked rainbows.
I thought that reasoning was flawed at the time. Why put pressure on a species that was able to maintain itself through natural reproduction? Also, I was realistic. Anglers would keep fishing even after they had caught eight rainbow trout, saying they were fishing for brown trout. I knew human nature.
They would likely still catch more rainbow trout and I knew that most of those fish would likely still be kept. You know how it goes. If you’ve already caught your limit, but your buddy or kids haven’t, you keep fishing to help them reach their limit. I know it’s illegal, but it happens.
I didn’t think that the new limit would last long and it didn’t. I believe it went down to eight trout after a short time. Now it’s down to five trout. In nearby Colorado, their daily limit is down to four trout.
By the way, I will admit that I kept a lot of fish back then too. I was in the process of realizing that what was happening was I would end up with a freezer full of fish I wasn’t eating. I now only keep enough for one meal to be eaten within a week. That can be as few as one fish or as many as five (the legal limit), depending on the size and species I am catching. For example, one big brown trout equals five little brook trout. I do not keep freshly-planted hatchery rainbows, no matter the size, and try to fish where I am not going to catch them. They just don’t taste as good as wild or holdover trout.
I still get a lot of dirty looks from catch-and- release fishermen. To me, eating wild trout is good for you. It reminds you that fishing, no matter how you rationalize it, is at its core a blood sport. Human beings took up fishing as a way to get something to eat. Trout are delicious and good for you.
Despite the pressure put on brown trout, they continue to thrive and reproduce naturally in many of our state’s streams, rivers and lakes. Originally introduced from Europe (oldtimers still call them German browns) in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, they have proven to be adaptable to many different environments and are now established throughout the United States and the world. Some of the best brown trout fishing in the world is found in such far-flung places as New Zealand and Argentina, where no trout existed before people introduced them.
Brown trout are able to withstand angling pressure for two simple reasons. They are harder to catch and live longer than other trout. I know of one lake, Dillon Reservoir in Colorado, where there is a high density of wild brown trout, but rainbow trout still dominate the angler’s catch. As a matter of fact, the fishing for brown trout actually got better in terms of size of the fish caught when they started stocking fingerling rainbow trout at Dillon. The brown trout started gobbling up the smaller rainbow trout.
Interestingly, before they started planting those rainbow trout, the size and number of big brown trout at Dillon was much smaller. Trout will only grow as large as their food supply allows. Lakes and rivers where big brown trout are found will have an abundance of bigger prey, be it crayfish, minnows or little rainbow trout.
There’s a dark side to the success of brown trout in New Mexico. They have moved into the very small headwater streams where they have taken over the habitat from the native Rio Grande cutthroat trout.
Brown trout spawn in the fall, while cutthroat trout spawn in the spring. It is believed that the young brown trout, bigger and stronger because they were hatched in the fall, are able to out-compete the newly-hatched cutthroat trout in the spring. Brown trout have no qualms about chowing down on other trout.
When trying to reestablish populations of Rio Grande cutthroat trout, they often have to poison the stream to eliminate wild brown trout. They then have to build barriers to prevent the brown trout from moving back upstream.
I catch a number of big brown trout each season. There is no magic to this. It means fishing where there is plenty of food for big brown trout and using bait, flies or lures that big trout like to eat. With baits, this means things like nightcrawlers, crayfish and minnows (where legal). With flies, it means streamers that mimic minnows like Wooly Buggers or crayfish imitations. Sometimes, you can get big browns on big dry flies like grasshopper imitations, stonefly imitations or the oddly-named Chernobyl Ant. Sometimes, a fly pattern like the San Juan worm can fool a big brown.
When using lures, crank baits and plugs like Rapalas will tempt big browns. In lakes where both bass and brown trout occur, big browns are often hooked on plugs and crank baits fished for bass. Spinners are a good choice in high and/or murky water because the trout can hone in on the vibration of the spinner blade.
Then again, there will always be that odd big brown that a little girl using a pink Barbie Rod while soaking salmon eggs or Power Bait will catch. That’s what makes fishing at times a humbling experience.
Big browns can turn up in unlikely places. Little Fenton Lake, which is heavily fished and stocked, has yielded a number of big brown trout, including a 34-incher a few years back. That fish had eluded anglers for many years and passed up who knows how many baits, lures and flies before being caught.
Why it decided to strike a little spinner after all that is what keeps the mystery in fishing.
I have had fisheries managers say they don’t like brown trout because they are aggressive and can take over a fishery. That’s one of the big reasons they are still able to thrive and grow big in many of our lakes and rivers despite the fishing pressure and lack of respect. I for one am glad they are in New Mexico.