Brook Trout Today

Brookie Paleoichthyology The brook “trout” (Salvelinus fontinalus) is really a char, related to Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus), Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma), bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus), and lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush). Over 20 million years ago, none of these species yet existed except as potential within a single, common ancestor (Salvelinus). “The earliest fossil of the precursor of Salvelinus dates to the Eocene epoch, some 50 million years ago,” according to Dr. Robert Behnke of Colorado State University. “Salvelinus, the genus of the chars, branched off from the genus of salmon and trout (Oncorhynchus) some 15 to 20 million years ago, during the Miocene.” If trout and salmon are cold-water fish, then the chars are ice-water fish, particularly well adapted to a frozen world. The many ice ages of earth’s recent past (10 have occurred in the past 1 million years) suited brookies well. Char thrived in the icy rivers and lakes formed by melting glaciers. We could say brook trout survived tougher times than these. We would be wrong. Deforestation, raw sewage, chemical pollution, global warming, acid rain, cattle ranching, overharvest, overdevelopment, and crops extending right to the stream edge are among many other factors contributing to long, steady decline. For brook trout, the rise of humanity makes the Ice Age seem like the good ol’ days. Changes in climate that took thousands of years then are taking decades today.

Webster’s trout was probably a “salter,” a brookie that runs to the sea to live out most of its life, returning to freshwater rivers to spawn. The recognized world-record brook trout, also 14.5 pounds, was a “coaster” from the Nipigon River. In the Great Lakes, brookies with salter tendencies are called “coasters.” Both varieties were once abundant in the U.S., and both are in dire straits today. Brook trout have vanished from many inland waters as well. Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture (EBTJV), a unique organization comprised of 17 state fish-and-wildlife agencies, several federal agencies, and various non-profit groups, estimates that brook trout were extant in nearly every coldwater river, stream, and creek in the eastern U.S. before Colonial times. Today, only 5 percent of those watersheds are considered “intact,” where brook trout still occupy at least 90 percent of their original habitat.

Salters and coasters, along with a variety of inland stocks inhabiting rivers and lakes, continue to thrive in the Far North. By hand count (as nobody really seems to have a handle on the real number), over 100 rivers entering Hudson Bay from Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec entertain runs of salters. And hundreds more streams with salter runs flow to the Atlantic or St. Lawrence in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Labrador, and Quebec. I’ve chased salters and inland varieties of brook trout in all those provinces. “Up there” it’s possible to see what once was. The view is stunning.

Many river systems between Labrador and the Rockies consist of relatively short river segments connecting a string of lakes, a feature that characterizes many Canadian inland brook-trout fisheries. When faced with large numbers of muskies or pike, brook trout often confine themselves to those river-like stretches of water between basins. When big, toothy predators are low in number or absent, and the lakes are cold, brookies range throughout the system. For the most part, salters return to rivers that act more like rivers, or they spawn in the lower reaches below waterfalls or cascades they cannot climb.

Up there, a flyrod is the way to go for a variety of reasons. Camps that offer brook-trout fishing tend to be open only during late spring and summer, when brook trout may switch focus, in the wink of an eye, from minnows or nymphs near bottom to hatching insects on top. Brook trout may not be as selective as browns or rainbows, but they can be selective enough to choose realistic imitations over flashing metal when naturals are abundant. Small, single hooks also make it easier to release fish (most provinces protect trophy brook-trout waters with quality regulations).

Anywhere among the best brook-trout waters of Canada, a flyrod in the 6- to 8-weight range is optimum to make long casts with heavy or wind-resistant flies. Because brookies thrive in rocky environments, use tough, 9-foot tapered leaders with a breaking strength of 6 to 8 pounds at the tip. With streamers, tie in 2 to 3 feet of 6-pound fluorocarbon. Since fluorocarbon sinks, use 6-pound mono for tippet material with a dry fly. When the water is really clear and the fish spooky, dropping to 3- or 4-pound tippets can be key.