When the General Assembly of Pennsylvania officially made the brook trout the state fish March 9, 1970, there wasn’t really another candidate worthy of consideration.
While it’s common these days for states to have all sorts of official state critters, from fish to birds to reptiles to amphibians, it is difficult to find a state animal anywhere more representative of their state than Pennsylvania’s state fish than the brook trout. Much like our state tree, the hemlock, our state bird, the ruffed grouse, and our state flower, the mountain laurel, all are reminders of the rich mountain habitat and clear mountain streams that collectively offer the best of Pennsylvania.
Taxonomy is the scientific classification of naming organisms in an ordered system that’s intended to indicate shared characteristics and natural relationships, and the brook trout is known as Salvelinus fontinalis. Salvelinus means they’re part of the salmon family that’s native to eastern North America and fontinalis in Latin means “of a spring or fountain” and refers to the brookies’ native habitat of clear, cold streams and ponds.
While native to Pennsylvania, they’re not really trout and are more closely related to the Arctic Char than to the introduced brown or rainbow trout. Arctic Char in Alaska look just like brookies on steroids — lots of steroids.
Our native brookies are not as robust, but a fish of seven inches is a good one — and legal.
It’s said natives here are actually genetically stunted for their own survival. The streams are so small and the available food is so minimal that they only grow an average of an inch or so a year — making a legal trout of seven inches almost seven years old, so if they grew faster, they’d likely starve.
Brookies spawn in the fall when the water temperature gets between 42–44 degrees. To start, a female makes a small depression in the stream bed, known as a “redd,” in a spot where groundwater percolates up through the gravel.
She then deposits up to 5,000 eggs, which are fertilized by one or more males as she expels the eggs. Having more than just one male fish fertilize the eggs is a species survival tool, allowing greater gene diversity.
Females then burry the eggs, which are slightly denser than water, in a small gravel mound where they hatch in four to six weeks. The eggs then enter an incubation period from winter to early spring where the eggs source oxygen from the stream and into their gel-like shells.
Eggs then hatch into miniature fry and rely upon their yolk-sac for the nutrients they need. As the fry grow into fingerlings by summer, they hide from predators in rocky crevices and fissures, exhibiting the colors and markings distinguishing them as brook trout.
While brookies exhibit higher levels of adaptability to habitat changes from environmental effects than other Salvelinus species, clear spring water with adequate cover suits them best. Until the introduction of the brown trout in 1883 and the rainbow trout in 1875, the brook trout garnered the most attention from American anglers.
Over time, its population declines, as the small, clear mountain streams they need decline. Their decline helps contribute to the increased popularity of the browns and rainbows, both of which are easier to raise and grow larger and faster than brook trout.
In terms of numbers being stocked, browns and rainbows are the clear winners here in Pennsylvania, but the brook trout means springtime. They inhabit the loveliest small streams replete with towering hemlocks, rimmed with rhododendron.
With all the overhangs, the primary challenge in fishing for them is often in trying to get the bait in front of them rather than in getting them to take the bait. They’re a quarry worth whatever effort is required.
Because they’re always hungry, native brookies are usually pretty easy to catch.
It’s not uncommon to catch 30 or 40 small brookies in order to find a couple of legal size. Because of this, use barbless hooks, and always be careful to release fish as quickly as possible, so as to not stress them any more than is necessary.
It’s critical to enjoy the resource responsibly so that native brook trout always have a home in the mountain streams of Pennsylvania.
