Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Andersen
6) Ah ha, the Great Blame It all on the BROOKIES. Yupe, browns and BROOKIES do inter-breed. There has been 3 Brookie/brown hybrids ever found in Alberta. A very rare occurrance.
Fish eat eggs. You bet they do. All the ones that are free floating away from the redds. These eggs are dead - who cares.
Don
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I dont think the inference is being made to a hybrid fish being the issue. i think its the fact that brookies mature much younger then browns and are able to reproduce more often. therefor running browns out of house and home. why do you think brookies are the issue in native westslope waters? its not because of the interbreeding, which you continually fall back on when the brookie issue comes up in regards to stauffer. With the amount of brookies there are, they are opportunistic eaters. They will eat smaller fish on a regular basis, along with the regular trout diet. If you've got 500 brookies in one stretch of creek, with 50 browns that are of a smaller edible size. You can bet those browns wont be around for long. Now this isnt to say brown trout are not piscivorous fish, but if you've got 500 brookies and counting every year, you could imagine what damage that might do to the young of the year browns and giving them a pretty crappy chance at reaching a size where they aren't bothered by the brook trout.