Brook Trout

Mike Fiorita, a 17-year-old from Falling Waters, W. Va., set a Maryland record for brook trout with a 6-pound, 1.75-ounce catch on the North Branch of the Potomac River last month.The previous state mark of 4 pounds, 12 ounces was set by Rick Joyce at Western Run on May 30, 1985.Fiorita's fish, taken from the put-and-take area at Barnum on April 10, was 22.5 inches long and 15 inches in circumference.Fisheries service biologists believe the monster brook trout moved downstream to the Barnum area after beefing up outside the trout rearing pens below Jennings Randolph Dam."

Scott Fine and his wife sleep with their bedroom window open each night, listening to the stream behind their Green Spring Valley home. They enjoy the sound so much they keep their window open during the winter and crank up the heat.But Fine said Dipping Pond Run -- the last stream in the Jones Falls watershed that supports a naturally reproducing brook trout population -- is jeopardized by work on a nearby housing development."The stream was pristine when I first got here, and now there's nothing but mud in the middle," Fine said of the stream, east of Falls Road and north of Maryvale Preparatory School.

In the clear, shallow water, the wiggling fish are easy to pick out. These are not just any small fry, though. These are the first brook trout in at least a decade to hatch in the right fork of the Jabez Branch.State biologists and conservationists traipsing along the snow-covered stream banks Friday could not contain their excitement. They found an estimated 60 fish -- a week or 2 old -- in this nearly 1,900-foot-long section of the meandering creek near Gambrills in Anne Arundel County.

The Savage River is a wild, magical place where cool mists often form over the rocky watercourse as it tumbles down through the forests of Garrett County to merge with the Potomac -- and some of the best trout fishing in the state can be had in its deep pools and pockets.In recent weeks the Department of Natural Resources has documented record wild trout biomass and densities in the trophy area downstream from the Savage Reservoir dam.A survey, conducted annually by the state's Fisheries Service, estimated that the combined standing crop and density of adult wild brown and native brook trout are 83.8 pounds per acre and 1,664 trout per mile.

The effects of the devastating winter and spring floods of 1996 are still evident in the Potomac River and its tributaries, especially in the Monocacy and Savage rivers, where 1996-year classes of sport fish are greatly diminished or missing.Department of Natural Resources trout population studies in the tailwater area below Savage River Dam in Garrett County showed adult wild brown and brook trout numbers declined from 1996 estimates "mainly due to the absence of the 1996 class."Even though the 1996 floods appear to have wiped out a year class, the results of the population survey found numbers and densities of wild trout "were still high at 50 pounds/acre and 507 trout/mile."

A construction project is under way along the wooded Jabez Branch near Gambrills. A backhoe snorts in the mud. Chain saws snarl. And the tanklike tracks of a bulldozer march along the banks.But the developers here aren't building houses for people. They're making a bedroom community for brook trout.At the site of the only remaining trout-breeding stream in Maryland south of Baltimore, Anne Arundel County and state workers are sinking tree roots into the water to act as fish shelters, repairing eroded stream banks and stopping the flow of hot and oily runoff from nearby highways.

A construction project is under way along the wooded Jabez Branch near Gambrills. A backhoe snorts in the mud. Chain saws snarl. And the tank-like tracks of a bulldozer march along the banks.But the developers here aren't building houses for people. They're making a bedroom community for brook trout.At the site of the only remaining trout-breeding stream in Maryland south of Baltimore, Anne Arundel County and state workers are sinking tree roots into the water to act as fish shelters, repairing eroded stream banks and stopping the flow of hot and oily runoff from nearby highways.

Two kinds of things become intensely colorful in central Vermont at the end of September -- tree leaves and trout.If fall foliage season is a time of apparent dying, with just the hope of renewal in spring, it is the season of new life in the brooks and rivers that come down from the Green Mountains. Fall marks the beginning of spawning behavior for native brook trout and the feral brown trout of the Ottauquechee and White River drainages and the west-flowing rivers that run to Lake Champlain.

Jubilant biologists found a record number of brook trout yesterday in Jabez Branch, a sign of success in their efforts to bring back a fish population wiped out by road construction.Forty-nine of the fish had been born in the shallow meandering stream this year. Only 41 trout were found in 1986, before roadwork threatened the stream.The Jabez was the last natural brook trout stream in the Maryland coastal plain and the state's southernmost wild native trout creek until runoff from highway construction and new houses killed off the fish by 1990.

Besieged by activists who want them to protect trout in the environmentally sensitive Jabez Branch, state and county officials will start talking to a local developer today about buying all or part of the land he owns next to the stream."

Right now, there are worse things than being a Maryland brook trout, I suppose. A Republican strategist. A Ford salesman. A Detroit Lions fan. At some point, presumably, all of the humans will bounce back. But the clock is running down on the fate of Salvelinus fontinalis. Study after study show brook trout are in trouble through no fault of their own. Brookies love cold water, clear water and lots of little critters floating by to eat. But overdevelopment, loss of buffers and habitat, and climate change are proving to be the trifecta of doom.

My first brook trout arrived on a frosty late-spring morning in mountain water so cold it made my fingers tingle before going completely numb. No bigger than my hand, the brookie was a work of art to rival New Hampshire's Chocorua Lake, its home just before I enticed it to swallow my fly and to which I would return it moments later. Its olive skin peppered with blue-ringed red dots and a rakish orange belly is a vivid image that has stayed with me for more than 25 years. If I had a lick of artistic ability, I could draw that fish from memory.

If you look up while walking to the edge of the Upper Gunpowder River, you might see a sign warning fishers that they can't use bait. No night crawlers, no cans of worms and absolutely none of that glittery power bait. The fish in these waters can be legally snagged only if they're tricked into thinking that the balled up feather and wool at the end of a hook -- also known as a fly -- would make a good meal. Fortunately for anglers, fish are hungry this time of year. With this in mind, we took a day to hunt for trout with Theaux Le Gardeur, owner of Backwater Anglers, a fly-fishing shop in Monkton, close to the river.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals has ruled that a lawsuit centering on the fate of the last natural brook trout stream in Green Spring Valley can proceed. The decision overturns a ruling two years ago by a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge, who threw out the suit because the wives of the two plaintiffs wouldn't join it. Harold H. Burns Jr. and Scott Fine of Lutherville filed the lawsuit in July 1999. It accuses Scottish Development Co., MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate, Westwicke Homeowners Association and the owners of 30 lots in the Westwicke development of cutting down too many trees and clearing too much land, causing storm water runoff that pollutes Dipping Pond Run. Burns and Fine argued that the actions violated legal agreements reached when Baltimore County zoning officials approved the Westwicke development.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va -- Preliminary findings from a survey conducted in April of 452 Virginia brook trout streams indicate some recovery from the acidification levels found in a 1987 baseline survey. The results will require further analysis because they may be strongly influenced by differences in stream flows at different times -- the sampling in April 1987 took place under much wetter conditions than sampling in April 2000. Also, long-term monitoring during the 12-year period indicates acidification is continuing for most Virginia brook trout streams.

ARECENT moonlit morning, before the lights had come on in most houses, I drove along a stretch of country road that ain't what it used to be. There was a time, maybe 20 years ago, when there was nothing but pasture on either side of the road, and the only buildings you'd see in the moonlight were barns and a single old house on a farm that's not much of a farm anymore. Now there are sprawling ranchers with sprawling lawns dotted with pines planted by the new homeowners. The farmers are mostly gone.

Scott Fine and his wife sleep with their bedroom window open each night, listening to the stream behind their Green Spring Valley home. They enjoy the sound so much they keep their window open during the winter and crank up the heat.But Fine said Dipping Pond Run -- the last stream in the Jones Falls watershed that supports a naturally reproducing brook trout population -- is jeopardized by work on a nearby housing development."The stream was pristine when I first got here, and now there's nothing but mud in the middle," Fine said of the stream, east of Falls Road and north of Maryvale Preparatory School.

Mike Fiorita, a 17-year-old from Falling Waters, W. Va., set a Maryland record for brook trout with a 6-pound, 1.75-ounce catch on the North Branch of the Potomac River last month.The previous state mark of 4 pounds, 12 ounces was set by Rick Joyce at Western Run on May 30, 1985.Fiorita's fish, taken from the put-and-take area at Barnum on April 10, was 22.5 inches long and 15 inches in circumference.Fisheries service biologists believe the monster brook trout moved downstream to the Barnum area after beefing up outside the trout rearing pens below Jennings Randolph Dam."

In the clear, shallow water, the wiggling fish are easy to pick out. These are not just any small fry, though. These are the first brook trout in at least a decade to hatch in the right fork of the Jabez Branch.State biologists and conservationists traipsing along the snow-covered stream banks Friday could not contain their excitement. They found an estimated 60 fish -- a week or 2 old -- in this nearly 1,900-foot-long section of the meandering creek near Gambrills in Anne Arundel County.

The Savage River is a wild, magical place where cool mists often form over the rocky watercourse as it tumbles down through the forests of Garrett County to merge with the Potomac -- and some of the best trout fishing in the state can be had in its deep pools and pockets.In recent weeks the Department of Natural Resources has documented record wild trout biomass and densities in the trophy area downstream from the Savage Reservoir dam.A survey, conducted annually by the state's Fisheries Service, estimated that the combined standing crop and density of adult wild brown and native brook trout are 83.8 pounds per acre and 1,664 trout per mile.