Must be some well trained fish that succeed avoid all bait & hid in the catch & release area for the entire life...
As you know brown trout are notorious for avoiding capture by anglers and long life spans. I learned something else about brown trout recently I didn't know from research done in Austrailia of all places: Female rainbow trout are notorious for getting egg bound and stressed and even dying in situations where they are planted and spawning substrata and conditions are not correct. I.e. lakes and ponds and muddy streams and rivers. They reabsorb their eggs which is really hard on them. OTOH brown trout females don't seem to have as much a problem with it. Researchers did not know why. This could be another reason why brown trout holdover better than other species of trout along with some large specimens becoming only nocturnal (which makes angling tougher), and they can handle marginal water quality better. Looks like a female full of eggs to me...
That’s interesting about the eggs. Our big lake in NH had virtually zero spawning area. I have seen rainbows and landlocked salmon just busting at the seems with eggs before. I knew it was terrible for the salmon, but didn’t know how’s had the same issue.It is curious that browns and LLS don’t have the same issue with reabsorbing the eggs as they are very very similar genetically I believe?
Now imagine 30-50 of those that size and larger in a stream smaller than the swift....can not wait!
Lake Ontario tributary I assume?Here farther west, states on Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior, DNR's are cutting way back on the planting of brown trout. Really disappointing to say the least.
Im going to wager she avoided capture as long as she did based on size alone.. Most trout fisherman are fishing light line. She would make short work of pretty much anything a trout fisherman threw at her. I wonder how many she has snapped off, and how many "the big one that got away" stories she is responsible for.