Well we’re into October, how time creeps up on you, with the leaves changing out there to their great fall colors the Brown trout are also putting on their best display clothes. They’re getting ready for the fall spawn. The typical time for Browns generally is Mid Oct through Nov.
Those of you who know the bow and it’s seasons will be well aware of the dangers of disrupting spawning fish and wading through spawning beds. Remember these are future generations of trout, if we disrupt this process, it is bad Etiquette and irresponsible. I make a conscious effort to avoid these areas this time of year.
For those of you that have not encountered this before on streams and rivers I’ll describe what to look for. The riffles and gravel beds look like they’ve been cleaned of their normal coating and look a lot ‘whiter’, usually these are in a round to tear drop shape, with it being dug out at the top end and a pile of gravel at the bottom end. These redds will look like someone just cleaned all the rocks and gravel. Somewhere around 20″ wide and 3 feet long, it varies. The pile of rocks at the tail outs is often covered with eggs.
Watch before you wade! Be on the lookout and avoid stepping on them, particularly downstream of them (remember the tails often contain the eggs covered by gravel, the hole at the upstream end is where the gravel is from, not necessarily where the eggs are). If you see spawning activity in an area or think you see redds, avoid the area, because there very well may be a bunch of redds that are tough to see.
I’ve seen redds in less than 1 foot to over 4 feet of water, I believe its more to do with the fish finding the right bottom structure that is the right sub straight with smaller pea gravel under a bit larger rocks, this with a combination of the right type of moving water and perhaps water temp in a given area are certainly common factors that I see. Watching browns spawn over the years the females after digging rounded saucer-shaped nests in the clean gravel that lines the bottom then deposit their eggs covering them with a few tail diggs.
Fishermen who drag their anchor at times to slow a drifting boat will destroy any egg nest the anchor is dragged through. The same will happen with the passage of drift boats, rafts and canoes, even sliding over the redds, will be harmful.
Please exercise some stewardship, we should act as guardians and treat those area’s gently. Its so easy to spook Brown’s off there redds and destroy a spawning run. So light cleared patches of gravel and rocks… stay well away from the areas and give them a very wide berth.
I’m posting pictures of reds below. If there are any biologists I would welcome comments. Also anyone who has additional pictures they could post.
Casting on the waters 