I was in PA the last few days hunting. Tried fishing for a half hour but caught no trout. I did see several rises by what I thought were trout. So I am hoping with the cooler than normal summer we had, we had a bumper crop of hold over brown trout and perhaps a few rainbows as well. The water temp was 62 degrees on the surface.
With brown trout they can be there and you won't hardly know it. They are a wary and stealthy species.
That is amazing that one or your rainbows held over Greg... It would be cool to try to select rainbows who could do that and then breed them. After a few generations of doing that, you may be able to put together a very warm water tolerant strain. Cecil... I could see a market for such a fish! Don't you think?
My state allegedly used a strain of rainbows known as the
New London strain (from a state hatchery in Ohio with that name) for broodstock. According to them the strain was able to handle warmer water than a typical rainbow, but I have my doubts from personal experience. They are now fiddling around with hatching eggs from Trout Lodge which is much more economical than keeping broodstock half way down the state, and hatching and rearing the offspring at two different locations due to iron issues.
I heard a rumor about some brook trout in PA that were more warm water tolerant but was never able to track it down.
