Spawning Trout

     One winter afternoon many years ago, I was hiking through a deciduous forest in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and came upon a fast-running, crystal-clear brook.  Stopping for a sip just for the experience of it, I laid on the snow and dipped my mouth into that tiny waterway.  As I sipped, I noticed a brook trout of a few inches long looking at me from only a foot away.  That was a thrill!
     Late in October, some years later, I was walking along another brook in another woodland in Lancaster County and noticed a few fish, that were larger than minnows, quickly darting under rocks or under the banks of the waterway at my approach.  I quietly sat back from the water with my binoculars in hand to wait for the fish to come out of hiding.  When they finally did, I looked at them through my binoculars and noticed they were small, but adult, brook trout sporting beautiful colors!  They were olive-green on top which camouflages them above the stony bottoms of their preferred waterways.  Their beige sides had red spots and their bellies were pale yellow-orange.  Their fins were orange-red, each one with a noticeable, white leading edge.  Those trout were ready to spawn, which brook trout and brown trout do during October and into November when forest canopies and floors are both covered with strikingly beautiful red, yellow and orange leaves. 
     Clear, cold, woodland streams in the woods of the northeastern United States run through beautiful carpets of multi-colored leaves on forest floors during October and November.  Some fallen foliage drops into gravel-bottomed, woodland waterways and are pushed along by the current.  And some of that foliage catches on rocks, twigs fallen into the waterways, and shorelines, creating protective homes for small creatures in those brooks and small streams. 
     Black-nosed dace, which is a kind of small, stream-lined fish, crayfish and scuds, which are crustaceans, mayfly, stonefly and damselfly larvae, and two-lined and dusky salamanders live in those protective leaf packs.  And many of those small creatures are eaten by brook trout and brown trout that live in those same waterways.    
     Brook trout and brown trout have much in common, besides spawning in October and November.  Both species are streamlined to undulate easily and gracefully into the current to maintain position while watching for food animals in the flowing water.  The young of both species are brownish with a few vertical, dark ovals on each flank, that blends them into their surroundings.  Adults of both kinds are attractive, each in their own way.  And both species prefer cold water and strong currents to be able to get the oxygen they need over their gills.  
     Both species spawn over gravel beds in flowing waterways.  Each female of both kinds uses her tail to sweep away silt to expose the gravel on the bottom where she will lay her scores of eggs.  Removing silt keeps it from burying the eggs and smothering the trout embryos.  When spawning, each female of both types is accompanied by her mate.  He repeatedly pushes against his mate to get her to expel her eggs.  When she does, the partners are side by side with their mouths open and their bodies quivering as if in ecstasy, which they probably are.  She emits her eggs and her partner expels sperm over those eggs to fertilize them.  Then each partner goes his and her separate ways and the eggs are left among the stones on the bottom.  Running water doesn't freeze and the young hatch early in the next spring.          
     Brook trout are native to northeastern North America, but brown trout are from Eurasia.  Brown trout are mostly brown, which camouflages them, but they have many dark spots on their backs and flanks.  They also have several red dots there as well.  And, although there still are a few native brook trouts in woodland streams in Lancaster County, both species of tgrout are stocked here, along with some rainbow trout, as well.
     Brook trout and brown trout are attractive species that spawn in clear, woodland streams during a beautiful month.  They add another dimension of beauty to this county, and many other areas on Earth.