New York's 'eye-popping' state fish is a treasured catch, if you can find it

The brook trout has earned its title as the New York State fish.

Back in 1975, they came up with the idea of naming the New York State fish.

The bluebird already was the state bird, and later there would be a state mammal — the beaver — and then a bunch of other state critters.

As for the fish, they could have picked the smallmouth black bass. That would have been a good choice. Or largemouth bass. Or walleye. Or northern pike. Or muskellunge. The American shad or the sturgeon could have been named, although they were outside possibilities.

They – the state legislature, I think – passed on all of those and went with the brook trout, although the title later was modified to “freshwater fish” when the striped bass was named the “marine or saltwater fish."

But who could argue with the brook trout - beyond handsome, shockingly so, almost pretty, fine-scaled and stunningly colored, sometimes with a jewel-like appearance. It is difficult to think of a better looking fish anywhere on the planet. Their mottled backs, electric spots, and the pure white leading edges of their fins are eye-popping, and they tend to have well-balanced physiques, even when they grow large and chunky.

More: State deer totals continue to climb. What to know about the numbers

They tend to live in wild and attractive places, too, which is nice, and they also are extremely fine eating … if you have the heart to kill one. I haven’t in many years.

Brookies once were the king fish of Eastern North America, and the only trout east of the Mississippi. They were treasured by sportsmen, and were roundly celebrated in sporting art and literature.

And, yes, we know, they aren’t really trout but char, but if you can tell me the difference I’ll give you a Tootsie Roll. The easiest way to tell, though, is that trout have dark markings on light backgrounds and char have light markings on dark backgrounds. Whatever the differences, they don’t amount to much in terms of fishing.

More: Bass season is upon us in New York. Should anglers change their tactics?

The introduction of the brown trout and rainbow trout to the East in the late 19th century, on top of dams, logging, competition from other introduced species such as bass and perch and who knows what else, acid rain and other pollution, put a big dent in the brook trout population. Their present range is only a fraction of what it was in colonial times, and the fish are often restricted to high elevation, hard to reach streams and remote ponds … except sometimes they are not.

There was a time that the majority of Eastern anglers mourned the loss of brook trout opportunities in a big way. They blamed the brown trout for its predatory ways, and many old-timers really hated them. Sometimes known as German trout or Von Behr trout because of their origin, they were even more despised during World War I. The brook trout’s reputation was elevated even more as a result, although over the years the brown trout’s reputation for size, gameness, and difficulty of capture wore down the resentment.

Theodore Gordon, the sainted angling icon of the turn of the last century, certainly loved brook trout, but he defended the browns, find them more challenging to catch and able to grow to much larger sizes. The fact that there were fewer and fewer places to catch brook trout added to the change in attitude.

But there still are places you can catch brook trout close to home.

Oriskany, West Canada, and Sauquoit creeks and the Black and Mohawk rivers have tributaries that hold brook trout, and now and then you’ll find them in the bigger streams or in their headwaters. Really, brook trout – usually very small ones – can still be caught almost anywhere in the state, except for the northwest corner. That is a hit-or-miss deal, of course. If you want to target them, you’ll probably want to head to an Adirondack pond, one of the creeks coming off of Tug Hill, or take a trip to Maine or the Smoky Mountains.

Forever, the “mythical” New York State brook trout record was 14½ pounds, caught by United States Senator and legendary orator Daniel Webster in 1827 in the Carmans River on Long Island. This was a sea run fish, and they commonly weighed 10 pounds or more in those days, so the weight was never a matter of dispute. Whether Webster, reportedly a madcap angler, was the guy who actually caught it is open to question.

Today, the recognized New York State freshwater brook trout record is 6 pounds even. This was a 22.6-inch fish caught by Richard Beauchamp on a Lake Clear Wabbler in the Silver Lake Wilderness Area. Before that, the record broken almost every year for a decade, and once was held by Utica’s Tom Yacovella.

Waters that hold big brookies are jealously guarded secrets, of course. One friend who loved to fish Adirondack ponds at ice out clammed right up and walked away when I asked to accompany him one time. It was very presumptuous of me, I admit.

Another time, I was fishing a small tributary of the Mohawk River, and had caught a few nice brookies when I noticed a State Trooper walking through the meadow toward me. I was a long way off the road, so I wondered why he was going to all that trouble since I wasn’t any kind of threatening presence – at least I didn’t think so. He asked what I was doing there. The answer was obvious, but what he really wanted to know why I was in that particular spot and how I found out about it. Honestly, I had just stumbled upon it. I hadn’t broken any rules, so he left. I don’t remember him wishing me luck. I later I learned that a family with his name lived on that road, so, I guess he was trying to discourage me from bothering “his” brookies. I appreciated that part of it.

Brookies have a reputation for being stupid or unsophisticated, but if that is true, I wish they were stupider still. They tend fight down rather than jump, and they supposedly don’t feed on the surface much, but I’ve caught enough of them on dry flies to know that isn’t strictly true.

They were easy prey in the early days, when 19th century sportsmen and subsistence farmers killed them by the thousands. Total catches often were measured in weight rather than in individual numbers or length, and 5- and 10-pound “baskets” of trout were common.

Most of the brook trout you will catch in streams are quite small, and easily injured by barbed hooks and rough handling. If you are going to release them, consider barbless hooks, wet your hands before handling the fish, and get them back into the water as soon as possible.

Write to John Pitarresi at 60 Pearl St., New Hartford, N.Y. 13413 or jcpitarresi41@gmail.com or call him at 315-724-5266.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: New York's state fish is an 'eye-popping' catch: Outdoors column