In the past weeks several of our FATC flyfishers have fished the Meramec river just outside the park where browns had been stocked earlier in the month. They were told to watch for the Tattooed Browns by one of the Conservation officers in the park. Tattooed Browns? Now what was that all about? Why and how? So the investigation began. Browns were caught by our guys and sure enough they had the Tattoos, red markings, just behind the right eye (see pictures above). The FATC went to “our guy” in the Missouri Department of Conservation, Mark VanPatten, to get the answer. It was even a mystery to Mark at first but the answer was discovered. Read below the most interesting response to our question about the Tattooed Browns of the Meramec!!
Kenny see the reply I received from Wes Swee the Hatchery Manager at Meramec.
We marked these fish a little differently this year. The brown trout we stock in the Meramec river are usually marked with a fin clip from Shepherd of the Hills hatchery. The fin clip is rotated from adipose, left pelvic, right pelvic and none over the course of four years to monitor the age of the fish and when it was stocked. When the fish are electro-fished in the fall, the biologist can distinguish year classes of browns. Sometimes the fin will grow back but it will look different or have a bend to it sometimes. Sometimes it’s very difficult to see the clip after 3 or 4 years of growth on a fish so a new method of marking was tested out. The marks or tattoo is an elastomer gel that is injected under the skin and stays with the fish for a long time. There are many color and marking locations on the fish unlike the fin clip. The fish are sedated and a very small needle is inserted under the clear skin tissue behind the eye. The gel hardens to a rubbery material that can be seen very easily in the years to come. Another reason we marked these fish differently was that they were raised from egg at the Maramec hatchery and are a different strain of brown trout. We stocked 2800 (12 inch) browns from Maramec(red tattoo)and another 2900 (12 inch) browns from Shepherd of the Hills hatchery(Adipose clip). This fall, during our sample of the river, we can compare how the two strains survived in the river.
For future reference:
2009 & before- no clip
2010-Adipose
2011-right pelvic
2012-left pelvic
2013-no clip
2014-adipose(SOH), right eye mark(Maramec)
So the Mystery is solved!!!!