Native, wild, I'm not sure...

WHen it comes to brookies, I think you'd need a biologist to figure out if it's wild or native but there is a far more of a chance of it being wild than native.
A long time ago, it seemed like every little ditch in PA was stocked with brook trout at some point or another. Many of those unstocked small streams without impassable barriers usually get some migrating fish from the stocked main branch.
So now, many original native strains of PA brookies are no longer. It only takes one to breed with stocked fish to wipe out the gene pool. There are still pockets here and there in PA.
One stream I used to fish had a high population of brook trout. Because of logistics, I always thought they were natives. I  found out from an old timer that it was stocked after the trees grew back with small brook trout many years ago near an old logging road. So now??? I dunno. There's still quite a few fish in the creek and I like to think that they are native.
 
Still nice to catch em like that. Native or not.

ORIGINAL: PeteM

I know of a couple streams out your way that have wild ones in them.

This was a test run for me, to see if I could go out there and find em. I did, so now I'll probably do alot of nosing around looking for little streams. Aside from the bugs, it was a great time!

I thot it was wild or stocked. What does native mean to yinz in this context?

I freakin hate snakes. But I'm also wary of wasps and such and the unexpected places they choose to build nests. So you bush whackers take care.

I know a fella who likes to take his topo fishing. He's hard to discourage. One outing he got skunked, climbed a steep embankment to get back to the truck, ran out of wind and sat down on a log to rest. Heard a buzzing and quickly learned he was sitting on a bee's nest, jumped up with the critters stinging him, skidded back down the bank all the way to the bottom landing kersplash back in the stream, lost his glasses, a box of streamers, ripped his waders and broke his rod. But he still loves small streams. His truck doesn't have the bumper sticker about A Bad Day Fishing is Better than a Good Day at Work" though.

dano pretty much summed it up

ORIGINAL: doubletaper

cold, looks like you caught him on a nymph. not sure if you tried it yet, but it's a blast and more challenging to catch them on a dry. a #12 caddis of bushy mayfly works well in choppy water.
you can see the big dries i was using in my post about the 'jewels' march browns and caddis work well for me.

i thought you were concentrating on other species? you're hooked on trout!!

I started this thread a while ago, and since then I've done mostly trout fishing. I DO prefer to catch trout over most other species, but if they aren't biting, I dont want to waste my time, especially when other fish are. I havent been out trout fishing in like 2 weeks, though, I need to get out!

As for the fly used, it was a big tellico. That was before I started getting into dries, but since then I've caught several fiesty brookies on dries. Mostly with a para-adams, royal wulff, and light tan hairwing dry that I've used to imitate caddis, light cahills, and in a pinch, a stonefly adult.

dano is right, but as a general rule of thumb, brookies are usually called natives and browns are usually callefd wild.
The brookie had a natural strain in Pa and the brown never did, it was introduced. Our natural strain of brookies is so polluted now that some people call them wild now instead of native. But like I said as a general rule most people still call wild brookies "native"
 
The bottom brown looks wild, the top pic, i'm not sure, could be a stockie that migrated.
They did a study on Pine Creek in the pa Grand canyon and a tagged stockie onced traveled over 70 miles from where it was stocked, so it is possible.