Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 22, 1992 TAG: 9203230161
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
That's the kind of critter some opening day fishermen found tugging at their line Saturday.
What they had hooked was one of the 5,000 tiger trout stocked by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
The tiger is a cross of a female brown trout and a male brook trout. It grows fast, fights hard and has a strong tendency to jump after being hooked, said Larry Mohn, a state fish biologist.
"It was like fighting a smallmouth bass. He went nuts," said Robert Daniel of Roanoke, who battled a tiger on the Bullpasture River Saturday.
Tigers grow fast because they have food, not spawning, on their mind all year long.
Fly fishermen will like the fact that the tiger has a reputation of rising to a fly when rainbows and browns are uncooperative.
The hybrids are a product of Paint Bank Hatchery in Craig County, where Charlie Stephen, the hatchery manager, has taken a special interest in them.
How do you know you've hooked a tiger?
"It won't look anything you have caught before," said Mohn. "It looks like it has tiger stripes down its sides."
"I mean that fish is just beautiful," said Daniel, who caught his on a black gnat Joe's Fly.
Officials aren't pinpointing the streams that have been stocked with tigers, for fear they may attract too much attention. Mohn would say that they have been scattered roughly from Giles to Bath County.
by CNB