The round goby brown trout connection

Because of the exceptionally good spring brown trout fishing in 2007, I fully expect the 2008 spring fishing to be as good or maybe even better. last year the 2 year old age class of browns were very abundant and big for their age. This year those now 3 year old fish will make up a big portion of the catch and these fish should weigh between 8 to 14 pounds. I am not sure why the brown trout are doing so well, but I just read an article in In-Fisherman magazine by Marc Wisniewski entitled "The Brown Trout Goby Connection" and I think that the he may be on to something.

In this article the author explored the connection between great lakes brown trout and the round goby a small bait fish that was introduced into the great lakes by Ocean going freighters. When the gobys were first discovered it was all glom and doom but now it looks like the brown trout in the Great lakes are using this little invaders to their advantage. In the magazine article Marc Wisniewski reports on how he is catching brown trout using tactics that would be better suited to smallmouth bass fishing. All of his observations and much of his conclusions we based upon personal observations he made using an aqua-view underwater camera. These findings may explain why our brown trout fishing in the Eastern basin of Lake Ontario has been getting better every year with more and bigger fish being caught.

If you have an opinion on weather brown trout are eating gobys or not I would like to here it. Post a comment or drop me an email. Thanks Capt. Bill VanWormer