The vomerine bone has teeth in a small cluster at its forward end. Because the brook trout is deep bodied in proportion to it's length, it can swim efficiently in water as shallow as their body depth. Their maneuverability is an asset in capturing a wide variety of foods in waters of all depths. The powerful, long run of a large rainbow or brown when first hooked is almost always absent with large brook trout, which tend to a bull-dog tugging and twisting fight near the bottom. Such a fight is part of their nature, determined in turn largely by their shape.
Brook trout prefer cold, clear streams and are the most cold tolerant of all common trout.
As a general case, brooks are native to the northern half of the eastern United States in addition to eastern Canada. There are some brook-trout populations as far south as Georgia along the Appalachian spine, but these have been in decline since at least 1900 and probably earlier, when both logging and overfishing destroyed trout habitat at lower elevation and the more accessible areas of highland streams. These head-water areas could be the brook trout's last refuge here as the rainbows' upstream movement may be finally limited by physical barriers such as waterfalls or other obstacles created by Park personnel on behalf of the brook trout. Brook trout are inherently cold-water fish, and can perform well within a temperature range of 40 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. However, brook trout have been shown to feed at temperatures as low as 34 degrees, and the lethal temperature limit of the brook seems to be around 30 degrees.