Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Decent rainbow this morning

Hit up a local stream in Virginia. Caught a bunch of Brooks and browns and a decent rainbow. 6 pounds 3 oz
On a 1/4 oz joe fly 4 lb line

“Decent”

Ha

Very nice man congrats that’s a pig!

That's a well conditioned fish. Well done.

Good catch

Given its fin conditions and chunky body, I'd say it's a stocker fresh out of the hatchery. Still a fun fish to catch.

Here (Oregon), streams are no longer stocked with trout as Mother Nature's reproduction is sufficient to keep things going. No seasons either with everything open year-round.

We do stock lakes, however, as there's no natural reproduction therein, and the program has taken to tossing in what they call a few trophy trout that folks rabidly pack off. Usually up in the 20+" range. Such can become a serious challenge though if they carry over for a couple years and gain some condition. One instantly knows he has a different cat on the line. I try to do my lake fishing here before the trucks show up in the spring. Post stocking, the planters grab anything that moves and are not much of a challenge.

We do have a few lakes with brookies. They can successfully reproduce in still water while the rainbows cannot. Bookies are fall spawners here, so we leave them alone after about Nov 1.

Along the same lines (pun intended), I have a friend in Great Britian that's always bragging about the weight of his catch. Near everything there is fee fishing in private waters and one can market his catch to recoup costs. That being, near all are hatchery stock and they can grow so fast that they'll split their skin in some cases. He did a visit here years back and I got him into our local trout and some steelhead on his fly rods. Said he'd never experienced such a fight before.

It is a stocker. Some wild and native fishing in Virginia but the native brook trout 11-12 " is a big one. There are some decent wild trout streams with rainbow, brown and brookies but for the most part you catch a trout in Virginia over 15" it's stocked. Still fun to catch , I was going to release it but it was bleeding pretty good so I gave it to a friend to smoke the fillets.

Troutnut:

It's been about 60 yrs since I lived in Virginia (Culpeper 1960's). At that time, I was a rabid fisherman but mostly warm water stuff (bass, sunfish, etc). I did land one monster trout of about 18" though as a kid at President Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover's Rapidan Camp. Had no idea the place existed, but a neighbor kid's dad was one of Hoover's bodyguards, was familiar with the location, and packed us up there one day. No finesse on my part though, as it came out from beneath a boulder to take on a night crawler. I do remember it being very fine water.

Good luck out there.

Nice😎👍

Do hatcheries snip adipose where you are?

In Michigan you can tell hatchery from wild fish because DNR snip adipose before planting fish.

efw:

Here in the PNW, adipose fins get clipped on hatchery steelhead and salmon. Presently, non-clipped salmon/steelhead are assumed to be native born and must be released if taken in the ocean or fresh water.

Among trout, native born fish will have perfect fins exhibiting nice straight rays and perfect coloration. Hatchery stock, being packed in close proximity with no means of escape are always jabbing one another like a bunch of teenage boys. The handiest attack is to bite other's appendages. Cement tank bottoms also erode the bottom rays of their tails. Even years later, those fish will exhibit healed but still deformed rays within their fins.

Our wild trout also have much darker flesh than their hatchery relatives likely due to a more diverse diet.

Given the huge numbers of hatchery trout released into our impoundments, there's no fin clipping. Again, Oregon stocks trout in lakes and ponds, but relies on Mother Nature to keep their populations going in our streams. With only a few exceptions, all of our waters are open year-round with mostly 2 fish daily limits in streams and 5 in lakes and ponds. Some of our finer streams are strictly catch and release for trout.

If one has live/dead interests: Live fisheyes are always oriented down. Dead fish look straight to the sides. Among some snobby circles, one can be damn near crucified for posting a dead fish image.

A wild born Brookie


A river born Steelhead from Oregon's Deschutes but probably a straying Clearwater Id fish


River born Cutthroat


A hatchery Steelhead with adipose clipped. Fish was bonked on the head and retained. Note eye position.

One slimy looking bastard. Nice fish though and fun on a fly rod.

Don't seem to have any images of hatchery trout.

There’s a huge argument about “native” strains vs. hatchery fish here in OR. What’s funny is the whole adipose clip thing, since that’s what separates native from hatchery. The program is mainly volunteer, and as good as they are, a decent percentage escape with intact fins.

Presto change-o, they’re now native fish!




P

Not in general and definitely not on this stream. There is one lake in Virginia and the stream that feeds it Lake moomaw and the Jackson River. They started stocking a steelhead strain a while back and clipped the fins because they wanted to know how far upstream they would travel.

I used to fish the Jackson a lot yrs ago