I love to fish for trout, and I love the colors in a Brookie or a rainbow, but
probably my least favorite fish to eat though.
Does anyone actually prefer trout over other species?
Grouper, sword fish, tuna, redfish, speckled trout, striped bass in no particular order would be top of my list.

I caught some steelhead from Lake Michigan that were really good on the grill. I imagine from Salt they are much better. They weren't my favorite but I would be happy to catch and cook them again. I don't get salt water species here, obviously.

Had some lake trout last night.





It was fuggin delicious !

I am not a fan of trout/salmon unless smoked. I am more of a milder tasting fish like walleye, perch, sunfish, catfish. I like fish that doesn’t taste like fish.😁

I love trout. I used to fish steelhead and salmon, but I much prefer a 2lb trout for eating. My fave is a 12" cutthroat cooked on the coals of a tiny fire streamside. I also love frying up a mess of little Brookies.
My second fave is Crappie, but they are more work.

Maybe it’s because all we get is stocked trout. Doubt the meat is anywhere close to the taste of native trout.

Favor brookies over rainbow for the pan sized versions and residents as opposed to hatchery stockers. Steelhead (sea run rainbow) for steaks/fillets/smoking. Mostly my issue with the smaller fish is dealing with bones.

Jackmountain: Got up at 6:00 AM this morning and headed out ice fishing - way below freezing and the ride on the ATV to our ice shack from shore was CHILLING, even though I was well dressed.
Caught 6 Rainbow Trout through the ice - put three small ones back and I dressed out my limit (3 Trout).
Got home at 1 PM and froze all but one nice big 20 incher with really pink/orange flesh.
The VarmintWife and I cooked it up and ate it when she got home from work.
It was wonderful!
The ice was a measured 19" thick and yet these trout were well fed and bellies full.
Again - the trout we ate tonight was wonderful - very tasty, very firm and very satisfying!
Secrets (IMO!) to cooking Rainbow Trout - NEVER, EVER let lemon anywhere near the fish while it is cooking!
Cook Rainbow Trout to nearly "well done"!
Use seasonings sparingly and after careful taste tests.
These winter caught Rainbow Trout are not only wonderful baked or fried they are simply sublime when "smoked".
I really LIKE Rainbow Trout.
Fresh caught Halibut, fresh caught Sockeye Salmon and fresh caught Steelhead are a "tad" ahead of Rainbow Trout on my "tasty" list but I never turn down Rainbow Trout.
To each their own I guess?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Yeah..I'd rather eat-and catch- carp than stocked trout. Frankly though I'm not wild about eating any fish with fins, and trout are at the bottom of that list.

Despite loving fishing for and catching them, I've never much cared for their flavor.
A few exceptions: Steelhead is freaking delicious. Brook trout is too - though to be clear, the species is actually a char.
Smoked cutts can be delicious with a glass of pinot. Golden trout I've eaten in quantities, though there again it may have had much to do with the location.. I think anything tastes good at 11000 feet elevation

To me, all trout are nasty regardless of where you catch them. This includes steelhead. They are strictly a sport fish to me. If one doesn’t look like it will survive, I’ll keep it and freeze it for crab bait. The only salmon I really like are chinook (but not tules). I can tolerate coho and sockeye if they’re smoked. Rockfish, lingcod, small halibut, and walleyes are my favorite.

Trout are decent but really not much taste to them as far as stockers . I do eat a lot of them this time of year. Had some from the Jackson last week.

You're right about the native trout though. Friend of mine has a camp at the base of Spruce knob in Wva. One of those drive 5 miles back a dead end road and open the locked gate and go another 4 miles. Sunrise is about 11 am and its gone by 130 but its a great native stream right in front of the cabin. At least once a year in the spring we catch a handful of 11-13" natives and have a fish fry with fried potatoes and ramps. Don't get much better by hillbilly standards

Brook, Rainbow, Cutthroat, Steehead trout and Artic Char - all good eating when fresh, but they don't keep well even when frozen. I'll freeze bookies sometimes if I've had a good weekend haul, but find its best to thaw and cook within a few months.

Lake trout, meh, not a big fan.

Don't know about brown, bull, golden trout - haven't had the chance to try them.

Nope don't like em. The only fish I keep to eat are yellow perch, walleye and crappie.

Love fishing for trout, especially since I have taken up fly fishing
While they're not my favorite to eat, we do eat a lot of them.
Still prefer walleye,crappie,flatheads, small bass,etc
But damned if trout aren't fun to catch

Best "eating" fish to me are bluegills, lightly floured and fried in butter.

I’ll have to disagree. Crappie the way GrandDad fried them in an old iron skillet when I was a kid. And then catfish.

Brook trout are my favorite trout to eat. I don't care for hatchery raised trout with flavorless white flesh. Wild trout with nice firm orange meat are where it's at for flavor.

When I moved to Utah, I had never caught a trout in my life. Took up fly fishing and caught a lot of them. When you say "fish" to a native Utahn, it only means one thing: trout, and usually stocked rainbows. I now know why many anglers consider trout to be catch and release only. They're tasteless, flaccid, and off-putting in color. From some of our lakes that have snails, trout meat is actually gray. I now consider trout to be trash fish.

I recently gave away all my fly fishing gear, and I wouldn't accept a "slimer" for the table if offered one. Fortunately, we have perch, crappie, walleye, stripers, wipers, white bass, large and smallmouth bass, bluegills, catfish, and more. ANY of those beat trout by a mile on the table. We have lakes where there are so many walleye, stripers, and smallmouth bass that you are encouraged to catch and kill all you can.

I like trout. Not the best but love the sport of the fish. Love the fight of a large mouth bass, but the eating sucks. Just throw them back. Stripers are great as are lake trout. Reeling in a lake trout is as much fun as bringing in a boot.... until they see the boat. Can't even try a catfish. Bottom feeders and nasty looking to me.

No trout in my neck of the woods, but I've eaten it. I don't remember much about it so it must not have been too nasty, or I'd have remembered that.

For me, the top tasting fish from my neck of the woods are:

1) spot
2) flounder
3) striped bass
4) speckled trout
5) bluegill
6) croaker

I'm sure there's some others, but these off the top of my head. I don't catch a lot of spot anymore for some reason. Used to pull them up two at a time. Took a lot to make a meal. I catch more croaker than spot. Used to be the other way around.

Most others get tossed back.

Favorite freshwater fish for me are walleye and crappie.
Saltwater would be grouper, red snapper and triggerfish.

I like everything about trout. I like fishing for them and eating them. I'm a little perplexed by all the negative comments, I would never have guessed it.

No thanks to trout and salmon. I don't care for the oily fishyness of them. Love most other fish though. For freshwater, walleye is darn tough to beat.

A mess of yellow perch makes a nice meal

Fhuqk those fhuqking Trout. Hint..............

Flatheads and Bluecats aren’t scavengers. They’re predators and often the top of the food chain. Blues aren’t bad eating if you trim the red off the filets. Flatheads are outstanding.

Catch and release is always a good option.

We caught and ate lots of Rainbow, Browns and Lakers fishing Blue Mesa in Colorado. I liked them fried and grilled. I like to eat all kinds of fish they all good too me.

You got that right....They were tasty from the cold water of Blue Mesa Res. in Colorado.

Trout is a breakfast fish.....

1. Vermillion snapper
2. Pompono
3. Flounder
4.Walleye/bluegill bream
5. Trout/salmon

Some actually speared in SCUBA gear. (You get to pick out the fish you hunt.) I like fishy fish.
Don't like oily? Want a trial separation? Make your wife cook a Canadian goose.

______________________________________________________________

Catch and release is why we still have problems in Washington.
Leavenworth has plenty of space.
Watergate was less than BidenGate-But HRC and Hunter are roamin the streets and sellin uranium & influence.
Obama-Soros for the Last Days

Fresh steelhead filet: delicious.

Rainbows: meh..

Smoked cutts are very good though.

I think you nailed it. A hard red-meated trout out of cold water is hard to beat.

+ 10 mb

I love catching and eating lake trout. I cook them in the round in the oven. Stuff the belly with stuffing, peppers and onions. Sew the belly with needle and thread. Bake in the oven. A nice Lemmon dill sauce for dipping. Delish!

For the areas I have people in the summer lake trout are nearly the only trout type. They are my favorite to eat especially if you stay with say 4-8lbrs. Skin down fillet on foil smothered in spices and some herbs, tent the foil and cook over open fire for 20 minutes or so.
I have clients who prefer barbecue sauce on the fillet while grilling and others that really like them lightly seasoned and then brushed over towards the end of grilling with a honey, soy sauce, butter mix.
I like it all.

Osky

My favorite way to eat trout ice baked. We made a video showing how we do it.

https://youtu.be/w5CKzfjIcxM

Check it out. Subscribe to my channel if you will, its free, just helps me out, a simple click of a button will do it.

Thanks,
Lonster

I love eating trout myself, fresh salmon, or steelhead. They’re excellent.

The NC stockers are OK. Flesh is firm but white. I catch a few natives and really like those. Firm pink flesh. Flounder and grouper are great, mahi too. Going to ty to catch some pompano in a couple of weeks and then going offshore a couple of weeks after that.

Smoked trout for me or cooked over an open fire, sprinkled with lemon pepper and put into trailside fish tacos. I can eat salmon that has been marinated and cooked on a leader plank but don't prefer it.

Other than that, give me some sort of a white, flaky meated fish any day. Catfish, bass, crappie, whatever.
Just to eat a pan fried trout though.....even if wild......ughhhh.


Golden trout, ready to rock after a 15 mile hike.

I grew up on Long Island, NY. Moved to Maine 38 years ago. I really miss both fishing for, and eating fluke and crab (Great South Bay on south shore of Long Island)- OK that was salt water fishing, and this is the fresh water fishng forum. Pardon my saline.

I like small native brookies up here in Maine well enough.

Jackmountain...

Not sure how close you are to TN, but the area below the dam at South Holston has a ton of native browns in there. They will change your mind about trout.

Native browns? In Tennessee?
I think you're mistaken.

https://southeasternanglers.com/the-rivers/south-holston-river-watauga.html
Holston is known for it’s trout fishing Va side and tenn side. Some really nice browns to be had from what I understand. A guy that runs a tackle store in Abingdon(20min) from tailwater brags on the tailwater pretty hard.

Maybe I use the term wrong, but there is a healthy population of browns that have spawned there for many generations.

Gotcha. 👍