fish · The Trophy Room
Rainbow Trout
The everyman's trophy and the most-stocked gamefish in the West. This one came off a lure in a big dryland reservoir, brown hills on every side and cold water below — a chunky, hard-fighting rainbow with the pink stripe lit up down its side. Wild or stocked, on a good day it's the fish that gets people hooked on fishing.
Identifying
- a broad pink-to-red band down the flank, gill plate blushed rose
- small black spots scattered over the back, dorsal, and all across the tail — spots on the tail separate it from a cutthroat
- no red slash under the jaw (that's the cutthroat's tell)
- silver-green back over a pale belly; an adipose fin marks the trout-salmon family
Facts
- rainbows and steelhead are the same species — one stays home, one runs to the sea and comes back chrome
- cold, oxygen-rich water only; a reservoir full of rainbows is a reservoir of clean, cold water
- stocked across the West by the millions, but a wild-grown one in a big reservoir fights like it means it
