"Native" Myths

[Gray Ghost]

Okay, I need some help here, fellow anglers. Does a trout that has pink flesh, after it has been cleaned, indicate anything in particular? I laugh at some locals who claim this indicated they are "natives," but could it be an indication that they are natural spawn fish? Just wonderin'.

[marzrw]

Well, in our experience, pink meat does indicate either a native, natural spawned, or a holdover trout. Stockies usually have bland, white meat that can taste ok if you butter it and season it... I caught some wild trout in Maine, stuck a skewer thru them like a hotdog, cooked them over an open fire with no seasonings and it was the best trout I have ever eaten...

[Hugh]

Okay, I need some help here, fellow anglers. Does a trout that has pink flesh, after it has been cleaned, indicate anything in particular? I laugh at some locals who claim this indicated they are "natives," but could it be an indication that they are natural spawn fish? Just wonderin'.

Well it does and it dont, stocked trout will develop pinkish flesh after a few months of being stocked,cause there food source is different than pellets,however the more meat based (minnows cruestacians*shrimp etc.) there diet is the redder there flesh will be. Hugh

[Boreal Chickadee]

I always believed that pink meat meant a native trout or at least one that had been around for a few years. They also taste a lot better.

[Gray Ghost]

Thanks for the help. I just wondered because some have claimed they caught "native" rainbows, which of course can't be true, but at least it could indicate natural spawn. The lakers are caught last year were quite red. Here's another one I posted before--what's the difference between a steelhead and a rainbow (i'm talking ADK waters only, here)? I understand that steelhead are rainbows, but where do they come from when they head upstream for their spring spawn? It just seems like they would be out of place in Lake Champlain for most of the season, yet they run every spring. And I'm talking some big fish. Maybe this process is unique to the my area, or maybe not, but there a ton of natural spawn rainbows in the stream, and there have been for years. I just wonder where those big ones dwell for most of the season. The lake? Deep pools? Hugh, I'm sure you know what stream I'm talking about since you know where I live...shh shh.

[lumberzac]

I don't thing the pink meat indicates anything. Some of my favorite places to fish all the trout have white meat, but I know for a fact that this spot is not stocked and never has been. I've also have caught trout that I knew were stocked and the meat was pink. I think it might have more to do with the genealogy.

*edit*
I just read Hugh's post and that explains why the native trout I caught had white meat. They were all caught in small mountain stream (some you can stand on both banks at the same time) which I think either have no or a small crustacean population.

[Dirtfan115]

Thanks for the help. I just wondered because some have claimed they caught "native" rainbows, which of course can't be true, but at least it could indicate natural spawn. The lakers are caught last year were quite red. Here's another one I posted before--what's the difference between a steelhead and a rainbow (i'm talking ADK waters only, here)? I understand that steelhead are rainbows, but where do they come from when they head upstream for their spring spawn? It just seems like they would be out of place in Lake Champlain for most of the season, yet they run every spring. And I'm talking some big fish. Maybe this process is unique to the my area, or maybe not, but there a ton of natural spawn rainbows in the stream, and there have been for years. I just wonder where those big ones dwell for most of the season. The lake? Deep pools? Hugh, I'm sure you know what stream I'm talking about since you know where I live...shh shh.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe a steelhead is a rainbow that has spent time in salt or brackish water.

[Boreal Chickadee]

Hugh's explanation would also explain the taste difference.
Oh, but you're debuning our treasured myths. But it's easy to see how it started with the difference in the composition of the pellets versus wild food supply. In many streams the difference in color would indicate the difference between a stocked and wild fish, at least for the first season. In a stream with little or no crustacean food, the difference in color wouldn't be there. Now does anyone know how long for the flesh to change color once the diet changes?

[wildbrookies]

Yes, I agree fully w/ Hugh....trout that are stocked will develop that pinkish and even orangish color after they have adjusted to there new diet ,consisting of crustaceans and other foods....

And, the holdover trout even have better exterior color as well.Another tip to remember when a trout comes to the hand....they make for alot better table faire....

[Gman]

Pink flesh is not an indicator of wild fish. The color comes from what the trout eat. A lake I fish nearby has native lakers with white/yellow flesh. These lakers feed exclusively on alewives. It is true that most stocked trout do or did have white flesh, because of hatchery feed, however newer hatchery feed does contain crustacean parts. I'm told this may be no other reason than to give flesh a pink or red color, further enhancing the value/asthetics of hatchery trout.

A steelhead is simply a rainbow that came from ocean going strains of west coast rainbows that descended coastal streams to spawn. Even though lake dwelling rainbows in the west also descend rivers to spawn they aren't called steelhead. The original trout stocked in the Great Lakes 100 years ago were a rainbow strain. In the 60's Michigan stocked the steelhead strain of rainbow. Rainbows are the most domesticated and transplanted of trout and it's likely that the various strains are all muddled anyway.

[Cahill]

For the past few years the DEC has been playing a joke on all of us. They've started to change the hatchery fish diets so that the flesh is pinker. This is according to the Region 6 fisheries biologist.
Funny thing is you can catch natives with white flesh because it is all about what the fish are eating.
I don't know if all hatcheries in NYS are doing this or just the ones that supply my side of the Adirondacks and central New York.

[Gray Ghost]

Great info. from everyone. Their diet is a great explanation. As far as steelhead, I'm sure it's a local misnomer, but large rainbows run up a tributary of Lake Champlain every Spring to spawn, and they're referred to as steelhead. I'm just curious as to where they reside in the other seasons. The stream I'm speaking of is toward the southern, shallow end of the lake, so it seems impossible they would stay there in the warmer months. I guess they remain in the stream all summer then head to the lake in the warmer months. It's just that this part of the lake is so dominated by warm water species I can't believe they are able to survive. Wherever they come from, they zip upstream every April, and the little 5-8 inch bows, their offspring, that can be caught throughout the stream are strikingly beautiful.

[Gman]

GG,

My experience with steelhead on the Great Lakes is that they spend most of the year in the main lake and enter the rivers over the winter, depending on the rain fall and creek levels. They will travel a long distance. Steelhead from Lake Ontario are regularly caught downstream as far as Massena.

A heavy rain will bring fish into the creek, so will a thaw. They are late winter/spring spawners as a rule but you never know. There is a rainbow strain that spawns in late summer, it is called a Skamania from the river it's native too. Some Great Lake states stock them. This business about rainbows is very confusing.

Could those 5-8" trout (smolts) be stocked by NY state or Vermont?

[jackchinook]

Oh boy, you guys are cracking open a can of worms here with this steelhead vs. rainbow thing!

I am a recent transplant from Washington State out here for a stint in VT. I was actually working as a fish biologist in WA and I worked with steelhead and chinook salmon. Here's the key thing to remember: THE DESIGNATION BETWEEN RAINBOWS AND STEELHEAD IS PURELY A MANMADE CONVENTION. It's simply us putting things into nicely organized little boxes for management's sake. They are the same species, Oncorhynchus mykiss...it's the same animal that naturally exists from California up through Alaska and across the Bering Sea down from Siberia to Japan. Across that range, the animal exhibits various degrees of anadromy (going to sea to feed/spawning in a freshwater river). Its a generally accepted phenomenon that fish in rich streams exhibit less anadromy than fish in nutrient/food poor streams do.

The key is that deciding to be a resident versus an anadromous fish or resident/fluvial versus adfluvial (in the case of say the Great Lakes fish) is a series of tradeoffs. The streams are relatively safe environments but they have limited food. The oceans/big lakes are much less safe yet they allow the animal to get really big relatively quickly. They're balancing the risk/benefits...of course they don't know they're doing this. A big female lays more eggs and can defend her redd more successfully than a small female....likewise for males. However, a small male can effectively fertilize a large female. So occasionally, you'll find higher rates of anadromy in females than males or similarly, you'll see that females will choose to spend a longer time at sea than males...hence the jack phenomonon - you never see female jacks in say Chinook salmon populations (at least in the Pacific) and in ocean steelhead, you typically see more larger (more years at sea) females and smaller (less years at sea) males. Females have more incentive to get big.

True, there are stocks of 'rainbows' and stocks of 'steelhead' I believe someone mentioned the Skamania, which is a lower Columbia steelhead river which probably has very few resident rainbows. But the two will interbreed naturally and there are plenty of examples of anadromous steelhead giving rise to progeny that remain as resident fish and vice versa. So which is which? Good question...and it only gets even more complicated when we take them from where they're native and put them where they're not, i.e. the Great Lakes or Champlain. They don't go to sea anymore but the big lakes serve as their sea. Now, there are salmon in the Great Lakes...and we still call them salmon despite the fact that they're never going to sea saltwater again...and steelhead/rainbow are, genetically-speaking, more closely related to Coho and Chinook salmon than Coho and Chinook are related to Pink Salmon or Sockeyes or Atlantic salmon. So what's the deal? Why do we keep calling lake trout and brook trout 'trout', when the taxonomists tell us that they're actually char? It's just what we call them. Again, it all comes down to semantics.

The best thing about this fascinating subject is that, whatever you call it, it's still a big beautiful fish that's a hell of a lot of fun to catch.

Hope that's insightful.
Michael

[Gray Ghost]

Thanks, Michael. I guess the steelhead I'm talking about use Champlain as their sea, but with less anadromy. Very good stuff.