Question about this brown trout

[Concrete Pete]

The color of these browns is weird.

I’ve caught a lot of these color browns in streams that get no stocking. These streams are not connected streams that get stocked.

The fins are intact.

They always have the black spot behind the eye.

All the above leads me to believe they’re wild, but the paler color and orange spots (as opposed to red) is weird.

 

[NCHillbilly]

The color of wild browns varies from stream to stream, and in different sections of the same stream. Most of the ones here are darker with more bright red spots, but you catch them like that pretty often in shallower, sunnier stretches of creek. The darker and shadier, usually the darker the color of the fish. Same with rainbows and specks.

Also, there were two very distinct strains of brown trout introduced to the US-the German von Behr browns, and the Scottish Loch Leven strain. They look very different. The Germans are the ones with the butter bellies, scarlet spots, and such. The Scottish strain are more generically silvery fish with mostly black spots and almost no red. I'd guess most browns that have naturalized here are a mixture of those two strains, but one or the other shows up heavier in some locations, even neighboring watersheds.

Here are examples of variation from two neighboring streams in the Smokies NP that are seperated only by a ridge. Both hold only 100% wild trout, and these examples came from miles up both streams, well into the backcountry. No fish have been stocked here in nearly a hundred years.

Exhibit A:

 

[Big7]

Whole lot of different species to keep up with. I'd be scared to keep one unless I had somebody with me that knows what's legal and what ain't.

Saltwater you generally only run up on 2 down this way.

 

[NCHillbilly]

Whole lot of different species to keep up with. I'd be scared to keep one unless I had somebody with me that knows what's legal and what ain't.

Saltwater you generally only run up on 2 down this way.

There are no difference in regulations for various species of trout, regs are set by body of water and government agency that controls it. A lot less complicated than most saltwater regs and open/closed seasons and slot limits and whatnot. It used to be illegal to kill or keep native southern Appalachian brook trout in the GSMNP, but that law has been gone for many years now. They now fall under the same size and creel limits as browns and rainbows.

 

[NCHillbilly]

Variations in color in native specks from the same creek on the same morning:







The black one came from a deep, dark pool undercutting a cliff.

 

[Concrete Pete]

The color of wild browns varies from stream to stream, and in different sections of the same stream. Most of the ones here are darker with more bright red spots, but you catch them like that pretty often in shallower, sunnier stretches of creek. The darker and shadier, usually the darker the color of the fish. Same with rainbows and specks.

Also, there were two very distinct strains of brown trout introduced to the US-the German von Behr browns, and the Scottish Loch Leven strain. They look very different. The Germans are the ones with the butter bellies, scarlet spots, and such. The Scottish strain are more generically silvery fish with mostly black spots and almost no red. I'd guess most browns that have naturalized here are a mixture of those two strains, but one or the other shows up heavier in some locations, even neighboring watersheds.

Here are examples of variation from two neighboring streams in the Smokies NP that are seperated only by a ridge. Both hold only 100% wild trout, and these examples came from miles up both streams, well into the backcountry. No fish have been stocked here in nearly a hundred years.

Exhibit A:

View attachment 1254640

View attachment 1254641

View attachment 1254642

View attachment 1254643

Thanks. That’s very helpful!

 

[NCHillbilly]

Thanks. That’s very helpful!

BTW, that last pic of the brown in the water with absolutely no sign of red spots or yellow belly was taken about nine miles from the nearest road, trailhead, or any other sign of civilization, back in the wilderness in the middle of a national park that has not stocked fish for about seventy years. He was about 18" long.

 

[Concrete Pete]

Just as a continuation of this discussion, I pulled this rainbow from out under a rock today. Bottom was sooty and silty. The pic made him look lighter. He was almost black on top. Never seen a rainbow that dark.