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Author Topic: One of these trout is not like the other . . .  (Read 2445 times)

CohoJake

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One of these trout is not like the other . . .
« on: June 08, 2014, 10:12:24 AM »


I have been fishing a small urban lake south o' the border while I wait for my favorite BC rivers to heat up.  I brought home four trout last night, and and was pleasantly surprised to see red slashes on one of them.  This lake is stocked with "catchable" rainbows in the spring and with Westslope cutthroat trout "fingerlings" in the fall, so this cutthroat must have been in the lake for more than a year (2013's fingerlings are now only about 4-5 inches long).  When cleaning the fish, I noticed a few things:

The cutthroat has a much larger mouth.

It has a much smaller dorsal fin (sorry, I didn't count the fin rays).

It is only slightly more spotted than the rainbows. 

It has redder flesh than the rainbows.

It is also obviously thinner than the rainbows.  But, because I can tell the order in which they were caught from the order I remove them from the stringer, I also know that this cutthroat fought much harder than the rainbows - with lots of head shakes on the surface of the lake.

So, the point - has anyone noticed a difference in flavor/texture between rainbows and cutthroat caught in the same lake?  Are the differences noted above typical?

Sorry for the glare from the sink!   :)

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trout80

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Re: One of these trout is not like the other . . .
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2014, 07:43:13 PM »
Perhaps the one with the slash is a cuttbow.
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TNAngler

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Re: One of these trout is not like the other . . .
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2014, 09:05:28 AM »
While I don't eat them myself, I think what you found is very similar to many things you find when you are comparing wild or mostly wild food versus mostly not.  Take just about anything, chicken, turkey, deer, salmon, trout, and on and on and on.  Things that have to fight for their food, work hard for it, and don't always get enough are generally firmer, more muscular and more healthy.  The ones who eat regular food that is provided to them and they don't have to work for it are softer etc.  Sometimes this is a trait we enjoy (ie chicken and turkey for most people as we want the big, juicy legs, thighs, and breasts).  Same with beef.  Fish, I think generally goes the other way except for maybe catfish.  Wild (even if they were raised for a bit in a hatchery but wild now such that they have had to find their own food for quite some time) is always more desirable than farmed or freshly released from a hatchery.
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