How to identify wild trout?

[HeBeGB]

Hi Everybody,
I thought I'd throw this out there to see if somebody can help me clear up something I've been confused about for awhile. How do I know if I caught a wild trout? I've heard that you can tell by the color of the meat but I also heard that stocked fish who survive awhile can have the color of their meat change depending on diet etc... Are there any tried and true ways to know when you have a genuine wild trout?

 

[brandon4455]

wild trout will have an adipose fin,most stocked trout have theirs clipped like a hatchery salmon or steelhead,but there are also a lot of stocked fish that are not clipped. Most stocked areas (especially lakes) do not have wild trout in them. in areas that are stocked but also contain wild trout there are usually regulations that say you can only keep fin clipped trout,that way people don't accidentally keep the wild ones

 

[LuckyToBeFishing]

If I'm not mistaken, the adipose fin will usually be cut off if the fish is a farm fish. The adipose fin is the fin on the rear of the fish closest to the tail. I you see a little nub instead of a round little fin, it's a stocker. Somebody school me if I'm wrong.

 

[LuckyToBeFishing]

wild trout will have an adipose fin,most stocked trout have theirs clipped like a hatchery salmon or steelhead,but there are also a lot of stocked fish that are not clipped. Most stocked areas (especially lakes) do not have wild trout in them.

Wow, Bro. We actually posted our answers at the exact same time. Good thing we had the same answer!

 

[Throbbit _Shane]

Wild trout will fight better.

Wild trout will look better.

They will also taste better

If I'm not mistaken, the adipose fin will usually be cut off if the fish is a farm fish. The adipose fin is the fin on the rear of the fish closest to the tail. I you see a little nub instead of a round little fin, it's a stocker. Somebody school me if I'm wrong.

a lot of lakes and ponds they wont clip the trout. A waste of time. That is unless they are stocking the trout in a place where there are salmon and steelhead smolts. Or a place where you can't keep the wild trout, but will clip the stockers so they can tell a difference and be kept.

 

[LuckyToBeFishing]

That's great to know! Thanks, Shane! I love this site. Where else can you get this many replies this quickly?

 

[HeBeGB]

That's cool I didn't know that stocked trout were even sometimes clipped. Makes sense. The only place the whole wild vs. stocked thing has come up for me is in the high lakes where I'm not sure if the lake is getting stocked or maybe just used to be stocked.

 

[HeBeGB]

I don't think that list includes many of the lakes getting stocked by helicopter in the Mt hood area at least. I found a high lakes stocking list on the odfw site but it only seems to cover the Bend/Sisters area lakes. I know lakes like Hideaway do get stocked periodically but i can't track down a list to get any more detailed info on what they stock where, or when they do it. The only info i've found for the Hood high lakes is a list of lakes that should have fish and their depths etc... It says that most of those high lakes had no reproducing fish populations prior to the first rounds of stocking but I have no clear idea of how long ago that was. Maybe there are some lakes that were planted to start that now have a naturally reproducing population of fish? See it gets complicated... this is why I wanted to know if there was a tried and true method for identifying wild fish, and from what I can gather so far the answer seems to be no.

 

[Big3d]

nevermind what i wrote

 

[HeBeGB]

MOST stocked salmonids in oregon will be fin clipped, there are a few exceptions in that occasionally a holdover trout will regrow an adipose, or a lack of wild fish makes it unnecessary. If you are after wild fish your best bet would be to chase trout that they aren't stocking like native cutthroat, brook trout aren't being stocked now but were introduced to a lot of high lakes years ago they are pretty small but you can safely assume that the brookies now aren't the original stocked fish. brown trout in some places and whatnot. good luck

Brookies and cutthroats were both stocked last year according to the odfw hatchery reports.
Somebody on another thread hooked me up with a link to that report because I was having trouble figuring out if some of the hike in lakes I was fishing were stocked recently and if they were with what kind of fish. In those alpine lakes I have never noticed a clipped fish and wonder if they'd bother clipping fingerlings planted in a 8 acre lake. In the end it isn't really a big deal I was just hoping there would be some sure-fire biological way to ID a wild trout so that if I get to telling my fish tales again I know I'm not completely full of it.

 

[Modest_Man]

A lot of misinformation in this thread. Take everything with a grain of salt. I may try to rectify some of it later but don't feel like delving in right now.

 

[HeBeGB]

Yeah I started this thing to try to clear it up but it seems like so far it is just proving that I'm not alone in the confusion. If you can shed some light here then please do it when you have a minute. So far the contending possible modes of ID are, adipose fin clipping, stocking history of location (or lack of it), and meat color. I'm not going to count taste, fight or general appearance just because those are too subjective. All of these indicators seem problematic to me but it gives us something to start with. If it is a topic that even some pretty knowledgeable fisher-folk are not clear on then it seems like a good place to shed some light and dispel some misconceptions if possible. I am ready to be schooled!

 

[Modest_Man]

Okay. Here goes.

Wild trout have adipose fins. That is correct. MOST stocked trout have adipose fins as well. It is much to cost prohibitive to clip stocker trout, so the vast majority are not fin-clipped. The ones that are clipped tend to be trout in rivers that already have a wild, naturally reproducing population of trout in the system (or steelhead or salmon). Almost all trout that get planted into lakes are not clipped. Again, it would cost the state too much money to clip them.

The first few weeks after a hatchery trout is planted in a water way they will have a soft, white meat. This is due to the habitat (texture) and diet (color). After they've been in the river or lake system for a month or so their flesh will be as firm and as colored as any wild trout in the area, as they are feeding on the same foods and as active as their wild counterparts.

Brandon is correct that most lakes in the area do not have naturally occurring wild trout, while most rivers and streams will. Along this vein, most hatchery trout are planted into lakes, and many lakes now do have reproducing populations due to stockings years ago.

If you look at pages 72 and 73 of the report you linked to, there were 1,524,429 rainbow trout released in the Willamette zone in 2011 and only 59,458 brook trout and 43,774 cutthroat. That means based off of odds alone, if you caught a random hatchery fish I'm almost 94% sure it was a rainbow trout. For the Northwest zone 100% of trout released were rainbow. This makes it pretty safe to say that if you catch a cutthroat or a brook trout they are not hatchery. (I won't use wild with brook trout as they're non-native.)

To conclude I'll state my assumptions when fishing - if I catch an adipose fin-clipped fish in a river or stream odds are it's a juvenile hatchery salmon or steelhead. If I catch a trout with an intact adipose fin in a river or stream it's wild - and likely a juvenile wild salmon or steelhead (treat with respect). If I catch a rainbow trout in a lake (clipped or not) it's from a hatchery origin (either from reproducing hatchery fish, holdover, or fresh plant). If I catch a cutthroat in a lake it's wild. Brook and brown are naturally reproducing - but not technically wild.

 

[HeBeGB]

Awesome that helps a lot. I guess part of the confusion is that I was never sure if "wild" referred specifically to native fish from non-hatchery lines or more broadly to naturally reproducing populations regardless of line or origin. Seems like I've seen people use it both ways. I'm curious though why you'd assume a cutthroat was wild just for being in a lake when they have and continue to be planted too and most lakes didn't support fish originally? Even if they are there isn't it almost as likely that they are also decedents of hatchery stock?