Goldylocks
Could anyone confirm if this is a brook or bull? Caught it around Mecca in the Deschutes river. The black spots are throwing me off.
Help with identification
brandon4455
100% native bull trout. For some reason most if not all lower deschutes bulls I’ve ever seen have that black spotting.
Goldylocks
Awesome! I wasn't sure so I promptly returned it to the stream.
O. mykiss
100% bull. Brooks will have worm shaped marks on their back and red spots with blue halos around them. Nice fish!
R
Rockitout
I am no expert, but I believe that the black spots are due to diet. Overall that water is historically warmer, which limits the normal food sources. The fish then turn to snails. Snails pick up and shed a lot of parasites. The parasites are causing the black spots.
Diehard
Looks like a cutthroat brook trout hybrid the black spots look like cutthroat but then its colored like a brooky nice fish I would be interested to know what you got there in wonder if you email a photo to state biologist they could help identify it good luck
DOKF
Can cutthroats hybridize with brookies?
O. mykiss
To my knowledge there are no cutthroat in the Deschutes. Also, the black spots on the bull trout are caused by a parasitic worm. The condition is known as black spot diseaseDiehard said:
DOKF
From a fisheries biologist:
"The black spots that you can see, and feel if you rub your hand over them, are small cysts in the fish’s skin. In a heavily infected fish you’ll find them sprinkled in the flesh as well. And speaking from experience, if you inadvertently happen to eat one, they’re crunchy – like a speck of sand or a piece of pepper corn.
Now, we won’t get into a debate about what came first, the chicken or the egg, but what happens is that a fish-eating bird like an eagle, osprey, great blue heron, kingfisher, gull or cormorant consumes an infected fish and the black spots, which are, in fact, tiny encapsulated worms called trematodes, mature inside the bird’s digestive system.
Once they mature, the worms lay eggs which the bird passes into the water in its droppings. The eggs then hatch into microscopic organisms called miracidia that usually have only about 24 hours in which to swim around and find their next host that is typically a snail.
Once the miracidia worm their way into the snail, the parasite develops into its next life form, emerging from the snail as a tiny creature called a cercariae, that swims around in the water looking for a fish in which to infect. When the parasite successfully burrows into the fish, its flesh reacts by encrusting the little bugger in a cyst with black pigmented melanin, which is the black spot that we can see and feel.
The black spot can survive in the fish’s flesh and skin, almost as though it is lying dormant, for many years, while it waits for the fish to be eaten by a bird, so that the process can repeat itself once again.
I suspect the reason the fish that Marcel and KC caught are so heavily infected, is likely because they are large enough not to be easily targeted and eaten by too many birds. So, over time, more and more cercariae have worked their way under the fishes’ skin.
I should mention, too, that the literature suggests that the parasites that cause black spot neither affect the fish they infect nor any humans that may eat them. Although, having said that, I am betting that like me, you’ll pass on eating either of these fish for dinner."
Of course, bull trout are strictly catch and release ...
"The black spots that you can see, and feel if you rub your hand over them, are small cysts in the fish’s skin. In a heavily infected fish you’ll find them sprinkled in the flesh as well. And speaking from experience, if you inadvertently happen to eat one, they’re crunchy – like a speck of sand or a piece of pepper corn.
Now, we won’t get into a debate about what came first, the chicken or the egg, but what happens is that a fish-eating bird like an eagle, osprey, great blue heron, kingfisher, gull or cormorant consumes an infected fish and the black spots, which are, in fact, tiny encapsulated worms called trematodes, mature inside the bird’s digestive system.
Once they mature, the worms lay eggs which the bird passes into the water in its droppings. The eggs then hatch into microscopic organisms called miracidia that usually have only about 24 hours in which to swim around and find their next host that is typically a snail.
Once the miracidia worm their way into the snail, the parasite develops into its next life form, emerging from the snail as a tiny creature called a cercariae, that swims around in the water looking for a fish in which to infect. When the parasite successfully burrows into the fish, its flesh reacts by encrusting the little bugger in a cyst with black pigmented melanin, which is the black spot that we can see and feel.
The black spot can survive in the fish’s flesh and skin, almost as though it is lying dormant, for many years, while it waits for the fish to be eaten by a bird, so that the process can repeat itself once again.
I suspect the reason the fish that Marcel and KC caught are so heavily infected, is likely because they are large enough not to be easily targeted and eaten by too many birds. So, over time, more and more cercariae have worked their way under the fishes’ skin.
I should mention, too, that the literature suggests that the parasites that cause black spot neither affect the fish they infect nor any humans that may eat them. Although, having said that, I am betting that like me, you’ll pass on eating either of these fish for dinner."
Of course, bull trout are strictly catch and release ...
Casting Call
I think it's bunch of bull (trout) LOL. Tony 10%er
jamisonace
Speaking of bull trout. I invited a friend to come fish for summer steelhead with me below Leaburg Dam in 2004. He was supposed to meet me there but he never found me. The next day we were talking about how we did and he told me he caught a very nice brown trout that they cooked up that night and it was delicious. I told him I was sure it was delicious but there are not brown trout in the Mckenzie and what he ate was a protected bull trout. He still doesn't believe me....or doesn't want to believe me.
O. mykiss
Oops. When my wife and I were still dating, my dad and I took her on a float on the McKenzie. She told us she had a funny looking trout that was green, we both dropped our poles and told her to keep it in the water. She didn’t understand the big deal loljamisonace said:
O
olshiftybiscuits
The only place you’ll encounter a Brook trout in the Deschutes is in the upper river. All char in the lower river are native bulls. They’re a fairly uncommon incidental catch, outside of summer steelhead season and the salmonfly hatch. Very cool fish.
