judging by the intact dorsal, I'm pretty sure that fish was not a hatchery plant. That looks like a wild steelhead or trout to me, hope he did the right thing..
I would say steelhead because a planter trout would not get that big. Probably a summer steelhead that has been in the river a while. I love when they get that color very beautiful!
A steelhead and a rainbow trout are the same. The definition of a steelhead is a rainbow trout that ventures to salt water and returns to fresh water to spawn.Yeah, that would be a very large planter trout. I know the planters get to at least five pounds in the reservoir above this river though.
I bet it would take years for a trout to get that big. The life expectancy of a wild trout is roughly five or so years. Raised in a pond they could live for ten. Whether one calls it a trout or steelhead it looks a lot like the fish in the Fall River.
I have caught a rainbow close to that size in a reservoir that shall remain nameless
Technically, the "reg book" calls anything over 20" in most river systems a steelhead, regardless of whether it has gone to the salt or not....Though there are rainbows that never make it to the salt, that reach that size, that call some rivers their home. They are the same species, it's just one is more adventurous than the other.
Maybe we are talking about the same water system.lol
Personally I think there must be some kind of biological difference. Biologists just haven't figured it out yet. And because they haven't figured it out yet it's easier to classify a rainbow trout over 20 inches in a river system known to hold anadromous steelhead as a steelhead. That's just my two cents. Kind of like the bull trout and the dolly varden. They look alike on the outside but need to be dissected to see the difference between the species.