Troutnut Forum > Fly Fishing Discussion > name this fish
| Thom | December 21st, 2006, 2:17 pm | |
| cornwall on hudson, ny Posts: 4 | about two years ago i was fishing in the lower hudson valley of new york, a small streem that flows into the hudson river. it was the 2nd week of feburary when i landed a strange looking trout/salmon. she was silver whith a bright pink stripe, no spots and full of eggs,about 14"-15". on the next cast i landed a male brook trout about the same size. what kind of fish was it? do some fish change how they look in the winter months? any ideas please let me know. thanks, thom | |
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| Fly_Tyier | January 7th, 2007, 10:06 pm | |
| Iowa Posts: 5 | I'm not totally for sure on what type of fish it is but I do know that there was a fish some people in Mexico got that had the genetics of a rainbow trout and of a steelhead trout. my best guess is that it could be a cross breed. But then again I am only guessing. | |
| GONZO | January 7th, 2007, 11:11 pm | |
| "Bear Swamp," PA Posts: 952 | Thom, I'm stumped. I've caught some lake-dwelling rainbows that had very small indistinct spots, but I've never seen a rainbow without spots (except for those yellow cartoon rainbows that states like PA use as stocking "indicators"). Then again, if the fish swam up from the Hudson, who knows? Maybe it passed under the outfall pipe of a carbon tetrachloride plant and had its spots removed! :) (Sorry, but I couldn't resist. Both of the fish you describe certainly qualify as pretty unusual specimens, especially for a lower Hudson trib in February.) | |
| DMM | January 9th, 2007, 1:51 am | |
| Posts: 141 | One of the defining features of a trout is to have dark spots on a light body. I cannot think of a trout or salmon that has no spots, though some have very few. If you are sure it was a salmonid (adipose fin?) then it was probably a mutant. I have seen albino cutthroat and rainbow trout, as well as yellow rainbow trout that weren't albino (had a black eye, as opposed to a red eye--retinal reflection differences based on pigmentation). These fish are very rare, and often die young. A lack of pigment makes them more susceptible to UV radiation (melanoma), and more susceptible to predators (no camo). It is conceivable that your fish had a melanin mutation (the pigment responsible for brown/black)....I do know that there was a fish some people in Mexico got that had the genetics of a rainbow trout and of a steelhead trout. Rainbow trout and steelhead trout are both Oncorhynchus mykiss. They are often seperated into subspecies based on their populations. Another character of salmonids is to be able to live in saltwater (even brook trout, for instance). Populations of rainbow trout that have been landlocked for a very long time, still have (although often depressed) the ability to convert to an anadromous (spawn in freshwater, grow in saltwater) lifestyle. Steelhead can also do perfectly well if you cut them off from the ocean. It is a very complicated issue (though not as much as the kokanee issue). It would be difficult to separate steelhead from rainbow trout genetically. I find it more likely that you would be able to separate populations of rainbow/steelhead trout based on geography. The steelhead/rainbow taxonomy is still somewhat controversial (though mainly due to political reasons--delisting steelhead pops. from ESA protections). The most recent study on anadromy that I saw was concerning Atlantic salmon. Resident populations and sea-going populations were identical genetically, but their genes were expressed differently. Hormones are released (I don't think the cue for this is known) that affect the expression of these genes. | |
| David | ||
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