Hi All,

Not sure if this fish I caught is wild or stocked. From the first picture, to me it looks like a wild fish (although the Caudal Fin looks pretty beat up). The second picture looks like a brown, with a pink lateral line. Sorry for the picture quality, used my cell camera.

Thanks,

Carlo

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  rainbow.jpg (128.46 KB)


  Rainbow2.jpg (122.24 KB)

Too tough to say accurately just from the pictures IMO...and Bows are tough to tell regardless. From what I can see the fins look pretty good I think. It's definitely a good looking fish. Just on the pictures, I'd go 60/40 wild.

How big is it? Looks fairly small from the pics...guessing 6-7 inch range, but I can't tell I guess. And is there a known reproducing wild Bow population in the stream it came from?...Don't feel pressured to name the stream if you don't want to though...just a yes or no is fine.

If it's under 7 inches or so, and there are known wild Bows in the watershed, I'd bet wild. Again, location trumps all though IMO...if it came from a marginal ATW...more likely it's just a pretty stockie.

I'm with Swattie, pretty hard to tell without knowing if the stream has wild bows or not. If it is wild, the caudal fin could be messed up because of the spawn maybe?

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Possible, but to me that looks more like an injury of some kind. Narrow escape from a predator as a younger fish, or perhaps the fish was foul hooked at some point. The other fins all look pretty good IMO.

I caught a Redbreast the other day that was missing nearly half of his tail...didn't seem to be bothering him much though.

Thanks for the replies.

The fish was 7" at best. It did come from a stocked stream that also holds populations of wild trout.

The second fish (bottom photo) is definitely a rainbow trout not a brown.
Both fish strongly appear to be hatchery fish IMO.

From the pics it's impossible to tell, because I can't enlagrge the photo.

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I agree, both are hatchery. The hatchery rainbows seem to have a distinct head shape. It's not unusual for a smaller fish to be stocked also. I've caught plenty of 7" stocked fish over the years. I'd wager my bet on both stocked.


Still fun to catch, wild or not.

I thought they were pics of the same fish, no?

Happy Easter!

The pics are of the same fish. When I was releasing it, it looked like a brown trout with a pink lateral line, but I didnt notice how bright it was until I went back and looked at that first pic.

I thought it was a brown untill I looked at the first pic.