Rainbow/Brook Hybrid??

[Spinning Fool]

I was fishing a tributary of Noontootla pretty near the main creek and I caught a small (4 in.) fish that was really weird. It's head/snout was blunt and rounded like a rainbow, and it was quite silvery with 5-6 vertical ovals of grey along the side. AND... it had tiny red spots, but only one set of fins (anal) had the tell-tale white/black stripe of a brookie. The rest were just yellow/orange. Is it possible for these two species to inter-breed; and if so, could this have been a hybrid?? -KB

[Lil'Joe]

I know where you were at! http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif Caught one like that myself last week.

Joe

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Fish now, you're dead one hell of a long time........GM

[CADDISFLY]

It sounds like what we used to call up North as a creek chub.

[Spinning Fool]

Nah, it was a trout species for sure, not a chub. I hate those things. Especially when you get a strong one on, and you think you're bringing in a nice little native or something, and it's chub. I usually cuss them out before I release them just for laughs. http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif
Stupid chubs. - Ken B.

[GUTHOOKED]

From everything that I have heard, two species must at least be of the same genus in order to interbreed. Rainbows and brookies are not. I would guess that the fish you caught was an exceptionally colorful rainbow. They will sometimes have white-edged fins like a brookie. I have caught some in other N. GA streams that I thought for sure were brookies until I had them in my hand. The best way to tell, I think, is whether or not they have any black spots. Rainbows will always have some, whereas I have never known a brook trout to have any. But, I am not a biologist, so take this as you may.

[Gray ghost]

Could be that new Taimen Trout strain they are releasing in the rivers up north. That highly classified stuff you know. http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif

[Lil'Joe]

GG, hush.......not supposed to tell!

[bbell]

The fish sounds exactly like a juvenile brown trout.
So when does the Taimen delayed harvest start?

[Spinning Fool]

Well, I tell y'all one thing: I'm NEVER going fishing again without my camera! That would shed more than a little light on this. AND, I'd have a pic of the 7-8" brookie I caught the same day... I have 2 pics of 'lil brooks, but I was pretty peeved at having no way to document that fish (and the "mystery trout"). -Ken B.

[biggatrout]

pictures mean a lot...
Ghost, didnt you take a picture of a Brookie you caught on the Hooch last year, that didnt survive there?
Ahhhh, just kiddin
Bigga....

[chuckwagon]

sounds like that was a healthy chub!

[Gray ghost]

No Bigga that was a Payara. They show up below Morgan Falls in the Six Flags area. http://www.georgia-outdoors.com/ubbngto/smile.gif

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1377422&a=10277740&p=48588530

[pschlemm]

wouldn't both fish have to spawn at roughly the same time? Bows are spring spawners, and I believe brookies are fall spawners, so that would make a cross pretty tough in the wild would it not?

[oldreels]

A brown and a brook can interbreed hence the tiger trout, but I think it has to be a male brook and a female brown or some certain combination like that. I would guess you just had a very colorfull juvinile rainbow, you can catch them like that at the taccoa just below lake blue ridge dam. Wild juvinile fish do have the circles shaped color patches and often white edges of the fins. And as for spawning, here in the south I don't think the rainbows always know that they are suppose to wait till january to spawn, I caught a rainbow in the hooch last week and as soon as I picked it up, fully developed roe started squirting out everywhere and the fish imediatly died. Just as I noticed you have to be carefull with the browns this time of year.