New Years day float to Settles

[Budwick]

CaneBrake and I hit the hooch yesterday in the kayaks. Gorgeous day on the water with basically the whole river to ourselves. The ice wasn't too much of a factor especially with the nymphing setups we were using. The midge activity was crazy with fish rising all over the place. Small midges on the anchor were key in the euro nymphing approach while using a skinny stone on the dropper. We caught a lot of browns with some bows sprinkled in. It was nice to see a healthy stream bred rainbow as well.

[gau16]

Nice fish. Super pretty bow. Don't see those too often.

[erikclymore]

You guys are much braver than me. I thought about heading out then I walked out my front door...

[splatek16]

Nice work


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[Aardvark]

Unusual coloration and markings on the 'Bow. Are Brownbows possible?

[Jakkbauer]

Unusual coloration and markings on the 'Bow. Are Brownbows possible?

If so it looks like a good candidate

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[Sighter]

I haven't heard of a brown/rainbow trout hybrid that has been found in nature but some research shows that some trout farms have created them... very interesting. Ether way great report and thanks for sharing!!


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[Philhutch80]

None of the pics are showing up @sighter.

[Budwick]

None of the pics are showing up @sighter.

Something happened to the uploads in photobucket I believe. I will try to fix the issue and get them back up.

[Budwick]

Unusual coloration and markings on the 'Bow. Are Brownbows possible?

Nahhh it's just a clean wild fish. I've caught bows in some creeks up north that look a lot like this one. They are just few and far between on the hooch.

[Dylar]

A whole lot of small wild bows have that yellowish coloration.

[Aardvark]

Nahhh it's just a clean wild fish. I've caught bows in some creeks up north that look a lot like this one. They are just few and far between on the hooch.

It could be the same stream conditions that account for the buttery browns making stream born and/or classroom trout take on a brownish coloration. That and the relative lack of spots compared to hatchery fish had me wondering about the genetics of the fish. Now, if there were a few red spots on the lateral line near the tail, I would really be curious.

[Philhutch80]

It is possible... but HIGHLY unlikely

According to wildtrout.org browns and rainbows have only been successfully crossbred in hatcheries. Some of the other facts in this are interesting like that salmon and trout have crossbred and been recorded.
http://www.wildtrout.org/content/trout-facts

[ChaChung]

Nice, man. I'm not brave enough to go floating in this weather. I'll stay close to home and close to the car so I can bail whenever my hands get too cold. haha

[browniez]

I've got an interesting theory on the coloration.

Disclaimer layman's logic.

John, Splatek, and Dylar I would enjoy your opinions on my theory.

I feel like the red accents on our browns (the strongest I have ever personally seen), and also perhaps some level of the coloration of stream bred bows, may have something to do with nutrient/pigmentation pass through in the food chain.

Similar in concept to how flamingos assume the pink pigmentation of their food sources. Is there any biological reason this could not occur in trout?

I know color/spot variations tend to run along strain lines to a degree, and are impacted by natural selection.

Given our red clay substrates this seems like it could be somewhat viable, given that there isn't a biological reason that fish cannot exhibit the same principles as a flamingos. Different classes of Phyla Chordata be durned.

This observation is entirely anecdotal as I am going off memory, and I have skipped some geographic areas of the south, but generally I seem to recall rivers in areas that have a more red clay based geology producing more red accent dominant browns.