# Help with fish ID



## Dagwood (May 12, 2010)

Yes, I know this thread is useless without pics  

But what the heck I am going to go for it anyhow. I was up in Big Cottonwood Canyon on Sunday trying my luck. As it turned out, my luck was good, and I managed to net one of the most beautiful trout I have ever seen. The colors were vibrant. The red dots along the side were plentiful and very bright. Now, I am sure most of you are already thinking Brown Trout, and I agree with you. But what really caught my eye was the bright orange fins and the deep red dots that even went along the fins. I have caught a lot of browns these past few years but I have never seen orange fins like this. I landed a couple other browns throughout the day and none of them looked as colorful as the first. Not even close.

So what do you think? Is this some kind of color change that is seen in the cold winter? Or a hybrid of some kind? Why would this brown have such colorful fins?

Note to self: Buy a camera and bring it with you from now on :roll:


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

I'm fairly confident that it was a brown trout if it had red spots. You probably caught one with some individual variations that made it prettier than others, and spots across the fins. 

Sometimes you catch Jenifer Aniston. Sometimes you catch Roseanne.


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## Grandpa D (Sep 7, 2007)

Could it have been a Brook trout?
The coloring sounds like it.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... CC0Q9QEwAQ


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Grandpa D said:


> Could it have been a Brook trout?
> The coloring sounds like it.


My thought as well.

-DallanC


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## brfisherman17 (Jan 21, 2011)

Sounds like either a Brook or Golden trout. Although i've never heard of a golden trout out of the uintas, but it might be possible...


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Interesting...Browns have red spots, Brookies have pink spots but not always very colorful or bright.

Browns have square tails.

Here's a colorful brookie:


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

Dagwood said:


> Now, I am sure most of you are already thinking Brown Trout, and I agree with you. But what really caught my eye was the bright orange fins and the deep red dots that even went along the fins. I have caught a lot of browns these past few years but I have never seen orange fins like this.


There are abundant brookies in the upper reaches of BCC. Goob's photos are superb to tell you if it was a brookie. Brookies have the fin colors as shown. I have caught my share of browns however that have orange spots on the fins, especially the adipose fin, as you described. Unless it looked like Goob's pic, it probably was a brown.


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## brookieguy1 (Oct 14, 2008)

Brook trout have a solid white leading edge on their fins, as do most char. Brown trout do not.


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## Dagwood (May 12, 2010)

I checked out the link Grandpa D provided and it did not look like those fish. No white border, no red fins (bright orange!), and the pattern on the back did not look like a brookie. It looked like a brown hybrid to me. 

It didn't look anything like the brookies that wyogoob posted. I've caught enough of those up in the Uintas to ID one. I think this was just a really, really beautiful brown. It wasn't very big.. maybe 11 inches or so, but it was special and it made my day. I really love time spent on the water.

Like Dodger mentioned.. it had red dots. Bright red, not orange and no blue ring. But, just to add to the confusion, it was not brown either! It didn't have the classic yellow/brown color I see on most browns. 

Thanks for the input everyone.

I am going back with a camera next weekend lol  8)


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## Treehugnhuntr (Sep 7, 2007)

Who cares about the fish, your avatar is money!! :mrgreen:


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Grandpa D said:


> Could it have been a Brook trout?
> The coloring sounds like it.
> http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... CC0Q9QEwAQ


I thought brookie too but I've never heard of Brookies in the Cottonwood creeks (although they are in the drainage - Lake Blance for example).

Sure sounds like a pretty fish though.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

There are a lot of brookies in BCC. The closer you get to Brighton, the more there are.

Sounds like a really neat fish, Dagwood. I'd like to see it just for the sake of seeing it.


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## Dodger (Oct 20, 2009)

Interesting. I'll have to go see if I can find some this summer.

Maybe I'll run into a brown named Jennifer while I'm at it.


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

wow. Some of you get confused easily.

Something to remember:

1. Trout (brown trout, rainbow trout, cutthroat trout) all have DARK spots on a LIGHT background.
2. Char (brook trout, lake trout) have LIGHT spots on a DARK background.

If you can't tell the difference between a brown trout and a brook trout, there is something WRONG!

Now, as for what the fish in question was: did it have dark spots on a light background, or light spots on a dark background? Also, what types of fish are found in this water (look at stocking reports). This will help tremendously in identifying your catch.


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## Riverrat77 (Sep 7, 2007)

Here's some of the browns I've caught with "red" in them.... might not help you ID your fish but there are browns out there with real bright strawberry colored fins and spots.



















Hard to see on this one but it had just real bright strawberry red spots all over it.









Seems like most of the ones I've caught with red spots have come out of a couple places with clay bottoms and lots of veggies in the water. Places like Diamond Fork and Thistle that don't seem to have as much bright green vegetation in the water give up the ones that have bright orange spots.... I don't know, probably totally wrong, just a personal observation.


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## Dagwood (May 12, 2010)

Now that is what I am talking about  

The first pic Riverrat posted is pretty darn close to it. Just take that fish and brighten everything up, add a bunch of red spots to the side and on the fins, make the fins a brighter shade of orange, and we have the fish in question!

Is it a rare thing to find a brown with colors like this? It's the first I have seen. I wonder what causes it... environmental, genetic, or both?

Thanks again for the input fellas. 

Oh, and treehugger, I like your avatar 8)


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Dagwood said:


> The first pic Riverrat posted is pretty darn close to it. Just take that fish and brighten everything up, add a bunch of red spots to the side and on the fins, make the fins a brighter shade of orange, and we have the fish in question!


Errr that top fish really looks like a rainbow to me, look at the scales on it.

The red spots remind me of that skin disease rainbows had in Echo back in the late 80's. They had bright red spots.

The red down the lateral line, dark spots along the top and the scales scream rainbow to me. Overall this looks like some form of hybrid to me.

-DallanC


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

DallanC said:


> Errr that top fish really looks like a rainbow to me, look at the scales on it.
> Overall this looks like some form of hybrid to me.
> 
> -DallanC


you're not serious, are you?

The lack of a single spot on the tail says that the fish is absolutely NOT a rainbow trout.

It's a brown trout. That's it. Don't try to make things more complicated than they are. It isn't a hybrid. It's just a brown trout.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

The whole point of this entire thread is about identifying a fish that isnt clearly identifiable. I understand what you are saying about the tail, but the rest of it doesnt clearly look like a brown to me. I grew up catching hundreds of browns out of the streams near my house every summer. Used to gather them up in buckets out of irrigation ditches when my dad would water his fields. 

To me its still hard to identify from a picture, I'd like to see it in person... but it the scales, the pinkish coloring down the side, and the coloring along the back dont strike me as being a pure strain german brown.

Any DWR officers looking at this want to weigh in? 

-DallanC


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

Dallan -- what else could it be?

We know:
1. It is a trout
2. It's not a rainbow (no spots on tail)
3. It's not a brook trout (the fish in question has black spots on a light back ground)
4. It's not a cutthroat (spots are wrong, fin color is wrong)
5. Brown trout are in the stream the fish was caught in.

By process of elimination we can determine that it is a brown trout. No need for a biologist. No need for DNS sampling. No need for a vote.


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## brfisherman17 (Jan 21, 2011)

Now, I may be wrong, but everyone seems to be leaving out the possibility of it being either a tiger trout or golden trout!


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

LOL, for giggles I sent the picture to several of my hardcore fly fishing friends for their opinion, and they've now emailed it around to a few more and its causing quite the discussion. They all agreed its a very interesting picture. Most said brown, 2 said Cutt (but they clarified this due to not being able to see the head in the picture), and a couple said hybrid of unknown type.

The most interesting response was from a guy who stated if the picture was taken in the spring, browns will feed on pregnant crawfish and the ingested eggs will turn their sides pink. I'd never heard that particular observation before.


-DallanC


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## Riverrat77 (Sep 7, 2007)

DallanC said:


> Errr that top fish really looks like a rainbow to me, look at the scales on it. -DallanC


That top fish was a brown.... but it had quite possibly the least amount of spots I've ever seen on a brown. There are cutts in that particular stream, but I've never caught a bow in there. Everything else, colors, etc was entirely a brown.... but for some reason the sides didn't have the dark brown or black spots. It had them near the head and a few across the back but hardly any on the sides... weird.


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

Riverrat, did you get that one out of DF? I have caught a few out of there that are like that. The effect is especially so if the water has been off color for a while.

As for the fish, If my monitor isn't failing me, I can see red spots on the fishes body near your hand. Everything else is 100% brown. There is nothing else it could be.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Riverrat77 said:


> That top fish was a brown.... but it had quite possibly the least amount of spots I've ever seen on a brown. There are cutts in that particular stream, but I've never caught a bow in there. Everything else, colors, etc was entirely a brown.... but for some reason the sides didn't have the dark brown or black spots. It had them near the head and a few across the back but hardly any on the sides... weird.


Yup the coloring is odd and the lack of spots, thats what throws me off. But I'll conceed its a brown 

-DallanC


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## PBH (Nov 7, 2007)

DallanC said:


> I sent the picture to several of my hardcore fly fishing friends for their opinion, and they've now emailed it around to a few more and its causing quite the discussion


that mistake (sending it to "hardcore fly fishing friends") was a worse mistake than trying to ID the fish in question as a rainbow! Nothing like the blind leading the blind.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Why on earth should you even care about that? I see no difference in emailing friends asking them what a deer might score, what a fish might weigh, or any one of a hundred other things to discuss on a boring day at work.

Chill out man, you will live longer.


-DallanC


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

PBH said:


> DallanC said:
> 
> 
> > Errr that top fish really looks like a rainbow to me, look at the scales on it.
> ...


yep, it's just an ordinary brown trout

uh...brown trout have square tails

thanks for the pics Riley


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## Riverrat77 (Sep 7, 2007)

No worries Goob, always glad to share.

Catherder... nah, that fish came out of 6th water. Seems like the ones I catch out of DF usually have the bright, bright orange spots. In fact, that middle pic was when I chased fish up 6th water from the intersection with DF.... I couldn't really tell if those spots were orange or red from the picture so I just included it anyway. I've caught some fish with really pink, not red spots from FC also, fishing quite a way down the canyon. Curious.... I wonder if there is some characteristic of the stream, the food or something else that makes certain spot colors appear when others don't.


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## Grandpa D (Sep 7, 2007)

I have noticed that Browns that spend a lot of time in reservoirs have a washed out color to them. I would think that diet could also play a part in their color.
How about male /female color?
And then there are Spawning colors.
Lots of potential reasons for a Brown's color.


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

Riverrat77 said:


> I wonder if there is some characteristic of the stream, the food or something else that makes certain spot colors appear when others don't.


One of the main factors in color is the water and the environment. As Grandpa D alluded to, lake browns aren't usually too colorful. When DF ( or any stream) is off color for any length of time, (as it often is) the browns will be very light colored and the dark spots will seem to fade quite a bit. As you noted, the red spots often still remain quite red and sometimes it causes some pretty cool effects. Bringing this full circle, fish out of a small, crystal clear stream like BCC typically have a darker, multicolored appearance, and the browns and brookies (a few bows too) out of there are indeed often spectacular to look at.

For me at least, observing the variety of colors and appearances of the fish I catch is one of the best parts of angling.


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## LOAH (Sep 29, 2007)

Catherder said:


> For me at least, observing the variety of colors and appearances of the fish I catch is one of the best parts of angling.


Cheers to that.


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## Dagwood (May 12, 2010)

LOAH said:


> Catherder said:
> 
> 
> > For me at least, observing the variety of colors and appearances of the fish I catch is one of the best parts of angling.
> ...


Agreed. That and the occasional hog in the net is what keeps me coming back for more


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