I was wondering why don't trout breed in UK waters? I know rainbow trout do breed only in a few select locations in the UK and they are far and few. I have listened to talk of the UK trout being specifically bred not to breed by some sort of heat treatment on the eggs. some say its the water? does anyone know the real reason?

Are the stolked fish all hens....seems to be said that they breed in Tildarg over here....caught a few small ones in it myself over the last 15yrs or so, but never ever seen a cock rainbow in it.

Maybe they do breed alot more than people say, to stop more legislation and licensing and enviroment agencies slapping more onto fisheries in the way of outflow of income and paperwork,be it stillwaters or river or loch systems.

Its a bit like the license which was brought in a couple of years ago for restocking of fish, which some still dont have and it is a total waste of time and money as it serves no purpose at all and is not monitored or enforced.

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Kevin

i seem to recall that they do infact breed in the uk but only in a couple of rivers.

About 10 years ago we have had them breeding, but i have not had any proof of it happening again.
I think it was a once off, a few eggs must have slipped through the system and produced cock fish.

I would guess that they would breed more freely if cock fish were available.

Munro

A lot of stocked fish are triploids, sterile fish with a chromosome abnormality caused by heat shocking the eggs. Rainbows have been failing to breed in the UK since long before this became normal practice, so it isn't the reason you are looking for.

I have seen it explained that there are races of rainbow trout which spawn at different times of the year, and that fish which are routinely stocked are of one race and those few breeding populations are of another - suggesting that the fish routinely stocked spawn at the wrong time of year to breed successfully in the UK.

Given that they are an introduced alien species, I think it's generally for the best that they don't generally establish breeding populations here. They would need much tighter control of stocking if there were a reasonable risk of them 'going native'.

So the established rainbows which breed quite naturally in a couple of river systems here and have done for years,are a different strain of fish?

Are these populations restricted only to a couple of river systems also?

I believe that a survey which the SandTA did a few years ago the numbers were far higher than just 2 rivers which held breeding populations of rainbows.

nature will always find a way of populating,maybe it is already established it.

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Kevin

Are the Wye rainbows spring or autumn spawners.
Twenty or thirty years ago (as has already been said) there were plenty of cock fish being stocked. Early in the season it was common to catch horrid black fish running with milt or purple things full of loose eggs. Many times I have seen dozens of rainbows spawning in March and April in the feeder streams of Clatworthy reserviour and Otterhead lakes. Rainbows never ran the streams in autumn. From both of these waters I have caught one wild rainbow (small, perfectly formed with razor sharp fins). So why were they not more successful? Are our waters just too warm for the eggs in spring? Or is there some other reason?


Andy

i have seen a bloke stripping rainbows into a bucket on a local water he nets the pond strips the fish and takes the eggs to his on site hatchery but at the side of his ponds there is a river that is full of rainbows he stocks. so if he has cock fish and strips them with females too the reason cant be no cock fish. it must be something else

Maybe they dont like our polluted water and want to head back to the pacific.....i could be wrong though.