A good way further afield from Eric's (see other thread!) pad, but still in Yorkshire, I was lucky enough to catch some self-sustaining, stream bred rainbow trout in a UK river.


You're thinking "small escaped reservoir stockie"?

What about his little brother then....


Have caught them as tiny fingerlings too...

Now then, what's this you say, someone from the WTT being pleased at catching "wild/escaped" rainbows......Well, I guess that could just be a reflection of our general pragmatic ethos. These fish have managed to successfully cut redds and pair up, avoid predation (both fish had sawbill marks on them) as well as find and maintain good feeding lies. They make up a small proportion of the total trout stock (probably around 5 to 10 percent) and they DO NOT INTERBREED with the resident wild brown stock and affect the brownies' genetic "portfolio".

I'll use this as an opportunity to point out two things:

1.) If the habitat is good, fish can make a good living - build it and they will come

2.) The reason the WTT likes "wild" fish is that they are proven to be great at sustaining themselves in rivers (rather than hatchery strain fish which tend to have only about 10% of the survival and reproduction of wild fish).

It is not about "eugenics" - it is about proven survival ability and where a handful of escaped fish have earned a small corner of a river just because the habitat is good, then it would be churlish to deny them their little place (they've had to earn it - unlike fish stocked out as adults).

The big positive message to this club is that; the habitat here must be good, have a gold star for allowing it to exist.

I always thought that the stocked bows were all triploid, i.e infertile, so if they did escape they wouldn't interfere and upset wild stocks.
So where do these fertile ones come from? Sorry if I am being thick here.
Cheers,
Gary

__________________
"Calling Fly Fishing a hobby is like calling Brain Surgery a job."

The river isn't stocked - they have been in there for many years (at least 15 to 20) as a result of escaping from stocked reservoirs (water overtopping the dam wall/flooding) at the top of the system.

I guess that historically the reservoirs were stocked with diploid fish (they may still be for all I know..).

i think most reservoir use triploidin nowadays but even this is only about 80-90% effective i think and 15-20 years ago it was even less than that so all you need imo is a few hen fish and the rarity a released cock fish as most res fish are females and perfect habitat and away they go. i know we had rainbows possibly breeding in a stream from a reservoir i fished.

Strange markings on those fish They have a sort of under coat that shows through the standard Rainbow markings ???

Is this how a wild Bow should look or is it because of some cross breeding and gene mixing ???

__________________
Your fish ----> ><((((º> My fish ----> ><(((((((((º>
__________________

Cheers Danny

Co-Founder of S.S.F.D 2010

looks to me like the equivelent of parr marks on a brownie

__________________

Yeah that's what I thought , so what does that mean then ??

__________________
Your fish ----> ><((((º> My fish ----> ><(((((((((º>
__________________

Cheers Danny

Co-Founder of S.S.F.D 2010

That is what a yound rainbow looks like, the bars are as you said parr markings.
The are lovely little fish, we had them breeding a few years back.

Cheers

Munro

__________________
www.tintotroutfishery.co.uk
www.anglersholidaycottages.co.uk

Lovely fish! Munro is right about the parr markings, I've caught lots of little rainbow like the ones above in the U.S.

Has the first one been feeding or what??

Is this on the upper Don Paul?