Trout species (rainbow and brown)

[KevinC]

I should probably add that I have only caught 1 WC stream trout.

Eish mate- only 1? I will take you to SB6 sometime and with luck you can double your stream trout tally...

[Nepptune]

A Golden Trout is not a species. It is a bastardized rainbow trout breed for the amusement of the vaalies !

Shaun that is about the funniest thing I've seen all day!!!!

[ShaunF]

Eish, but it annoys me when I see or hear about those bladdy things. Truly a joke among fish if ever there was one. Why on earth would someone seek to breed an albino trout ? It is a freak of nature, we should be breeding those traits out of the gene pool not propogating them further !

[gkieser]

There is an actual Golden trout though. It's origins are in California or Mexico or somewhere on the west of north america.

The Albino rainbows that I have caught in the put-n-take dams down here have steriods mixed into their food cos those things have some serious pace compared to the rainbows in the same dams. Can you imagine one of those things trying to survive in the wild though? Fario would hit it through the eye from 500m with his bow.

1 WC Stream trout Kev - that was not a typo.

[KevinE]

I am privileged to fish many rivers and streams in NZ that have mixed populations of browns and rainbows. In my experience browns can be found anywhere whereas rainbows occupy very defined positions. Rainbows are nearly always in, under, or beside the main current through a pool or run. At times they will drop back slightly towards the tail of a pool to make surface food more accessible, but generally they like to hold in or near the fast stuff, and typically like a bit of depth close by.

Browns are lazy and smart. They tend to move around but generally focus on areas where food will be delivered to them for minimal energy expenditure. In NZ they will often be in the quieter water in pool tails or back-eddys. Where multiple food-lanes converge at the pool tails is a favourite spot. This fish that I caught last week is typical. The water here was quite slow and shallow and the fish had a defined territory that it moved around searching for food. Also notice the bubble line:

[smallstreams.co.za]

A Golden Trout is not a species. It is a bastardized rainbow trout breed for the amusement of the vaalies !

Unless of course you are talking about the Golden Trout found in the US Rockies - Oncorhynchus aguabonita!!

[smallstreams.co.za]

My experiences have taught me that they like the tail end of pools ...

They also like to patrol the pools they live in, rather than sit upstream like a rainbow does for a lot of the day. So keep low and try approach pools from the sides rather than up the middle.

Those 2 comments are very, very true. Keep in mind it also changes from location to location. In a small stream like the Willow in Rhodes, you will find some of the browns sitting slap-bang right in the middle of a shallow bedrock run, with no cover whatsoever for as long as can remember.

Then again, if you breath too heavily they are gone!!! Ask a few guys who have fished Balloch - pretty tough!

[Andre]

I fished Belloch a few years ago and had a few dozed browns. they were fairly easy to catch, but conditions on that day were perfect. The Belloch is quite a technical stream to fish, as it is very tight, but they were certainly hungry that day. I am told that the Belloch had since dried up due to the drought, and the ex- Rhodesian farmer has sold the farm and the new owner has not re stocked the stream . Does anyone have any recent information about the Belloch, as I am going to Rhodes in a couple of months time and would obviously like to fish it again.

[ShaunF]

Unless of course you are talking about the Golden Trout found in the US Rockies - Oncorhynchus aguabonita!!

Nope ! Well aware of the actual golden trout, I'm talking about these porno orange looking things that swim around, scared stiff in some of the fisheries in SA. Someone said they're pretty good fighters. They must be ! Not too easy to hide from cormorants, otters and other predators, so the ones that survive must truly have Chuck Norris skills when it comes to scrapping !

[MaXiMuM]

Those 2 comments are very, very true. Keep in mind it also changes from location to location. In a small stream like the Willow in Rhodes, you will find some of the browns sitting slap-bang right in the middle of a shallow bedrock run, with no cover whatsoever for as long as can remember.

Then again, if you breath too heavily they are gone!!! Ask a few guys who have fished Balloch - pretty tough!

Breath too heavily, hell if you blink at the wrong time... i have even heard that the car door closing at Grandpa's, before you make the hours drive, can spook the stream for days...