Trout ID

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Švejk's picture
Trout ID
Howdy Yall! Recently finished a fishing trip to Colorado with some buddies. Friend of mine caught this trout on a spinner at Lake Estes, Colorado. Having a hard time identifying. He thinks its a lake trout but the mountains seem a bit out of range. I think it might even be a rainbow since I caught one the same day in the same lake. Would appreciate any suggestions.
Graceclaw's picture

Looks like a beaten up stocker Rainbow to me!

Pinefish123's picture

Yup, stocker rainbow.

Lake trout have light spots on a dark background, like all the chars, while rainbows have dark spots on a light background, like all the Oncorhynchus species. Generally.

drawer.bli's picture
This is a cutthroat trout,

This is a cutthroat trout, specifically the Snake River finespotted subspecies, commonly stocked. Note the cutthroat slash, the few spots on the head, and lack of white tipped fins. 

Mud's picture

Oh hey, that's my neck of the woods. We do have lake trout here, and they took over some reservoirs out here after being stocked in the 80s and 90s. On my local lake (Blue Mesa) you are actually supposed to keep all lake trout caught under 30-something inches due to overpopulation. That said, that's almost certainly neither a lake trout or cutthroat trout as the lake doesn't have either one. It's a stocker rainbow like others have said. Colorado rarely stocks cutthroats, and when they do they are generally cutbows or native strains stocked in remote rivers to try to bring the population back. There is some tiny chance that it's the decendent of cutthroats stocked in 2010, but that was a native strain and the lake is small, recieves heavy rainbow stocking, and gets a lot of fishing pressure.

Here's the CPW report on the lake, including stocking reports which show cutthroats were last stocked in 2010: