Caught my first Tiger Trout

[BrooksAndHooks]

As the title says, amid pulling out a ton of rainbows, a nice brookie and a few small browns, I caught a tiger trout today for the first time. Pretty good looking fish too. Size 22 BWO emergers were killing it today, caught 17 fish on one that I tied myself and several more fish on a hairs ear I was fishing in tandem.

I'll take your opinions on whether the tiger was wild or stocked. I know they are insanely rare in the wild. I won't state my opinion though to keep the discussion unbiased, but let me know what you think. Doesn't really matter to me, I always just wanted to catch one, and got one now in less than a year of fly fishing (but many years of fishing).

Fished for about 3-4 hours and caught twenty fish. A bit of that time was spent walking and untangling flies (3 flies and 2 split shot can get messy no matter how careful you are). I missed over 30 fish either by missing strikes or having fish come off the hook (15+ fish, mostly smaller bows).

 

[WildTigerTrout]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but that is a brown trout. I have caught a number of stocked browns that look like that.

 

[Fishidiot]

Yeah - this is one of those close calls. We've seen 'em before.

It's a stocked fish and I agree with WTT above: it's likely a brown trout with the blended spot patterns that are commonly seen in PFBC hatchery fish.

 

[BrooksAndHooks]

Entire top 1/3 of the trout was marbled similar to the back half, even the front of the top. This is what made me think tiger, since I've never seen a brown with marbling on the back. The top half looked like the back of a brook trout. I've caught a lot of browns in this stream stocked and wild and have never seen one like that with no red spotting at all on the body in years. The front certainly does look like a brown and I thought the same thing. Either way it was a very unique looking fish. My guess was that it was a tiger stocked from the local sportsmans club that has held over a year or two judging by the fin condition, white edges on the anal fin and red to the adipose fin (which the picture did not capture well). If you guys think it is a brown though, I will take your word for it. Either way a cool looking fish and it doesn't change much for me since it was definitely a stocker. I'm still gona chase after that wild one.

 

[pcray1231]

Fantastic pic by the way. Everything we want to see is perfectly clear.

It's a tough one (on both questions). I'll say WILD, but not a tiger, just a brown. Not sure on either.

On the wild vs. stocked: I see a faint blue eye spot, and a touch of pink on the adipose. Fins are translucent, but darker than I'd like to be sure. They are rounded a bit but not terribly abraded. Size a touch on the small side, there are stockers that small but they are the exception rather than the rule. With the head to body size relationship it did grow pretty fast, more typical of stockers, but not unheard of for wild fish in richer streams. Genetics do resemble the PFBC strain of brown rather than the more typical wild strain. But it could be the offspring of stockers.

I'd buy fingerling stocked in a heartbeat if the location allows for that possibility.

On tiger vs. brown. Not sure at all on this. But I don't see much brookie in it at all. Looks just like a brown trout where the spots have connected up a bit. It'd odd, that's true. But if it's a tiger, well, the brown is really showing through and the brookie not so much.

 

[SBecker]

Stocked brown.

 

[Luke]

Sounds like you had an awesome catch rate day. Congratulations!

 

[BrooksAndHooks]

Yep, great day on the stream for sure, I've never had that much success nymphing in my short ~8 months of fly fishing. I do typically fish for wild trout but have some good stocking near me and just wanted to get out quick, and practice some on fish that are a little easier to catch. The stream is a class B that gets stocked over below a class A mixed brown/brook section. So pretty much anything is a possibility.

Wish I had a better picture of the top perspective, the marbling was a lot stronger there. Still definitely not as good looking as the wild tigers out there. Like I said, it was a fun fish to catch. Caught a decent sized brookie (compared to the 10" and under natives I'm used to) and a bunch of rainbows. Caught a yearling brown which confirmed the wild reproduction I already knew were going on at an extremely healthy rate.


WTT, or anyone else, if you want to post a pic of one of the browns you caught with a similar run together spotting pattern and marbling on the back, I'd love to see it. I'm genuinely curious as I've caught a ton of wild trout out of this stream and none looked like this one, and loads of stockers too.


If we are playing the "wild or not" game I can post a few more for you guys to guess. The browns are always tough out of here to guess hold over or wild, sometimes easier than not.

 

[Cold]

Not my fish, but a quick Google search turned up this image of a fish, clearly a brown, with similar markings:

 

[salmonoid]

Previous discussion

Previous discussion 2

Previous discussion 3

Just a few samples...

 

[BrooksAndHooks]

Thanks guys. Sounds like no one really knows for sure. Probably a weird/unqiue brown. And it's not really like a tiger and a brown are that different, they should look alike, so it makes sense. I'll put it in the "books" as a very unique trout. What sticks out to me is that nearly all trout in this size range have some red spotting. Only ones I see lacking it are usually much bigger. This trout had none. Tigers have no spotting. That was the tipping point for me when I was initially looking at it. But I'm sure you can find examples of other browns this size without spotting. Heck, you can find instance of anything if you search google, and say well it happened once, so it must be. All we can do is take our best guess. I shared the picture and story to share an enjoyable day of fishing with you guys, and the fact that I successfully caught a fair number of fish on a fly I tied myself. The cool looking trout was just a bonus.

Thanks for all the replies,
B&H

 

[salmonoid]

They are the new "digital camo" model of brown trouts that the PFBC and coop nurseries are making...

 

[Six-Gun]

For reference, this a picture of a stocked tiger trout that my buddy caught while we were in Utah. They do look very similar to a brown with blended spots.