interesting rainbow

[govtmule]

this rainbow was about 15" and had a few battle scars. never caught a rainbow like this in southeast PA, especially in Pickering. It was a greenish color with a ton of spots. If someone wants to post it, PM me and i'll email it to you.

jeff

 

[JackM]

jeff, I think you can post pictures directly to your message and it will upload to the server and display in your post. Look down the bottom at the "Attach File" dialogue section. There is a total kilobyte limit of 1000 (1MB), so you may need to shrink it first. Just select "browse" and you can pick the image file off of your hard-drive and attached it to the post and it will show as below.

Here, I'll test it out:

 

[govtmule]

here goes

 

[govtmule]

another

 

[RLS365]

i dont see anything too different about it...just some battle scars

 

[Chaz]

Brookie caught last fall in the Poconos.

 

[tomgamber]

After posting that brookie you should know why he found this rainbow interesting. Its a very nicely colored rainbow for here in PA. Most rainbows here have that bluish-purple hatchery color that makes them extremely ugly. Even your brookie is pale in comparison to the rainbow he posted. I am surprised when I catch the occasionally well colored rainbow. Usually its one from the north carolina hatcheries (where they are raised in a spring not a concrete runway) not from PA. I see his creek is stocked by a pa hatchery so its not the case... but aside from the crowds, the other thing I dislike about opening day is that all the trout look alike. BLUE.

 

[Wulff-Man]

Chaz,
Do you catch a lot of wild brookies with that silverish tone? I thought that only the stockies had that kind of coloration, but maybe there's a different and less common strain of wild ones of that color? Or maybe it's just the lighting of the picture?

 

[tomgamber]

I'm just guessing because I know very little abut Chaz's fish but If I had to guess I'd say he was either hanging out in deeper water or it was winter and his diet was a little off.

 

[govtmule]

Tom,
the one thing that also looked different to me was the mouth. To me it didn't look like a normal rainbow mouth, i was longer and less rounded, the bottom lip was also starting to curl up. just thought i'd post it cause it's very unusual for this stocked stream. was happy to see quite a few fish there.

jeff

 

[tomgamber]

My knee-jerk reaction to that would be that its male...

 

[govtmule]

good point Tom...i just noticed this line in my post and had a laugh..."i was longer and less rounded"...anyways, here's one more i caught in the same hole 5 minutes before the other one.

jeff

 

[afishinado]

The rainbow’s coloration is a lot like the stocked rainbow fingerlings in the Tully that have been there for a while. Also the rainbows stocked in the Little Lehigh have the same look. The greenish coloration may be a function of how long the stocked fish hold over in the stream. Most stockies seem to lose the pale bluish silver coloration after time.

The rainbows in the hatchery at the privately owned Little Lehigh have nice coloration. I don’t know why PFBC hatchery fish are so pale. Diet?

 

[govtmule]

you're right afishinado, i've noticed the LL has nice bows but have you ever seen the ones with no nose!..very odd looking. by the way, the fish posted were not from april, they were caught last saturday.

jeff

 

[Wulff-Man]

I don't fish Pickering that often, but one of the last times I was there I caught a very healthy and nice looking brown that I assumed was a holdover. Maybe Pickering has a decent population of holdovers?

 

[bobm]

for comparison, here is one of the hatchery escapees from the upper tully. Some of these rainbows are currently spawning.

 

[Maurice]

bobm wrote:
for comparison, here is one of the hatchery escapees from the upper tully. Some of these rainbows are currently spawning.

Thats a nice shot Bob...the shot I took yesterday was a little washed out. here they are.

 

[Maurice]

An observation or two about these rainbows. First off Bobs Rainbow has beautiful color and many spots below the lateral line. I would peg this as a PF&BC holdover or wild trout. Not sure about rainbows spawning inthe Tully or not.

Anyway, of the 10 or so bows I caught yesterday at the HEA (Hatchery Escapee Area) none were colored like his. Also, none were spawning. I caught some fat ones, some appeared to have eggs but after opening them up I realized they were not eggs just full bellies. I didn't check stomach contents.

My point is....although the Pf&BC strain of rainbow have been manipulated to spawn in the fall I am not sure what the deal is with the Limestone Springs Hatchery trout is. As we all know Rainbows (Native) spawn in spring and while stocked bows spawn in fall, their wild descendents do as well .

So maybe these spawning rainbows in the Tully are holdover F&BC fish or wild fish. I had never been to the tully before, I was impressed with the stream composition and dynamics. Parts of it reminded me of Big Spring, parts like a freestone hybrid. I understand below Blue Marsh it is more of a Freestone because of the dam. I was also impressed with the access ease, signage and parking.

 

[bobm]

this is a bigger fish, measured out at 16 inches, put up a nice fight.
Took a #16 copper john fished deep on 2lb fluorocarbon and a split shot, no indicator.
I really would like to thank the guy who posted the report about these fish. In a half a day's fishing I had my best ever day, for trout at least, 12+ fish. It sure beat getting skunked as I usually do at the DHALO section of the Tully. It contributed to jump starting my enthusiasm for getting better at fly fishing this coming year.

 

[albatross]

by bobm on 2006/12/19 13:20:03 Some of these rainbows are currently spawning.

Rainbows usually spawn in the Spring. What do you mean by "currently".