Trout Stocking Question

[wbranch]

Dave wrote;

it might be a good time to emphasize once again that just because a rainbow trout has a red or orange chin stripe does not mean it is a cut-bow or that it has cutthroat genes.

Okay, I hear what you are saying but why is it many wild rainbows I catch have not even a tinge of the red slash? While many others have varying degrees of a red to pinkish slash? I think it might be because the lesser marked rainbows are possibly the progeny of latter generations of an initial rainbow/cutthroat mating. Maybe as generations pass the gene causing the red slash becomes very diluted to the point of being very slight. Every true cutthroat I ever caught has a bright red slash.

 

[ryansheehan]

wbranch wrote:
Dave wrote;

it might be a good time to emphasize once again that just because a rainbow trout has a red or orange chin stripe does not mean it is a cut-bow or that it has cutthroat genes.

Okay, I hear what you are saying but why is it many wild rainbows I catch have not even a tinge of the red slash? While many others have varying degrees of a red to pinkish slash? I think it might be because the lesser marked rainbows are possibly the progeny of latter generations of an initial rainbow/cutthroat mating. Maybe as generations pass the gene causing the red slash becomes very diluted to the point of being very slight. Every true cutthroat I ever caught has a bright red slash.

I could be wrong but I believe Dave is referring to the stocked trout that have a small orange mark.

 

[Prospector]

wbranch wrote:
There is a meadow stream in YNP called Pelican Creek. It is no longer open to fishing. However back when I was a young fellow it was open. I used to spend June, July, and August in Montana fishing the spring creeks in Paradise Valley. For a diversion once in awhile I would drive into YNP and camp there a few days. I'd walk into the first meadow of Pelican with just a spool of 4X and little box of some nymphs and dries.

During the course of an afternoon it was easy to land fifty cutthroat. All 13" - 17" with an occasional 18". Many of the fish were post spawn but others were pre spawn and still fat and very aggressive and fought quite well. I'd been told that if I would be willing to walk up into the 2nd and 3rd meadows the fish were as plentiful and bigger. I was never inclined to do that because I was, and still am, very fearful of grizzlies. I figured the further in I walked the longer it would take me to get out towards evening. So I was very content to be only about two miles from the trail head.

Here’s a good Pelican Creek story

https://www.jsflyfishing.com/blog/bear-charge/

 

[wbranch]

Prospector,

Thanks for providing the link to that story. Now you all can understand my trepidation of walking up to the second meadow or staying too long anywhere in YNP far from the road.

Another time I was fishing the Yellowstone River just below Buffalo Ford in the Park. I was fishing a channel on July 15, the opening day of cutthroat season, I was crushing fish after fish just swinging a nymph in the flow. It seemed I had attracted the attention of a bunch of tourists as they were gesturing to me from the road and yelling something I couldn't hear.

A couple of them were pointing at me (not) and I was feeling pretty cool that I had all this attention. I finally looked over my right shoulder and about 100' away was a bear! I don't know if it was a grizzly or a black bear in brown phase. I didn't want to stick around too long. So I just turned back towards the road side and calmly waded back to shore. Too close for comfort.