Fly Fishing Gear

If you enjoy fishing, can you tell the difference between native trout and the planter fish?

In the good old days, we just fished and could enjoy native trout. We enjoyed fishing at a lake up in the mountains, and the native trout seemed to be a firmer texture. (This is in Oregon) I just wonder if some of you old timers ever noticed the difference. I loved fishing and wish I could go as often as I use to...I really need to get out there and at it again. It is probably one of the most relaxing ways we can spend a vacation...for old timers like me anyway.

Where I live, we have three basic kinds of trout -- hatchery-raised fish stocked in waterways by the state, wild but nonnative fish, and wild native fish.

The stocked trout, which you call "planter fish," are usually sterile rainbow trout and albino rainbow trout raised at hatcheries and placed in waterways when they reach 8 or so inches long. They are easy to catch and some folks say they have a "weaker" flavor. There have been studies on the fat content, body mass, coloration, and muscle fiber of sterile hatchery fish and fertile wild fish, and it was found that there is a demonstrable difference. The wild fish had various attributes that made them more desirable to eat. I'm told that the stocked fish get better to eat as they grow. Some stocked rainbow survive a few years and apparently after a few years they don't taste as weak or spongy.

The wild but nonnative trout here are brown trout that have been here for many years, perhaps a hundred or more. The brown trout seem smarter and more difficult to catch, and for this reason and others they grow larger. A nice 18-inch wild brown from the waters here has a flaky, butter-colored flesh that is very flavorful and distinctive. My personal theory is that wild fish taste better because of their varied diets and lifestyles -- hatchery fish basically hold still and eat fishfood for the first year of life, whereas wild fish eat a wide variety of food items and they have to work for it. It makes sense that the stocked fish would have fatty, pale flesh.

The wild and native trout here are Bonneville cutthroat trout. They run somewhat smaller than the wild browns, and we don't often eat them because they're natives and we're trying to keep them from being displaced by the brown trout. However, I have eaten a few and if I remember their meat was similar to that of the wild browns.

In any case, yes, there are differences -- the difference between the wild and stocked fish is particularly noticeable. My palate is not particularly discerning, and I don't eat THAT many fish, and even I can tell a difference most of the time.

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