Here is an unusually marked skin mounted trout. Well, its actually a intergeneric hybrid that is occasionally produced naturally in the wild but more frequently and reliably with intervention by man, they are sterile.Anyway, I was wondering if any of you guys can guess what it is?
It looks like a tiger trout brown trout/sea trout (Salmo trutta) and brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) hybrid.
ReplyDeleteBoth species exist in WV. I've not seen the hybrids. The brown trout are introduced, along with the rainbow trout/steelhead. The brook trout, which is actually a type of char, is native. Rainbow trout aren't trout either. They are a type of small Pacific salmon.
Bravo!
ReplyDeleteThis one was caught at Lechlade in Oxfordshire in 2002. My father was the taxidermist and I have had this beauty at home since it was mounted. I think you will agree that it is quite spectacular and as far as we are aware, this is the only mounted specimen at present in the UK.
I believe though that the rainbow trout/steelhead are indigenous American species, I think they are originally from tributaries and mountain streams of the Sacramento river; the brown trout was introduced to America from Britain and the rainbow introduced inversely. They were apparently very unpopular among anglers in Britain as they will by all accounts not go for the fisherman's fly twice.
Thankyou for your reply,
Best wishes,
Carl Marshall.