Identification
Trout species
What did you just catch, where does it live, and is it protected. Field marks first, because that is the question people actually have with a fish in the net — and then range, status, diet and method. Three of the fish most anglers call trout are char, and one of them may not be fished for at all in most of its range.
Trout
True trout: dark spots on a light body. Rainbow, brown, cutthroat and golden, plus the sea-run form of the rainbow.
Oncorhynchus mykiss
Rainbow Trout
The most widely stocked trout on earth, native only to the Pacific slope. Pink stripe, spots on the tail, and the same species as a steelhead.
Salmo trutta
Brown Trout
Not native, the hardest to fool, and the one that grows biggest. Red spots in pale halos, and a tail that is nearly clean.
Oncorhynchus clarkii
Cutthroat Trout
The native trout of the West, named for the red slash under the jaw. Many subspecies, several threatened, and the most willing riser of them all.
Oncorhynchus mykiss
Steelhead
A rainbow trout that went to sea and came back bigger. Same species, bright silver, and the hardest fight in fresh water.
Oncorhynchus aguabonita
Golden Trout
California's state fish, native to one drainage and nowhere else. Brilliant gold and red, above 10,000 feet, and you walk to it.
Char
Not trout at all, and patterned the other way round — pale spots on a dark body. Brook trout, lake trout, bull trout and Dolly Varden are all char.
Salvelinus fontinalis
Brook Trout
A char, not a trout, and the only native trout across most of the East. Worm-like markings, blue-haloed red spots, white-edged fins.
Salvelinus confluentus
Bull Trout
A threatened native char of the cold Northwest. Pale spots, no black on the dorsal fin, and on most waters you may not fish for it.
Salvelinus namaycush
Lake Trout
The largest char on the continent, and reachable on a fly only in the weeks after ice-out. Pale spots, deeply forked tail.
Salvelinus malma
Dolly Varden
An abundant Pacific char that follows salmon upriver for the eggs. Routinely confused with the protected bull trout.
Grayling
A salmonid, but neither trout nor char. One species, one unmistakable fin.
Whitefish
Native where the trout were introduced, abundant, and unfairly ignored.
Hybrid
A cross that does not reproduce, stocked deliberately for what it does to a lake.
12 species. Conservation status and the rules that follow from it are set state by state and change — bull trout in particular may not be targeted on most waters, and are easily confused with Dolly Varden. Check the regulations for the water you are on before you fish.