Was extremely surprised to catch a few of these today and didnt believe at first but close examination showed they were. At first look they appear to be rainbows but a few had obvious orange slash marks on the jaw and one even had orange on the belly. The pure rainbows caught didnt have clipped fins either so i dont know whats goin on this little stream but it was pretty cool. They were feisty fish and even saw some pushing 20+ inches!! The 5th picture down was the cuttbow i took a picture of and my brother caught two more.
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Heres the cuttbow, wish i took pictures of the gill slits
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Really cool dark coloration on this one…
[inline IMG_0326.JPG]]…and this was one wierd lookin fat little TOAD!!
Remember, pure rainbow trout can have slash marks under their jaws. This is not a sign of any kind of hybridization – just something some rainbow trout develop. Rainbows and Cutthroat are very closely related, and do share some characteristics.
The thing you need to find out is: are there cutthroat in this stream, and are both rainbows and cutthroat reproducing or not?
They didnt look like cuttbows to me either thats why i thought it was so weird. I did however find pictures online of cuttbows that looked pretty much identical. There are cutthroat in the stream and the rainbows like i said did not look like planters so its a mystery to me. But i have caught a lot of rainbows wild and stocked and have never seen slash marks like these or orange coloring on the belly.