Northwest Reel Life April 2024 Volume 3 Issue 6 - Flipbook - Page 30
and Styrofoam, that's
easy. Those are farmed
fish, which are generally
shoveled a high-quality
pelletized food and then
fed a carotenoid called
Astaxanthin which gives
the meat an orange color
and improves the taste.
According to Luke
Allen, from the Wizard
Falls Hatchery and Tim
Foulk from the Fall River
Hatchery, astaxanthin is
produced by microalgae
which is ingested by small
fish and invertebrates
like krill, which are then
ingested by fish.
Tastes good. Good for you.
Think of it like this: we
have rainbows, cutthroats,
brook trout, brown trout,
bull trout, and lake trout
in our lakes, rivers, and
hatchery raceways. Some
of them end up behind
the butcher's glass at the
grocery store. How do we
tell where they came from?
The ones in the cellophane
30 | NWFISHING.net
In Oregon, hatcheryraised rainbow trout (and
cutthroats) are classified
as legals (usually 8 to 12
inches), trophies (usually
14 to 18 inches), and brood
stock, which are the surplus
breeding trout that tip the
scales somewhere between
four to ten pounds. In
Central Oregon, these fish
end up in places like Pine
Hollow Reservoir, Walton
Lake, South Twin, and
Fall River. Hatchery trout
may also be released as
fingerlings in waters like
Lava Lake, East Lake and
Diamond Lake where the
natural feed is so good the
fish grow fast. Fingerlings
are also released in the
high lakes every other year.
Fingerlings, although raised
in hatcheries in geometric
order, tend to behave and
look more like wild trout as
they reach a harvestable
age.
The terms wild and native
can refer to the same fish
or mean two different
things. Brown trout, brook
trout, and lake trout are not
indigenous to Oregon but
were introduced. Browns
come from Germany and
brooks come from the East
Coast. That's why we refer
to them as German browns
and Eastern brooks. But if
they were hatched in gravel
we call them wild trout.
The term native is inclusive
of rainbows, cutthroat and
bull trout. In some cases
these fish may be caught,
kept and eaten, but it’s a
good idea to release them
to spawn and prosper.
