Rainbow Trout - OpenMeans

What is Rainbow Trout?

Rainbow Trout is nothing but a type of trout and it is considered as the highly prized game fish.This rainbow trout is a member of the family Salmonidae, in the Salmoniformes order and it is classified as Oncorhynchus mykiss.It is native to the cold coastal streams and lakes on both the sides of the Pacific Ocean and at present it is found all over the worldThe image below shows the Rainbow Trout.

alt

Their Nativity

These Rainbow trout are mostly native to the

1)West coast of North America which extends from Baja California to the Bering Sea, and

2)The east coast of Asia from the Bering Sea to Japan.

This type of fish is mainly used as the game fish, for sports (for catching fish competition).This kind of popularity made the rainbow trout to be introduced to suitably cold streams and at present it is found in the lakes all over the world.

Where do they stay?

The rainbow trout mainly stay in streams their entire lives, but some of them migrate to lakes.Apart from them other salso migrate to seas after 1 to 3 years after hatching. When they grow as adults, both seagoing rainbow trout,which is called as steelhead, and their freshwater counterparts, will return to their streams of origin, mainly to lay eggs, or spawn.

Beautiful Rainbow Trout

Rainbow trout are very beautiful, and they are found with spotted backs and a red splash across their sides.Their colors are especially pronounced when they ascend from freshwater streams to spawn. When they are at sea,the steelhead are a uniform silver color; and when they approach freshwater to spawn,appearance of the characteristic red side stripe occurs.

alt

Size

Their size depends upon food availability and also on water temperature.Normally the adults average from 25 to 30 cm in length and weigh 0.5 kg , but in other streams, rainbow trout reach 114 cm and 15 kg . Steelhead average about 50 to 75 cm in length and 3.5 to 5.5 kg in weight, but till tade the record shows that steelhead as large as 19 kg was founded

alt

Reproduction

They spawn between January and June and to spawn, a female uses her powerful tail to dig a nest in the streambed gravel. As soon as the male joins her,the female releases the eggs into the nest, and as a result the male immediately fertilizes them by releasing milt, called as sperm, over the nest. After that the female covers the nest with gravel and it leaves the eggs to hatch on their own.

As soon as they hatch, the larval fish are nourished for several weeks by a yolk sack attached to their bellies.When the yolk sack is absorbed, the fish will emerge from the gravel ready to feed. Usually Rainbow trout have a variety of diets,and they feed primarily on terrestrial and aquatic insects,and other than that they aslo feed on snails, crayfish, and small fish.

Population

At present a few wild populations of rainbow trout still exist around the world and for example consider in Washington State, only two lakes have the natural capabilty of the reproducing populations of rainbow trout and the rest of the several hundred rainbow lakes are continually stocked with rainbow trout raised in fish hatcheries.

But the condition of steelhead populations in the United States is very low and as a result of logging and land development practices that degrade habitat. As a result, the steelhead populations in the south of mid-California are extinct and those between California and Washington State are also dwindling at present. The only truly healthy populations left out in North America and they are in the less-developed areas of Canada and Alaska.