An explosion in trout fishing happened in Britain
and other European countries about the turn of the century, when the rainbow
trout was introduced to their waters. The main reason was the fish’s remarkable
growth in a relatively short period of time, and this above anything else
persuaded the managements of stillwaters to introduce them for sport and for
fish farms for marketing for food.
You can tell a rainbow trout mainly by the stripe
along its sides from mouth to tail, and this is either and iridescent red or
various shades up to pink. It also has small black spots over its body and the
tail fins are spotted. These are slightly
different from the brown trout,
which usually has some red spots along its middle line.
The rainbow is really a native of the western
seaboard of North America, and from the north at the Bering Sea down to Southern
California they are know by many different names. They have larger appetites
than brown trout and they usually move around and feed in shoals on whatever
insects and fly life happens to be around at the time. It could be hatches of
sedges, or march browns, or spinners. Mainly it feeds in mid-water or from the
surface. It is only when there is no surface food that it will feed on the
bottom on shrimp and crayfish etc.
Although many rivers fisheries stock their waters with
rainbow, it is the stillwaters which have most of them and use them for
restocking regularly, the problem about rainbow in rivers being that they tend
to move downstream instinctively towards the sea, and in streams that are near
the coast the fish sometimes disappear altogether. In Stillwater fisheries they
mix very well with brown trout.