Were Any Trout Species Native To The Ozarks?

[dbaltz]

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German Brown Trout, hence the name, is from German stock. Cutts and Brookies are US natives and Rainbows.

Missouri prefers strains of McLoud Rainbows that came from the McLoud River out west and were originally stocked from trains in certain rivers. Crane Creek has been attempted to be managed as an original strain that has done well in our climate.

Good info!

[Wayne SW/MO]

There was a char at the end of the ice age and that's about as close as we got.

Brookies in Nebraska, I didn't think they got past the east coast.

[ness]

No, I don't think there were brookies in NE. Their range covered upper midwest, east and along the Appalachian spine. They were down as far as IA, and included WI, MN, MI, etc. All the way down into GA.

Closest thing to NE would be cutts, which ranged east of the divide. But, I don't recall hearing THAT far east.

[Jump n Fish]

I'll do some double checking on that. I may be mistaken, its been a long time since I read about that, but for some reason that stuck out in my memory.

[Wayne SW/MO]

The nearest trout to Missouri would be the cutthroat. They're the Rocky Mountain trout. I think Missouri uses strains that were developed here over a period of time and are so named. I understand that they are primarily a McCloud strain, but not pure. I would imagine it would be hard to find pure strains of rainbows because they were confined to the west coast and there was some stocking there.

[Jump n Fish]

I'll do some double checking on that. I may be mistaken, its been a long time since I read about that, but for some reason that stuck out in my memory.

Well it turns out that any info I provide regarding trout cannot be trusted.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Well it turns out that any info I provide regarding trout cannot be trusted.

When you get to my age nothing can be trusted from memory, fortunately there is the net.

[Jump n Fish]

I asked this question to a fellow fisheries biologist regarding Nebraska, but figured I'd copy and paste his response since its got some good general info in it, much of whats already been said on here.

I will not bore you with my "what is "native?"" speech, again.

Brook trout are native to eastern North America, far east of Nebraska. So, no, brook trout are not "native".

Brown trout are not native to North America at all.

Stinkin' invasives.

Rainbow trout are native west of the Rocky Mountains. Nope, rainbows are not "native" to Nebraska either.

If any trout were native to Nebraska it would have been cutthroats. Which strain of cutties, I have no idea, but cutthroats may have been native.

Now, believe it or not, one of my bosses has done some research into this question. Part of the difficulty in determining what was "native" or not is that "back in the day", fish were called different names than what we use today. Secondly, geographic areas and names have changed over the years, and consider that original collections of fish were often done in rivers or streams that may not have even had names. But, there are some voucher specimens of cutthroat trout in the Smithsonian (if I correctly remember what my boss discovered) that were collected in Nebraska. Now, keep in mind that Nebraska used to cover a lot more territory than it does now, and we cannot tell for sure what stream those voucher specimens were taken from. But, we believe it is possible that those fish were actually collected from a western Nebraska stream.

We do have several streams in the state where we have trout populations that are naturally-reproducing, so yes, we have plenty of "wild" trout in the state although they all originated from an introduction at some time in the past.

Daryl Bauer

Fisheries Outreach Program Manager

Nebraska Game & Parks Commission

daryl.bauer@nebraska.gov

http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/blogs/...d-backlashes//

[Wayne SW/MO]

That's interesting. Rainbows have been spread around for so long it's hard to realize that their natural area is much smaller than the cutthroat's area.

Some scientists believe the Atlantic salmon moved to the West coasts and that is the origin of the steelhead which in turn evolved into the rainbow. the rainbow is only native to pacific drainage and the cutthroat is native to both sides of the divide.

[Gavin]

The old Nebraska Territory...covered present day Nebraska and big chunk of the mountain west including the Yellowstone area before it was divided into the Dakota, Colorado, and Nebraska Territories...then divied up into states...There is no doubt that there would have been cutthroat trout within the original boundaries of the Nebraska Territory...Present day Nebraska, not likely, but we will never know for sure. Fun to speculate...better to to fishing.