Confusing browns from rainbows on Taney

[Phil Lilley]

There are a lot of brown trout in Taneycomo right now.  MDC stocked a bunch in November because of the bad water in the hatchery.  Plus they've been stocking more since 2009.

In the 2 tournaments we've held this month we've had a total of 6 browns brought in to weigh - all were in the 12 to 13 inch range and all were mistaken for rainbows.

The guys who are bringing these in aren't novices...  these browns really look rainbow-ish.  They've silver, not much brown color at all and their spots are not defined like most browns.  There are the definitive markings if you look close - very few spots in the tail and a few small orange spots on the side - but you have to look close and not just assume because it doesn't look at a brown it's a rainbow.

I say this because I don't want to see a bunch of browns get cleaned this winter.  And I don't want to see anglers get caught with illegal trout in their livewell when it's an innocent mistake.

Pay attention!!  If in question - throw it back!

[Seth]

Do these browns that are getting brought in not have the bigger spots? I know we caught several silvery browns this weekend, but they were still obvious due to having much larger and fewer spots than the rainbows.

[snagged in outlet 3]

We had this happen a few years ago at Norfork.

A buddy shows up at the end of the day with his limit of "rainbows".

I got a good look at them because the looked a little off.

Browns for sure but he had already gutted them.

Pete

[Bill Babler]

Very quick response to this.  The water is still very off color.  It is very easy to mistake these fish right now as all the fish are really drab and washed out.  We had two browns yesterday in the 13 inch range and they would have been extremely hard for the novice to tell from rainbows.    They were completely silver and bleached gray.  You could however see the faded out spots on them and their heads and upper bodies were much thicker than a rainbow.

We ended up keeping a limit of bows yesterday from the Monkey Island area.  These fish were bleached out when they went in the livewell. When they came out 2 hrs. later they had really shined up a lot.  I guess from just pouring surface water and lots of Oxygen thru them.

[Seth]

The fish we caught this past weekend were all over the spectrum when it came to color. Most of the rainbows were washed out, but we had some that had great color. The same went for the browns as well.

I thought we had more pictures of rainbows, but it seems we gave most of the love to the browns that we caught. This was the only rainbow that I could find.

[Bill Babler]

Those are Beutes!!!   We did not have a single fish yesterday with that kind of color.

[rainbow]

Beautiful fish Seth.

[snagged in outlet 3]

Woulda been better with the yellow shirt

[Seth]

51 minutes ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Woulda been better with the yellow shirt

It was WAY too cold for the yellow shirt! As you can see, we all looked about like Randy as he is headed off to school in the Christmas Story. 

[shawncat]

nice fish seth!