Tiger Trout!
Thought I would share this with the membership but
didn't know how to post it.
I was fishing the far Eastern tributaries feeder
creeks Monday and caught a trout colored like I had never seen before.
Was marked like a chain pickerel. Didn't have a camera so no picture of
the one I landed and turned loose. Contacted the ODNR trout specialist
and discussed it but we couldn't come up with any answers.
My fishing buddy remembered some trout he saw in
The ODNR said they have never encountered a tiger
in
Regards, Ron Brich
When a Trout is a Tiger!
by Mark A. Nale
One slide in my trout fishing programs always
generates more interest than any others - a photograph of a wild tiger trout!
The tiger trout is certainly the rarest of naturally reproduced trout specimens
in the
I have caught only one tiger trout in my lifetime, so I can attest to their rarity. In fact, I've caught enough trout since my wild "tiger" that it makes up less than 1/100 of 1% of my catch! My brother Frank, who fishes a bit more than I do, has ten wild tiger trout on his lifetime list. Nonetheless, since he catches a lot more trout than me, tiger trout still only occur at a rate of one for every 8,000 trout, or just a little over 1/100 of 1% of his catch.
So, what is a tiger trout, and
why are they so rare? Tiger trout are the result of a wide cross or
hybridization between two different species - the brook and the brown trout.
Making this cross even more unique is the fact that brook and brown trout each
belong in a separate genus - Salvelinus for brook
trout and Salmo for browns. Although this cross can
easily be performed by a fisheries biologist or a curious hatchery technician,
it is rare in the wild. Experiments performed at the Benner Springs Research
Station during the 1950s found that even in the controlled conditions of a
hatchery, only about four to five percent of the fertilized eggs survived to
the fry stage. The state of
According to Bill Willers in Trout Biology, this type of cross is most successful (and sometimes only successful) if the female species has the larger eggs and the shorter incubation period. With tiger trout, the female must be a brown and the male a brook trout. The body shape of a wild tiger trout is most like a male native brook trout, while their scales are larger, like those on a brown trout. A tiger trout's spotting pattern is considerably different from either parent and, as you can see from the photograph, quite striking. The normal vermiculations of a male brook trout seem to be enlarged and contorted into stripes (hence the "tiger" moniker), swirls, spots, and rings. Every one that I've seen also has a greenish cast, which lets you know that there is something different on the end of your line long before the fish is in hand.
Although tiger trout look like
males, they are sterile. Charles Krueger, from
Where To Catch One
Theoretically, a wild tiger trout could be swimming in any local trout stream that has naturally reproducing populations of both brook and brown trout. My brother Frank made the observation, and I concur, that almost all of our wild tigers have come from streams that have higher brook trout populations than they do browns. That narrows the playing field just a little more.
I caught my tiger on a small
mountain stream in
Tiger trout are certainly
unique, and I'm anxiously looking forward to catching my next tiger.
Considering their rarity, however, actually hunting one could become an
exercise in frustration. If you love exploring tiny mountain trickles for
wild trout the way I do, some day you'll be surprised when the trout fighting
on the end of your line looks a little odd. As it gets closer, you'll notice
the green coloration and unique striping pattern. Soon you'll be admiring your
first wild tiger - a true
Mark Nale is a
biology teacher and member of the