Rainbow Trout Strains of Interior Lakes

By Doug Porter

Fishing for Rainbow Trout has long been a passion of mine, since catching my first one at the age of 6. I have pursued them with bait, lure and fly in that order. One thing I learned a while back was that all rainbows are not the same – there are several strains of them, named for the location the brood stocks were collected from. I checked on the recent stocking of a number of local lakes by going on a site provided by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC at https://www.gofishbc.com/stocked-fish/, and choosing what information I wanted detailed in a report.  For instance, by choosing a region and stocking date, a report can be generated showing all the different species stocked. The report I generated for the Cariboo Region Lakes 2022 showed the waterbody name, nearest town, species, strain, genotype, life stage, average size, and quantity of the fish stocked.