Pretty Wild Rainbow

[everythingthatswims]

Evidently, the stocked trout successfully reproduced last spring, I was very surprised, the stream gets pretty warm and low in the summer. Gorgeous fish!

Also landed about 40 stocked rainbows between my little brother, his friend, and myself. It was a wide open bite and everyone else must have been deer hunting.

[flyfisher]

Looks like a stocker to me...could have been stocked as a fingerling too.  Either way it has been in the river for a while and is still a good looking fish.

[everythingthatswims]

Looks like a stocker to me...could have been stocked as a fingerling too.  Either way it has been in the river for a while and is still a good looking fish.

What makes it look like a stocked fish???? Department doesn't stock fingerlings at this creek.

[Bluebasser86]

Don't know how it works there but here they usually clip a fin on stocked fish so if natural reproduction does happen it's easier for them to tell. 

[flyfisher]

They don't clip fins here in VA unless it is for the steelhead they were trying to stock there for a while.  I am guessing this fish was caught on the Robinson since that is what the picture is titled . That stream would get way too warm to have fish carry over in the summer.  Depending on where you caught the fish, it would be highly unlikely for a fish to be wild but anything is possible.  From what i understand in talking to the DGIF rangers, the only sustainable reproducing population of rainbows is in the mount rogers area.  

 

And even if they don't stock fingerlings, it is very common for fish of varying sizes to be stocked at the same time as other fish.  Not trying to take away from your catch at all as it is a pretty fish  

[everythingthatswims]

They don't clip fins here in VA unless it is for the steelhead they were trying to stock there for a while.  I am guessing this fish was caught on the Robinson since that is what the picture is titled . That stream would get way too warm to have fish carry over in the summer.  Depending on where you caught the fish, it would be highly unlikely for a fish to be wild but anything is possible.  From what i understand in talking to the DGIF rangers, the only sustainable reproducing population of rainbows is in the mount rogers area.  

 

And even if they don't stock fingerlings, it is very common for fish of varying sizes to be stocked at the same time as other fish.  Not trying to take away from your catch at all as it is a pretty fish

Mount Rogers does have a bunch of wild rainbows  I have had days catching over 30 in Whitetop Laurel, most are 11" and under, but last year I caught one that was 17", headed to Abingdon on Wednesday weather permitting...I was part of an electrofishing survey a couple summers ago with a Trout Unlimited camp, we shocked a couple 3-4" rainbows in the Rose behind the "packing shed". My guess is that some stocked rainbows reproduced in the stocked section up near the SNP where it stays cooler in the summer, then the fish washed down the Rose and into the Robinson (caught him below the confluence). I know someone who caught a stocked rainbow below the dam of the Rivanna res. this spring...Explain that!

[flyfisher]

Stocked fish seem to end up in strange places all the time.  I have heard of people catching them in the James in the winter after they made their way out of the hardware river delayed harvest section and to the James.  

[everythingthatswims]

Stocked fish seem to end up in strange places all the time.  I have heard of people catching them in the James in the winter after they made their way out of the hardware river delayed harvest section and to the James. 

Both of these fish came from the north fork of the Rivanna this spring after torrential flooding. Brookie was 12" and ate a 5" senko