Northwest Fishing Reports

So what kind of trout are in Long Lake? The Packernut and I fished there on /Saturday and had a hay day catching and releasing some very nice healthy looking, hard fighting trout. There seemed to be a difference in the fish though. Some were longer and thinner (top to bottom), with less color, and some were thicker (top to bottom, and had more color to them. I'm not a salmonid guy but the longer thinner ones looked like steelhead to me. Did the state put some steelhead in the lake like they did in Rock Lake? I have caught trout there before that I believed were triploids. Fat bodies and small heads, but none of our fish looked like that this time out.
Whatever kind of trout they are, they were great fighters, and very hungry. If you like catching trout, that's the place to go.

Rainbow, brown, and chinook that I know of. You may have been comparing native trout to triploids with the longer thinner bodies vs the smaller head and deeper bodies which is a typical description for a triploid.

Do you remember if the longer thinner bodied trout had adipose fins and whether the others were clipped? Fastest way to ID them.

Longer and more slender with less color sounds like Kokanee to me. I have no idea what is in the lake though, I've never fished it. The ones that had more color, if they were between 8 and 12 inches, were probably your regular stockers.

Avista has and will be stocking 150,000 triploids from Trout Lodge stock into Long Lake over the next 3 years. You are probably catching their releases from last year.

Triploids are easily distinguished from native, they look like footballs, smaller head, and should be fin clipped. The native redbands are longer, thinner, and have an intact adipose fin. Triploids are, IMO, far better table fare.