Favorite Trout Species For Eating

[T-Bone]

I was eating a BBQ'ed brook trout (which I enjoyed immensely) and this topic came to mind. When I cleaned this brookie lakeside, I marveled at the beautiful orange colored flesh and knew it would be a good eater. In my experience, I've never been disappointed with cutthroat trout and brown trout, as well. However, rainbows are a more diverse eating experience with ones from Lake Roosevelt being superb and ones from West Medical Lake being...Well "grassy" (to be kind). The early season rainbows from Sprague Lake can be good eating too (I smoke mine), but get that "grassy" taste by July. I clean all my trout lake or stream side; put them in a moist canvas creel for a walk to the truck where they go on ice for the trip home. I see too many fellow anglers letting their fish turn stiff and white on a stringer and placed in the car trunk in maybe a plastic bag for the homeward journey. These same folks tell me that they "don't like eating trout"...For some strange reason?

[cobrar543]

I have found the lake makes a big difference. Hatchery fish that were just released are out. but anything from good clear water that has lived in the lake taste great. Cutthroat from Cavanaugh for instant, small but delish! Rainbow from Erie? not so much. Mucky water and always warm.

[JoshH]

The lake does make a huge difference, plus the longer the fish has foraged on natural food, the better. Lakes that the fish are allowed to grow in and have healthy insect population, pretty quickly the meat colors up nice and the flavor the bigger fish have is fantastic. I fish Cranberry at Deception pass frequently, and those fish forage heavily on fresh water snails. Was out there Sunday and a few of the fish were chuck full of them. A few others had a combo of snail and insects. The fish there take a bit longer to color up, and they never quite get that nice deep red. The flavor to me is good on them, but it is different just based on the diet of snails. I will say that nothing beats a high lake brookie cooked over an open flame.

[sickbayer]

Rufus triploids are unbelievable in taste, then its cutts never ate a brown and not a lover of planters.

[cwbraue]

Bull Trout are good, but there's almost no place in Washington where it's legal to keep them anymore.

And yes brookies are good, but in my opinion you have to really know what you're doing to make trout enjoyable to eat.