ugly, ugly trout

Fished Castle Rock Creek tonight and caught 4 trout. One of them was 19 inches and the ugliest thing I have ever seen. It was almost grey in color with only 3 spots on each side. I assumed it was a brown I could be wrong, it was that bland. Can anyone tell me what could have caused such weird coloration, or if it could have been an aged rainbow? There was no other markings on it. Also managed to catch a brightly colored 19 inch rainbow on the stream too. Super Bow Spinners and Rebel Wee Crawfish were the lures of choice tonight.

Immature channel cats are grey w/ only a few black spots. Did that trout have whiskers???

Was the water dirty? I have been fishing as the water began to get dirty during a storm, and the browns went from brightly colored to tan/grey within 15 minutes. I assume this is some natural process that makes it harder for predators to see them in the dirty water.

Birdman,

Where is castle Rock creek? Sconny, Mn or Iowa? SOmetimes brude stock are prehistoric looking!
With beat up heads etc. There are different strains of Brown trout in our streams as well. SOme have more spots and
coloration than others. Iowa DNR has been know to really inundate it’s streams with brude fish, so that is why I asked which state
it is located in! HAve to be careful how I put things these days!!

I would have loved to seen that rainbow! Do you think it was native or natural? Or a stocker bow?

Thanks for the info!

Jim W

Jim, I fish in SW Wisconsin, I don’t know if the ugly fish was brood stock but I do know that the rainbow probaly was. All my years of trout fishing I have never seen a fish so devoid of markings. It’s possible that the fish came from a hatchery, if I had a trout that ugly in my hatchery I wouldn’t want him to pass on his genes to anybody else either. The section of Castle Rock I was fishing was catch and release only. As far as whiskers being on him I didn’t see any, but I wondered if his grandma might have been messing around with a dogfish. lol