Kamloops Rainbow

[fishstalker]

I don't get on these boards often but did happen to read all this controversy on stocking kamloops in local waters. I worked for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and can give you some information about Gerard Rainbows ( Kamloops) in Flaming Gorge. We did a strain evaluation in the late 1980's to see which strain of rainbows would do best in Flaming Gorge. The strains evaluated were the Eagle Lake Rainbow, The McConaughy Rainbow and the Gerard or Kamloops Rainbow. These fish were all marked in the hatchery so we could identify the different strains during creel surveys. These particular strains were picked because they preyed heavily on available baitfish in their native range. They also frequented different parts of the reservoir in that some preferred shoreline areas and others preferred open water environments. The results of our evaluation was that the Kamloops rainbow returned better to the creel than the other strains evaluated. We also found no significant difference in the size of any of these strains of fish. We also determined that none of these fish were eating fish in large numbers as we had hoped. Their primary forage was plankton and crawfish. I personally never saw any large rainbows during many years of doing creel checks with largest being 8 pounds (1) and none of the others reached 5 pounds. I will repeat that the Kamloops did return best to the creel but after several years the brood stock from the federal government was no longer available.
I have since retired from the G&F but have heard that Utah has acquired a brood stock of Kamloops and have already or are in the near future going to commence stocking them in the Gorge again. Don't expect them to attain the size that they once did in the early years but they should provide an adequate fishery that exceeds what we have right now. I would certainly agree that the available forage and habitat are the most important factors in the potential for fish to grow to a large size.
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[bluefishon]

Thanks for your post, very interesting and informative information. It will be interesting to see how they do at the gorge, hopefully they will do well.
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