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I fished bear lake for the first time and caught a pretty nice rainbow and laker. Being the hook and cook angler that I am I cooked up the rainbow. It's flesh was super mushy and did not taste very good at all. I mostly fish the gorge so that is my basis for comparison. The fish always go straight into the cooler full of ice. Why would these fish taste so much different? My guess is food forage but I could be wrong. I will attach a rainbow fillet pic from the gorge and one from bear lake. The one from bear lake will have to be posted later though. I have ones from the trip yesterday though.
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It's a cutthroat.
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I guess it does look like a cutthroat. It's markings under the mouth were not visible. It had a clipped fin so it's legal but it did taste terrible.
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Interesting ... of all the fish I've caught in Bear Lake, I've never caught a rainbow. But I must admit, it don't look a lot like a cut either.
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Now that I'm not using my phone let me try to explain better. I wanted to compare the fish I am used to catching at the gorge with the fish that I caught at Bear Lake. The rainbows at the gorge have clipped fins indicating that they are planters. The first pic of the fish fillet is a planter rainbow from the gorge. I thought I took a pic of the cutt fillet but didn't so I attached one of just the fish. Its meat was quite white though. Not pink like the fish from the gorge.
All of the cutthroat I have caught have been very easy to identify and the marks under the throat are a dead giveaway, or so I thought. It looks like I will have to spend more time on the water to get better at species identification!!
More to the point; Why do fish from one body of water taste so much different from other bodies of water? Is it mostly forage like I am guessing or are there other factors?
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Cooler fish (pic ) are definitely a cutt and a laker. From catching /eating fish from a lot of western lakes/reservoirs and streams I've found that their diet and water temperature/time of year all have a part in how their flesh looks and tastes. Even in yellowstone park....yellowstone lake will produce orange/excellent tasting lakers. Lewis lake 10min away the lakers have white flesh and imo, do not taste very good. Hope this helps
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, are both the photos from the Gorge or is one from your BL cutthroat? Why did you think a rainbow had a clipped fin?