Native species of fish in Washington..

[littleriver]

I seem to recall excerpts from the recorded events of the lewis and clark expedition proclaiming their amazement at a wonderful fish that was colored like a "rainbow". In fact, I think it was from this excerpt that the fish ultimately got it's name.

If my recollections are true then "who planted the darned things???".... hopefully not some illegal immigrant from Russia or some place like that.

[cavdad45]

Good catch, LR! I thought they were native or atleast several generations as landlocked steelhead that became rainbows. I don't know, just guessing.

[littleriver]

and now I'm remembering a couple of other things from the L&C trip.


As I recall the scientific name for rainbow trout is "salmo gardineri" or something like that.


and I think one of our other treasured trout has a name "salmo Clarki" or something close.

if there are any fishologists around they may be able to correct any errors and I may be wrong cuz I'm going way, way back in the memory files. These are recollections from my days as a high schooler when I was one of those wierd guys who would read books on fishing in favor of chasing women. Made up for lost time, with the women that is, in college but the interest in fishing returned after I became a married man.

now, as I recall, the "salmo clarki" applies to cutthroat but I'm really sure the gairdineri is rainbow.

I believe that both were named by the L&C crew. That expedition was composed of numerous experts on flora and fauna and one of their missions was to bring back drawings and descriptions of new plants and species. There were many individuals involved in that trip who did nothing but draw pictures of new plants and ponder names and descriptions of new species that had never been seen east of the Mississippi. When the participants returned most spent a great deal of time thereafter recording and documenting all the new species they had identified. Part of this process was to name them and I'm pretty sure that this was when the Rainbow Trout (salmo gairdinari) and cutthroat trout (salmo clarki) became known and named species.

Now, it may very well have been that there were no rainbow trout in Washington. L&C traveled in Oregon and Idaho, and montana and they may have encountered the species in some state other than ours. But I am really sure that it was L&C that first identified and named these species.


I'm also recalling the reading of some historical information about the okanogan. How the first settlers were excited by how easy it was to catch the resident trout in the lakes. These trout were mostly rainbows as I recall but they might also have been cutts and "catch and release" was not the order of the day. All fish were retained and either eaten fresh or preserved with salt for future consumption.

[JT26]

ive already found out that perch are not native, but are they actually warm water fish? I know they live in Lake Michigan, and isnt that lake cold, or does that part of the US have a western wa. like climate.