The Rainbow Trout–An Athlete
Rainbow Trout
The sparkler of clear clean fast moving water. His flash is equal to the speed of the well oxygenated water that he calls home.
Just as his name sake, the sky bow of promise, only appears in earnest as the rays of the sun part the spectrum, so his bright armor shows in all its silver and color when the sun captures his fleeting form and freezes his beauty. Such beauty that the mind’s eye finds easy to recall again and again.
He is relatively young as are the geologic epics that found and formed him. Only a mighty athlete could emerge from those cataclysms and glaciers that challenged him. The Rainbow Trout reflects the speed and energy of those events; at the same time both beautiful and perilous.
He has a metabolism that demands to be fed. He is a voracious eater and given a good river restaurant, he can grow more quickly than his cousins and will travel fast and far in search of what he needs. The Rainbow Trout is playful and feisty and shows it with his acrobatics when an angler angles him or when seen taking a natural at speed. He revels in his athleticism and swims for the sheer joy of it and can often be found playing in fast water when he is bored of a pool or a flaccid run.
The Rainbow does not like to be taken where he doesn’t want to go and will almost always surface when hooked. He does this in order to size up his combatant with the eye of one used to getting his way and then fights to show it. Even in the end, not giving up easily, he aims to leap to freedom from any grasp.
The intrepid one will run to sea, if given the chance, in search of additional challenges and better dining and when finished will make the journey back to his home waters again–‘steeled’ by his journey and all the stronger for spawning. It is then he is called ‘Steelhead‘ and that moniker honors his mettle. Oncorhyncus mykiss is the endurance athlete of trout raised in one of the earth’s greatest playgrounds. The coastal rivers and mountains from Alaska to Mexico. He personifies adventure and promise and when you meet him in his own playground, you will discover why.
Of Upland Birds, Setters and Trout 