Trout Fishing Tips

Splake trout are produced when a female Lake trout mate with a male Brook trout. These hybrid trout are mostly man-made and were originally developed to enhance trout fishing opportunities in Canada.

Like most hybrid trout, splake trout tend to grow faster and survive longer. Splake feed heavily on crustaceans and insects during early life, and other fish later in life. Because these trout tend to school, if you find one, you're likely to find others.

Since splake trout are a hybrid between brook and lake trout, they tend to have characteristics of both species. Their tails are slightly forked (but not as much as lake trout), and their spots tend to be whitish or slightly pinkish.

Unlike many hybrids, splake trout are able to reproduce and while they prefer the gravel beds usually used by brook trout for lake spawning, in the absence of these it will use the boulder shoals favored by lake trout.

Splake are usually mature in their third year of life and their spawning period falls closer to that of the brook trout in late October or early November.

In addition to Canada and the Great Lakes, you'll also find splake trout in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the largest splake trout, currently on record weighs 20 pounds 11 ounces (9.38 kg) . It was caught in Georgian Bay Ontario Canada in 1987 by Paul Thompson.

Labels: Hybrid Trout, splake, splake trout

Most people are familiar with Rainbow, Brown and Brook trout. You may even have heard of Steelhead, Golden, and Lake trout. But have you ever heard of Splake or Brake trout?

These are hybrid trout. When more than one species of trout exists in the same body of water, they sometimes interbreed. The offspring are hybrids.

Some common hybrid trout include:

1. Brownbow - which is cross between a male Brown trout and and female Rainbow trout


2. Splake - which is cross between a male Speckled (Brook) trout and a female Lake trout


3. Brookinaw - which is cross between a female Brook trout and a male Lake trout (Lake trout are also called Mackinaw trout)


4. Brake- which is cross between a female Brown trout and a male Lake trout


5. Tiger - which is cross between a Brown and Brook trout

Many of these hybrids are produced in fish hatcheries. Splake trout, for example, have only been successfully produced in hatcheries. They've been around since the 1870's.

Splake trout are primarily stocked in Canada and northern U.S. states. These trout are very similar in appearance to Brook trout. The primary difference is that the tail in Splake trout is more forked than in Brook trout.

Brake trout have been produced in Utah hatcheries since 1993. But due to difficulties in the program and low success rates this hybrid program was terminated.

Brownbow trout are also very prevalent in Utah. It's been rumored that these trout may be blind due to cataracts on their eyes.

While it does happen, hybridization is not always a good thing. You can read more about this in my next post.

Labels: brake trout, brookinaw, brownbow, Hybrid Trout, splake, Tiger Trout