Common name:Rainbow trout
Family:Salmon
Species:Oncorhynchus mykiss
Description:The rainbow trout are steel-blue, glue-green, yellow=green to almost brown on the back with silvery sides and silver white below. They are 20 inches to 30 inches long. They usually weigh 2 to 8 pounds, but some weigh as much as 16 to 40 pounds. The rainbow trout are very fast swimmers. They lay thousands of eggs. The lake trout lives at least 20 years. The rainbow trout has a red line on both sides with black spots. This makes them different from all the other trout.
Habitat:These beautiful rainbow trout can be caught very easily in the Great Lakes, because they seldom swim any deeper than 3-5 feet along the lakes’ shores where they can be found easily.
Range/migration:Rainbow trout migrate into the ocean before they return to where they were hatched.
Food:The rainbow trout eats insects, small fish, shrimp, and larva. It swims fast, jumps high and uses its teeth to get its food. They stop eating in the autumn season and start again in spring around March.
Reproduction:The female trout returns to where it was hatched and makes a nest in shallow, graveled water for its eggs.
Enemies:The eels, common rat, otters, minks, larger trout that eat the fry, humans who catch them to eat, and not enough oxygen are the rainbow trout’s enemies.
More information: Fishes, Herbert Zim, PhD, and Hurst H. Shoemaker, PhD.,1956
*http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/greatlakesfish/rainbowtrout1.html1