True Westslope or Hybrid?

[MMAX]

I remember reading somewhere that the cutts in the Ram River system weren't true Westslopes, but Westslope/Yellowstone hybrids from the hatchery back in the 60s. Any truth to this?

[RedBeard]

I'm pretty sure this is correct. The last true strain cutty's are in a very small tributary to the old man system.

[northfork]

Every strain of westslope's here are "tainted", minus the system redbeard alluded to. This now, too late as always, has led the Species At Risk team to sound the alarm. This is, what I'm told, a large priority of the native trout recovery program.

 

The ram has both westslope and yellowstone strain cutts, neither pure. Have caught both and they are easily identifiable. Though not pure westslope, they are the stereotypical "cutty". Yellowstones almost look more like a pale/chrome brown trout with most all their spots on the back end.

[Sparkplug]

 

Do we not have any pure strains (of either species) in some of our lakes?  Thinking about Job for the WS's, maybe Rawson...and aren't there lakes in Banff that have Yellowstones in them (how "pure", I do not know...)

[monger]

Eggs are collected from Job to stock lots of mountain lakes like Rawson

[northfork]

2 hours ago, monger said:

Eggs are collected from Job to stock lots of mountain lakes like Rawson

Yup, and who knows how pure they are. If someone is real interested I'm sure you could grill one of the stocking biologists. I'm not sure where they got the original stock for Job, but I would bet that strain that's been there for how many decades is pretty intact.

[FraserN]

The Job lake cutthroat trout originally came from Marvel lake in Banff. Marvel lake cutthroats are 100% pure strain Westslope species. as are some in a few remote lakes somewhere in other parts of the park.