First Rainbow

Caught my first ever rainbow today. Hopefully the next one is a little bigger but this one still counts right?

http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/w...2/SD533269.jpg

I was fishing a small park lake that the ODNR stocks with rainbows every spring but they aren't scheduled to stock this one until the 14th and its supposed to be with 10-13 inch fish so either they stocked some fry early or there is some natural reproduction going on in the lake. I'm not sure which one is the most likely since its a small lake in Columbus, Ohio so I wouldn't expect it to support a naturally reproducing trout population but I guess it is possible since it is spring fed.

ps. definitely time for a new camera, shutter is starting to stick and it doesn't focus well up close

awesome! never caught a small one like that up here in ohio rivers and been fishing all year round for 2 1/2 years. looks like a natural

Does look under the norm for an ODNR stocked fish? The par marks make me think it's a natural fish too but that's the first I've heard of one. Might be worth a call to the District Office to share with the staff fisheries biologist. Pretty cool regardless. Hope you get to catch some bigger one's soon!

I'll probably give them a call on Monday and see what they say about it. Should be pretty interesting either way.

Joe I don't know about there, but when I lived in WV, I asked the stockers about little small rainbows in the water, the guy told me sometimes when they stocked, not always, if they thought that maybe trout could survive year round that sometimes they would throw in fingerlings just to give it a shot, they said they had been surprised b-4 in waters so thats what they did, that was some years ago, so I don't know if they still do it, or even if it was the states idea or the individual hatchery guys that did it...

Oh and yeah, Congrats on the catch!!! Size or not, the first bow is cool...:)