Branhap’s report on his Wind River trip made me wonder. He says he ate some brookies and a rainbow and the rainbow tasted a lot better. It’s been so long since I kept a fish I can’t remember, but am in brookie country so thought I might keep a couple. But do rainbow taste better? The smaller the better? Recipes for the grill?
As a fanatic fish eater I would have to say that the answer is in the taste buds of the eater coupled with where the fish lived and how the angler handled the fish. My taste buds tell me that a fish with pink or reddish meat usually has a better flavor than a white meated fish provided it has not developed a mossy taste. Most brookies have colored meat while rainblows in a stream usually are white meated. Red meated rainbows are great tasting.
Best thing you can do is a teste test. I usually roll trout in seasoned (salt & pepper) flour and fry. Panfish I usually fillet and fry in Panko crumbs.
Tim
For fresh water fish these get my vote:
For a quick on the stream snack Trader Joes canned trout , I always keep a couple cans in my vest
with some snack crackers… Yum…
simply delightful…
But my all time favorite:
Brook trout fresh cooked in bacon grease side of potatoes and a couple eggs , coffee
preferable made and served right next to the stream.
1 Yellow Perch
2 Walleye
3 blue gill
4 everything else
fresher the better
- Crappie fileted, rolled in corn meal and fried in peanut oil.
- Mississippi farm raised catfish prepared as above
Everything else depend upon how it is prepared.
Growing up I was fed more fresh salmon than any one person should ever have to eat in a lifetime. I once loved the stuff, now I’d sooner eat the Gorton’s fishermen’s boots. Kind of feel the same way about all salmonoids these days.
For me, I prefer white fleshed creatures from the brine, like flatfishes ( sole & halibut ), pacific rockfish, Striped Bass, etc. Truthfully, I’d rather eat beer battered fish & chips featuring Pollock or Whiting fillets, rather than any wild or planted trout.
If as Charlton Heston said “Soylent Green is people”, then Soylent Yellow has got to be Arrowtooth Flounder. Run a search on that fish sometime…Don’t say you weren’t warned. 
Of trout, my favorite was always brookies, but we don’t get brookies here in NZ. Ok, I admit they are around, they are just very rare and I’ve never met anyone who has caught one. Anyway, the rainbows and browns here are both very good. They feed on a lot of crayfish, so they tend to develope a good pink flesh. As I understand it, the “muddy” flavour that trout can sometimes have is due to a protein in their system, it’s not actually “mud” but it may be diet related so sometimes fish from a particular area will tend to taste “muddy”. If you keep some fish, and if you have the time, make a brine solution and put your cleaned trout in that, soak them overnight in the fridge in it, and this will remove any “muddy” flavour. The next morning pan fry them in butter or baccon greese, skin on, and they will be sweet and tasty!
- Jeff
Orange Ruffy. Don’t catch them, but my favorite to eat.
I’ve eaten brook and rainbow trout( to include steelhead) but never had both on the menu at once so I can not say one way or the other! Never ate a brown trout! I do enjoy both, so its a moot point for me. I’ve had crappie, walleye, and perch at fish frys that were out-of-this-world! Grilled salmon is to-die-for! I tend to like the fish that is on the plate in front of me! LOL! Bone petite!
Best regards, Fishhead soup Dave…not!
As far as trout go, I’ve eaten plenty o f them all. My favorite trout to eat is hands down Sea-run cutthroat fillet, pan fried in olive oil and seasoned with original Mrs. Dash. Of all of them, I rate the rainbow last in the landlocked variety…they are less firm in my opinion. Brook trout are excellent…panfried whole…salt and pepper only. 
In my case the rainbow fillet was just a bit milder than the brookie fillets. I’ve never had brown trout. I have had cutt-bow before and I don’t remember it tasting that different from a brookie either. All the fish were harvested from the same lake.
Paul
I guess I’d have to vote for Brookies out of the trout. Any of the pink fleshed little devils, filleted out, rubbed with coarse salt and brown sugar and cooked over some low coals are a little bite of heaven! If you’re fortunate enough to have left-overs, they aren’t bad cold, either!
What he said! Small pike are good, too.
Halibut…
Second the vote for halibut. That one is a no-brainer.
I’ll add my name to the “halibut” parade . I generally do not even eat fish, much less the Salmanoid species, but halibut “tastes like chicken” :). If you’re ever in Gig Harbor WA, DO stop at the Tides Restaurant for their “Halibut Fish Fry”. That’s where I discovered my fave.
Mark
Of the salt water fish, hmmm, hard to say, but I’m partial to lobster (if we’re counting sea bugs). Atlantic cod is really good too, but we’ve caught near all of them. Haddock is tasty, and so is halibut. Hmmmm, tuna steaks are really yummy, and … you know … I think I just like fish!
- Jeff
P.S. Oh yah, snapper, travelli, John Dory, kahawai, yellow tail mackeral, and blue cod are all New Zealand area sea fish that I really like. The flounder is good here too. Hmmmm, did I say I like fish? …
Here in Maine, pink means native trout, and white meat are stocked put and take fish. I have eaten brookies, browns, rainbows, salmon (land locked), and togue.
As mentioned earlier, it is according to individual tastes, where the fish came from, and what time of year (water temp).
My all time favorite is brookies. But I got a fishing buddy that will fight you for a brown. There is a lake close by that the rainbows and salmon are ridiculously delicous. And then another lake within five miles of that lake, that I won’t ever eat a fish caught there.
Your mileage may vary
The worst fish I’ve ever had was terrific.
Sockeye Salmon (AKA Kokanee when land locked) and Walleye are my two favorite. I tried Swordfish one time when I was in Miami on business. I won’t ever waste my money on that again. It was like eating fat. I’ve never tasted Dorado-MaHi MaHi-Dolphin before but I sure would like to. Grilled fresh Tuna was pretty good too.