Trout: The Types of Trout and How to Tell Them Apart

Rainbow trout painted by Duane Raver: olive back, a pink band along the silver side, small black spots across the body, dorsal fin and tail — Illustration: Duane Raver, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)

Anglers chase about a dozen fish called trout, and the spots sort them at a glance: dark spots on a light body is a true trout, light spots on a dark body is a char. Two of the most famous, the brook trout and the lake trout, are chars. The rest are the Pacific trout (rainbow, steelhead, cutthroat, golden, Apache, Gila) and the brown trout from Europe. Rainbow and cutthroat spawn in spring, brown, brook and lake trout in fall, and rainbows and browns start to stress in water of about 68 °F (20 °C).

A rainbow trout is closer kin to a Chinook salmon than to a brook trout. The “trout” everyone learns first is two different branches of the salmon family.

Start here

Trout fishing: the season, the water and the tackle, for stocked and wild fish.
Rainbow trout: the most stocked trout on the continent and the one most anglers catch first.
Brown trout: the European import of 1883 that grows biggest in American rivers.
Brook trout: the native char of the East, and why its spots are pale.
Trout water temperature: the 68 °F line and what to do when a river reaches it.

Which trout is it?

Spots are the first sort. After that, one mark per fish does the work.

Fish	Group	The mark that settles it	Native to
Rainbow trout	Trout	Pink band down the side, black spots over the whole tail	Pacific slope, Alaska to Mexico
Steelhead	Trout	A rainbow back from the sea: chrome, larger, band faint	Same species as the rainbow
Cutthroat trout	Trout	Red-orange slash under each side of the lower jaw	Western North America
Brown trout	Trout	Black and red spots with pale halos, tail nearly unspotted	Europe; stocked from 1883
Golden trout	Trout	Golden sides, red band, about ten parr marks kept for life	Kern Plateau, California
Apache trout	Trout	Yellow-gold, even dark spots, Arizona’s state fish	White Mountains, Arizona
Gila trout	Trout	Gold sides shading to copper, fine spots on the back	Gila drainage, NM and AZ
Brook trout	Char	Wormlike pale marks on the back, red spots in blue halos, white-edged lower fins	Eastern North America
Lake trout	Char	Deeply forked tail, pale spots on gray-green, no red	Canada, Great Lakes, Northeast
Tiger trout	Hybrid	Marbled all over, no spots at all	Hatchery: brown × brook
Splake	Hybrid	Brook trout colors on a lake trout shape, slight fork	Hatchery: lake × brook

Two name traps catch almost everyone. The golden trout of California is a wild native. The bright yellow “palomino” or golden rainbow in stocked water is a color strain, bred in a West Virginia hatchery in the 1950s. And the “speckled trout” of the Gulf Coast is a seatrout, a saltwater drum, not a trout.

How warm is too warm?

Wild trout feed best in water of about 50–65 °F (10–18 °C). Stress starts around 68 °F (20 °C) for rainbows, 70 °F (21 °C) for browns, and a few degrees lower for brook trout. Keep Fish Wet’s review of the release studies puts the safe line for catch and release lower still, at 61 °F (16 °C). When you do release one, how to hold a trout makes sure it swims away.

Lake trout go deep in summer to stay near 50 °F, below 50 ft and some past 200 ft. Browns tolerate the warmest water of the three stream trout, which is part of why they took over rivers that brook trout lost. A stream thermometer is the most useful piece of trout tackle, and the water temperature chart gives the numbers species by species.

When does each trout spawn?

The seasons follow one split. Rainbow and cutthroat trout spawn in late winter and spring, rainbows starting as the water climbs into the upper 40s °F. Brown, brook and lake trout spawn in fall. Browns spawn from October to December at about 42–48 °F, and brook trout in September to November. Lake trout spawn in October and November on rubble shoals in the lake itself, not in streams.

Each species is shallow, aggressive and easiest to find in the weeks around its spawn, and easiest to harm then too. Wading through gravel beds crushes eggs, so step around the clean, fanned patches in a riffle.

Stocked or wild?

Most trout that anglers catch were raised in a hatchery. Pennsylvania’s 2026 program alone put about 3.2 million adult trout into 684 streams and 130 lakes. Three quarters of them were rainbows, at an average of 11 in and 0.58 lb. Stocked trout grew up on pellets, which is why they take dough baits and bright spinners in the first weeks after a truck visit. Wild trout, born in the stream, are warier and far more selective about what drifts past them. The trout bait, trout lures and trout flies pages cover what to tie on for each.

How big do they get?

Among the five trout most anglers chase, the IGFA all-tackle records run from a 14 lb 8 oz brook trout to a 72 lb lake trout. The rainbow is 48 lb from Lake Diefenbaker, Saskatchewan, in 2009, a sterile fish from an escaped net pen. The brown is 44 lb 5 oz from New Zealand’s Ohau Canal in 2020. The lake trout is 72 lb from Great Bear Lake in 1995, the cutthroat 41 lb from Pyramid Lake, Nevada, in 1925. The brook trout’s 14 lb 8 oz from Ontario’s Nipigon River in 1915 is the oldest of them all.

For the light setups trout ask for, the line and hooks hubs cover the tackle.

All articles

Brook Trout: The Char That Marks America's Coldest Water
The brook trout is a char, not a trout: how to tell it apart, where it still lives, why it lost 28% of its range, and the 1915 record.
Brown Trout: Identification, History, Habits and Records
Brown trout from the agency data: how to tell one from a rainbow or brook, the 1883 import, night feeding, the fall spawn and the 44 lb record.
How to Hold a Trout Without Hurting It: Grip, Photo, Release
How to hold a trout so it swims off healthy: the belly cradle and tail grip, no lipping, the 10-second photo, and what the release studies found.
Rainbow Trout: Identification, Range, Spawning and Record
Rainbow trout from the agency data: how to tell one from a steelhead, cutthroat or brown, the temperatures that matter, spawning, and the 48 lb record.
Splake: The Brook Trout and Lake Trout Hybrid
Splake are a hatchery cross of lake trout and brook trout. How to tell them apart, whether they can reproduce, the 20 lb record and how to catch them.
Steelhead Trout: The Rainbow That Goes to Sea
Steelhead trout are rainbows that run to sea or a Great Lake and come back to spawn, often more than once. Runs, the ESA listings, Great Lakes fish, records.