Tag Archives: croatia fishing

Salmo trutta

Bozic _ Pastrva 11.5kg 023

(photo by Danijel Šnajdar)

On 26.12.2013. I saw brown trout 91 cm long and over 11 kilos (that´s 36 inches and more than 25 lb, my friends!) caught for restocking in Lokvarsko lake in Gorski Kotar, Croatia. December 26th is St. Stephens holiday in Croatia, so we conveniently named it Steffi. I saw big fish before, but none of them made me so intrigued like Steffi did. So, after this monster fish from Lokvarsko lake I made an effort and investigated Salmo Trutta family. Internet is deficient with informations and facts regarding brown trout that lives in lakes. Some informations are misguiding, brown trout is often confused with lake char and that´s why I wrote this text.

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Salmo trutta comes in 3 formes:

Salmo trutta m. fario

Salmo trutta m. lacustris

Salmo trutta m. trutta

Salmo trutta m. fario is common form of brown torut who lives in cold well oxygened streams and rivers in upper parts of Croatia. In good conditions it can reach 70-80 cm and 6-7 kilos. I was so fortunate I saw some old photos from river Una in Bosnia and Herzegovina with fishes over 1 meter long, weighting over 10 kilos. Of course fish that big are rare, those up to half a meter are much more common.

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Salmo trutta m. trutta is a sea trout. It is rare in Adriatic sea, i found an information that first is caught in 1879. near Split and after that it is rarely mentioned. In cold seas of north Europe is more common.it can reach up to 1,4 meter and weight up to 20 kilos. It lives ina sea, but it spawns in rivers and when it reaches 15-20 cm, it migrates to sea. Interesting fact is that not all fish migrate to sea, but only 75% of them. When it becomes ready for spawning, sea trout comes back to the river where she hatched. When in river, she loses silver pigment and becomes brown.

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Salmo trutta m. lacustris is a form of a brown trout that lives in lakes and because of it this text occurred. Lake form of a brown trout is a brown trout adapted to life in lake. Sounds stupid in english, I know. It differs from m. fario form morphologicly and it´s another phenotype. Lacustris form grows much larger than fario, for an example. Biggest recorded in Croatia was 25,5 kilos and 124 centimeters. Guess where? Well, in Lokvarsko lake, of course. It was caught in 1968., while lake was deflated due to repair of a dam.

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So, when we in Croatia talk about lake trout, we don´t talk about chars. Hell, no. We talk about big browns. We talk about Salmo trutta m. lacustris. It grows much faster than m. fario, and it can reach more than 25 kilos and more than 120 centimeters. It spends all it´s life in a lake and spawns in stream mouths, or stream itself. It´s silvery fish, who after some time spent in a lake loses red dots and only black ones stay. After some time more,dots turn to irregular freckles. Ferox trout is rather similar to croatian lake trout. Oldest one recorded was 23 years old. Fish caught in 1968. In Lokvarsko lake was around 16 years. Let me remind you, she weighted over 25 kilos. Those between 10 and 25 kilos was 60 or 70. Considering that, I have no reason to doubt that Lokvarsko lake has fish around, or over 30 kilos.
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Links:

http://www.npkrka.hr/buk/buk5/files/assets/seo/page14.html

http://www.lickosenjska.com/index.php/nacionalni-parkovi/plitvicka-jezera

http://www.ribe-hrvatske.com/index.php

http://www.balkan-trout.com/biblio.htm

http://www.wildtrout.org/content/about-trout

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_trout

http://hrcak.srce.hr/104837?lang=en

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/marine/marine-environment/species/fish/freshwater/ferox